Hows everyone doing? Hard Times USA hows the Pickup bizz?

[pupoholic]

Hey Guys
you guys alright? I hope you all are..
seems things are changing fast and belts are tightening -

[Possum]

...

I really haven't seen a change in my business yet, but I do low volume anyway since I'm not super well known. My wife's business is real estate related that she's had a slowdown because the banks are sitting on their money and don't want to lend it to anyone.

I suggest everyone VOTE damnit....vote for the guy who stayed cool at the start of the ecnomic meltdown and consulted with with experts, rather than charging to Washington and "suspending his campaign" (he never did), and making a nuisance of himself. I'll give you a hint, its NOT the guy that VP Cheney endorsed as one of his own yesterday.....

[SkinnyWire]

I really haven't seen a change in my business yet, but I do low volume anyway since I'm not super well known. My wife's business is real estate related that she's had a slowdown because the banks are sitting on their money and don't want to lend it to anyone.

I suggest everyone VOTE damnit....vote for the guy who stayed cool at the start of the ecnomic meltdown and consulted with with experts, rather than charging to Washington and "suspending his campaign" (he never did), and making a nuisance of himself. I'll give you a hint, its NOT the guy that VP Cheney endorsed as one of his own yesterday.....

The guy he consulted, James A. Johnson, has been a Washington insider since Carter and a former chief exec with Fannie Mae ... hence, he was part and parcel to the problem and highly questionable as someone to turn to for "advice". That you are willing to cast those FACTS aside, is very disturbing indeed. Barney Frank and the rest of is ass romping friends know this, and were key in prohibiting conservatives from reigning in the asinine sub-prime lending practices of Obamas "friends" at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ... the handing out of loans to people with little to no ability to repay them. Again, that you are either so uninformed or willing to overlook this is more than disturbing.

If you're going to vote, better to use your brain than the SF Chronicle's advice. If you can't do that, please ... PLEASE ... don't do your part to hasten our advance into socialism by voting for that jackass and his plagiarist buddy.

[David Schwab]

Socialism? The only socialism that might be going on is socialized medicine, which is a damn good thing! We do like our socialized public schools and postal service, right?

Obama is not a socialist. Mister Potato head talks about redistribution of wealth, because he owns like 12 homes. So Obama's tax reforms will hurt rich people like him. As far as Biden, he's a professor. He knows his constitution.

[belwar]

don't do your part to hasten our advance into socialism by voting for that jackass and his plagiarist buddy.

The great thing about democracy is that you can choose tenets from other political systems and incorporate them into your own. You can choose what serves your people best, and continue to have a healthy democratic system. As Americans we dont seem to take issue with socialized Education, Retirement, banking, insurance, etc.

The whole "america will become socialist if we elect a democrat" is garbage. The framers of the constitution are rolling in their graves right now.

America is great because it takes the best of every system. Yes that may mean taking some socialist elements. It does however also mean that we can and will take some of the best Conservative principles!

[EtLa]

Sarah Palin pranked by les Justiciers Masqués in Montreal

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=ADKXGWaTmTw

[Sir Cuitous]

belwar - not to be contrary here, but what are "the best conservative principles"? I'm just asking.

Is socialism bad? This reminds me of how the word "liberal" is used with a negative conotation. There are 11 countries with a better standard of living than the US - all of them with far more socialist governments than ours. The only reason we are ranked 12 is because of our high GDP. Otherwise, our poor healthcare, education and crime statistics would likely drop us down 12 ranks or more. Maybe we could use a little more socialism.

[David King]

Socialism must be bad because it interferes with social darwinism that we all love so much. Come to think of it this site is worse than socialism, think of all the valuable commodity some of you keep giving away here for free. That interferes with capitalism so I say you guys are a bunch of stinkin communists, definitely un-American.
What's so thoughtless about the uber-cons views of socialized medicine is that they are going to pay for it anyway regardless. Every uninsured person that shows up at the emergency room costs you double skinny wire.

Being a pragmatist isn't un-American. You can pay something reasonable up front or pay double down the road and then be a jerk about it too. That's the Republican way. I just heard a Republican claim he thought health insurance was socialized medicine because others have to pay for the person who gets sick. That's why he didn't have any insurance. Well he got sick and was going to declare bankruptcy so that the rest of us could pay for him. That's where his high moral ideas are getting him and us.

Reagan and W both doubled the national debt, Republicans are perfectly happy letting their grandchildren pay for their excesses, all they can say or understand is "drill baby drill"?

The silly thing about these discussions is that we probably all would agree 99% of the time -it's just that half the country gets it's "facts" from Rush Limbaugh and Fox news while the rest of us listen exclusively to NPR and read the Economist (which just endorsed Obama).

[David King]

Oh the question was about the economy. I've never been busier, I haven't sold a bass in over a year but I've doubled my income by accessorizing people's guitars with silly wood knobs, tuning keys and pickup covers. If they can't afford the bass they want they can add some cheap bling to the guitar they already own.
I love downturns when the heavy industry starts selling off really good equipment for a 100th of it's original cost, now that's trickle-down.

[Sweetfinger]

Its TOUGH here. All the cushion, income-wise, (and there wasn't much to start with) left in June, like someone flicked a switch. Sept. and October have been even worse, I've tightened the belt pretty dang tight and still didn't break even. Things are about the same for the other MI stores that I chat with.

The thing that worries me is that our industry is always doing "crappy" and owners bitch to each other about how crappy things are, but LATELY, in the last month, my customers have been sharing THEIR stories with me. A Mechanic who extended his hours just for that chance at snagging a customer, and a job placement guy who said he's seeing MEDICAL field workers out looking. THAT'S scary.

Folks should take Ronald Reagan's advice and ask yourself, "Am I better off now than I was four years ago?" If the answer is "yes", you are probably an oil company executive.

[hasserl]

Socialism? The only socialism that might be going on is socialized medicine, which is a damn good thing! We do like our socialized public schools and postal service, right?

NO!! We don't. Education is this country has failed and contimually get's worse. The Postal system sucks. It'd be difficult to pick two worse examples of "good" socialism.

Obama is not a socialist. Mister Potato head talks about redistribution of wealth, because he owns like 12 homes. So Obama's tax reforms will hurt rich people like him. As far as Biden, he's a professor. He knows his constitution.

Get a clue, hurting rich people hurts everyone. I've never met a poor person that created jobs. Mr. Potato head? What's up with that? I thought liberals were supposed to be kind and considerate and that conservatives were mean spirited. You provide proof that that assumption is horse shit. Liberals are the most mean spirited and hateful people on the face of the earth. Thank you for showing it.

As far as Biden being a professor, so what? Does he know his constitution? Than he knows how to subvert it.

The great thing about democracy is that you can choose tenets from other political systems and incorporate them into your own. You can choose what serves your people best, and continue to have a healthy democratic system. As Americans we dont seem to take issue with socialized Education, Retirement, banking, insurance, etc.

Again, we DO have issues with those things. Public education is a failure, we have some of the most poorly educated students in the world. The farther we get from local control and financing of education the worse it gets. The more unionized the teachers get the worse education gets. Public retirement? You mean Social Security? That trust fund that has sucked so much of my income my entire working life but will be broke an gone before I ever reach retirement age? Yeah, great example of socialism there buddy. Socialist banking, you mean like the government just spending almost a trillion dollars of public money on bad dept and a failing industry? Another great example. Thank you very much.

The whole "america will become socialist if we elect a democrat" is garbage. The framers of the constitution are rolling in their graves right now.

America is great because it takes the best of every system. Yes that may mean taking some socialist elements. It does however also mean that we can and will take some of the best Conservative principles!

There's no garbage in fearing a move towards socialism. The leaders of both houses of Congress are extreme leftist liberals. Electing a socialist like Obama who will rubber stamp anything they push thru is crazy. If you don't think the country will move more towards socialism than it is right now I say your about as wrong as you can be. There will be no limits to the tax, spend and legislate they will be able to do, and in their dream there is nothing they'd like better to do.

America is great not because it takes from other systems. It's great because of the design that was set forth by the founding fathers; because of their wisdom, and because of its conservatism. As it moves to the left it's greatness diminishes. Those that support leftist ideologies and ideologues hasten it's descent.

[David King]

Sometimes my dear fellow citizens on the right can sound a little acerbic and bitter.
Pray tell hasserl, what are you so bitter about, there must be a story in there.

Trust me when I say nobody likes taxes. It's just that Republicans tend to favor spending my tax money on aggrandizing a massive military which they then insist on using for dubious purposes. How about that Missile defense system in Alaska waiting to end off an attack? Do you actually think for a second that it's going to work now that we've all spent the billions for it? How is it supposed to stop the disgruntled human from packing a suitcase with nuclear waste and plastic explosives and dropping it off in a parking garage near you?
How do you feel about the 650,000 Iraqi civilians who've met a violent and premature demise so that we can all feel so much safer here. Did it ever occur to Republicans that there are 1.2 billion muslims in the world, that we might just be outnumbered and that we don't actually have the resource base to just kill them all? We've done a really good job pissing on them the lst 6 years. That's just brilliant! Well you'd better go sign your kids up for another 4 wars buddy.

[tubeswell]

this site is worse than socialism, think of all the valuable commodity some of you keep giving away here for free. That interferes with capitalism so I say you guys are a bunch of stinkin communists, definitely un-American.

Amen

On the other hand, giving away ideas and advice on this site for free is symptomatic of capitalism at work, because it forces everyone to stop holding on to yesterdays ideas and innervate newer ways of makin' money. Stagnation and holding on to old ideas is the antithesis of capitalism. Forums like this are the heartland of capitalist innervation. The 'net is helping to shape the future. In fact, along with just about every significant new technology for the last 400 years, the 'net is the latest in a long line of prodigal sons of capitalism, and we do capitalism justice by indulging in the good things that it offers with all our hearts and minds.

So may be everyone should just box on, keep trading ideas freely on the 'net, and stop worrying about the future of capitalism, whatever that is...

[DrStrangelove]

Word

This thread veers close to acrimonious debate.

I don't usually care about off-topic threads but
I strongly urge that you delay politically-themed disputes
until November 5, 2008.

Until then, please discuss less inflammatory issues such as
firearm ownership, partial-birth abortion, and penis length.

For the record:
I am in favor of all three when manifested under the proper constraints.

Immoderately,
-drh

[SkinnyWire]

Socialized medicine a good thing? Holy friggin' cow. How misguided you are. If you all like socialism so much, you really should consider moving to Canada or some such place to have a real taste of it.

Oh by the way, the economy was doing pretty good before Pelosi and crew took over a couple of years ago. Not only have they accomplished nothing positive, they helped us into this mess ... a mess started under Clinton and fostered by liberals.

Hey, if you're in a hurry to hand your money ... and freedom ... over to a bunch of elitist ass bags that don't give a S*&T about you or this country, you have at it. Make your "statement" at the polls. You deserve everything thing you get from it as well. You deserve the additional taxes on everything, including your pickup businesses. You deserve to have your children's futures turned to hopeless crap in your haste to turn over freedom for "socialized medicine" and every other social program under the sun.

First thing you'll lose are the tax breaks implemented about 10 years ago. Oh my, but I don't make more than $250,000 a year so I'm not affected. Ahhhhhhhh ... no. That's just the beginning too. Under Oshamas stated plan to "redistribute the wealth" in this country ... like Roosevelt before him ... your money isn't your money at all. It belongs to the "less fortunate" the "underprivileged", illegal aliens, homos, etc., etc, - you know - the "collective". Everyone is owed your money!!!!! Pay them now!!!!! WTF! Why wait for an election? Forrest Gump had it figure right. Stupid is as stupid does. Make it so on Tuesday.