When will the "buying season" start next year?

While celebrating thanksgiving with friends and neighbors - we laughed at the ads which had arrived that morning in and with our local newspaper. Many stores were opening at 4 AM on Friday and a few at midnight. None of us could think of a single item we needed enough to go out and stand in a line to get into a store in the middle of the night!

The evening news started with footage of people camping in tents to be first in line. I figured if that was the most important local news of the day - I'd rather not watch - and so I turned off the TV.

With the greedy corporate money grabbers after everyone, I wonder how far back the buying season will go? We already have the "holiday" paraphernalia out in late August but I fear the corporate buy-buy-buy season will also get re-set to pre-Labor Day - or earlier. Why not? This year some buyers were cautious as the price of gas and home heating went high and so spent less money after Thanksgiving - which itself cost more this year. So if the pre-xmas sales start while it's still warm out and before we have to pay to heat our homes - maybe we'll spend our way into bankruptcy months earlier.

And those who get on the stupidity train of the "war on xmas" can spend more months arguing that point! Ah - life in the USA! And all during this many "pine" nostalgically for the good old days - yet forget that in those good old days - people actually spend time with family and friends - not in tents on lines waiting for stores to open!

Happy Thanksgiving

In spite of the mess that mad king george has made of our country - we still have a lot to be thankful for....

I am thankful for my son, my blog readers, my friends and neighbors and my pets. [And the gorgeous day we are having for a late November in the pacific northwest.....]

Another whoda thunk it

Two pre-Thanksgiving news clips:

Dark moods?

Americans enter the holiday season in a dark mood, with economic worries, security fears and a lack of confidence in government fueling growing pessimism, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

The Reuters/Zogby Index, which measures the mood of the country, fell for the third consecutive month, dropping from 96 in October to 94.9 on new growth in the number of Americans dissatisfied with the economy and pessimistic about the future.

Think maybe it has to do with this news clip?

The plunge [stock market] came as investors remain frightened and uncertain about a credit crisis that does not show any signs of easing. Freddie Mac, considered a backstop for the mortgage industry, said yesterday that it lost $2 billion last quarter because of increased foreclosures tied to subprime mortgage defaults. Oil prices flirted with the symbolic $100-a-barrel level in overnight trading. Markets in Asia and Europe dropped sharply as investors questioned whether the United States economy will slow more than expected.

Gee if Rummy were still around - we'd have one of his who could have guessed stupidities.

Instead we have only my sarcastic "whoda thunk it"

Another one admits to lying

Why is it that persons leaving the employ of this administration can only tell the truth AFTER they leave?

I do wish we had some new rules about lying to the public when you are being paid by that very same public!

Who is today's "truth" teller? Why it's pretty boy McClellan:

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Fuller article here: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com

More bad news about foreclosures

CNN news had an article today about an area of Cleveland where the number of empty houses due to foreclosures are being looted for the siding, plumbing and anything that can be sold quickly.

Full CNN Cleveland article: http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/16/real_estate/suprime_and_crime/index.htm?postversion=2007111908

And just so you know - this is happening all over the country - even in wealthier enclaves like Northern Virgina. All thanks to mr 24% and the go-along-to-get-along Congress... The empty houses can be used by criminals or for dumping garbage, thus making the neighborhoods less appealing and of course then values go down and nothing sells - making it harder for the remaining homeowners to leave as they can not sell and making it very unpleasant for them to stay.

So the subprime mortgage mess is affecting many communities - and reading the market news - it's causing problems in financial markets as the banks are reeling from the bad loans....

Gee - whoda thought voting for mr 24% would have had this effect? [she says sarcastically]