February 11, 2008

How many people do you know like this? "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs"

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

every filipino in california

Anonymous said...

Americas latest mindless cliche: "Sanity is for the weak!"

No wonder BombIran McInsane is winning the '08 Election.

Frank R said...

At least he's not claiming to be a billionaire like every debt-ridden tool in Scottsdale.

Anonymous said...

All I can say is this.....

My wife used to chide me for staying up late at night reading "the housing blogs" with HP being the fav.

Earlier today, we were chilling at the pool outside our apartment. Ya know, the one that costs us 5% of our monthly gross. Anyhow, she was on the phone with a friend from Phoenix we hadn't talked to much except briefly in years. Somewhere along the way she got married and all I heard about when my wife went to visit a few years ago is how big the house they live in in Phoenix is, blah, blah, blah.

This afternoon, my wife whispered to me low enough and in a very sad voice "She's married to a Realtor (TM)"!! Turns out they were living the high life when the market was booming. Now he hasn't made a dime in 4 months and she's pregnant and they have no savings and are very nervous.

Nice when you tell your wife to chill, save and pay attention to the fundamentals and it finally comes true.

Bill

Anonymous said...

Actually I personally don't know anyone like this. My friends are a lot like me. High income, low spending. Making fun of tools like this is kind of our hobby.

I think I did meet one of these morons last week though. I started a new contract working at your typical suburban office park. I had to get a security badge and on the badge form I had to list my cars and give the tag number in order to get a parking spot assigned. Well my 2 cars are a 1991 and a 1993. I am with the security guy who's typing all my info in, when he sees my cars and says something like, wow I thought they paid you guys more than that, alluding of course to the fact that I must be making $8 an hour if I can only afford the cars I drive.

I smiled and said yeah guess I need a raise. Couple of days later I see this same guy in the parking lot getting into a new Infiniti Q56, the monster SUV that costs $50K.

I don't know what a security co-ordinator makes. I do know a security co-ordinator doesn't make enough to drive a $50K SUV. And I also know that I have enough money saved up that I could buy his car 5 times over in cash if I wanted to.

But that is the world we live in. Security guards driving $50K SUVs. And this idiot will be first in line to vote for Hillary in order for her to save him from bankruptcy via a massive bailout.

Anonymous said...

That commercial helped wake me up to what was going on around me.

Anonymous said...

Ray Vinson used to own American Equity Mortgage, but after a split with his wife, it seems he runs "Ray Vinson Mortgage." He's famous here in St. Louis for his high-pitched, Ross Perot sound-alike voice and cheezy advertising jingles.

My boss at work used to make fun of him, using an assumed Vinsonian falsetto, "I'm Ray Vinson, let me show YOU how to get in more debt than YOU EVER DREAMED POSSIBLE!"

I wish I had heard him say that before we took our our second at 15% for consolidation! We just got ourselves into more debt that we thought we'd never get paid off.

We eventually refi'ed the debt back into our first, taking it down to 15 years from the original 30, and cutting the interest from 7.5 to 5.25%. But as Dave Ramsey says, getting a consolidation loan just treats the symptoms, it doesn't cure the disease.

Anonymous said...

It says, "where banks competer over you REGARDLESS of your credit history" Are those days gone? That commercial is a couple years old and I remember when I first saw it, I thought, "finally someone is showing the truth" but then it turned out to be for HELOCs and mortgage refinancing and I thought it defeated the purpose by not really addressing the problem of debt slavery and pretentious living.

Anonymous said...

I know several. The best is a good friend that I have known since I was a teen. Age 52. Home debt $131K. Credit Card use by wife-$37K. Living in situation where he is going down and eventually will lose home.
Myself, own home, kids 27 and 23 still living here. They don't seem to understand what maturing is all about. They work 35 hours per week at a job with benefits but it does not pay enough to allow them to get out on their own and pay their college debts at the same time. Money in the bank to purchase another property but I can't sell the one I own because my kids will be homeless. Considering moving in Spring to a small town county upstate where it is cheaper to live and property can still be had for under 90K.
Another guy who still lives on the block where my mother did before she died a few years ago. Still lives there, 68. Owns home, etc. Checked everywhere to move but insanity prices have him saying forget it! Over 55 communities are $1,500 per month with a substantial deposit and a promised rise of at least 1 percent each year. Older over 55 places are already chasing out the survivors who bought in 10 years prior on fixed incomes, so this stuff is a scam as well.
Unless prices come down the situation for the future is hopeless! Do our representatives understand this? I know that McCain does not. He has said so.

Anonymous said...

In debt up to your eyeballs? Refinance! Then you'll be...er, still in debt up to your eyeballs.

Anonymous said...

At least he's not claiming to be a billionaire like every debt-ridden tool in Scottsdale.

From the point of view of an anthropologist, are the guys only doing that to score chicks?

Anonymous said...

This commercial was changed. 43 seconds in, where he's riding the lawnmower, he says "Somebody help me". The original commercial he said "Somebody kill me".

Anonymous said...

"every filipino in california"

NAILED IT !

X-er said...

War is peace.

Debt is wealth.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of debt and credit, it seems our friends at BofA (one of the institutions we taxpayers may end up bailing out) are trying to stick it to us.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/YourCreditRating/YourCreditRatingDyn.aspx?cp-documentid=6198042

Credit card issuers have drawn fire for jacking up interest rates on cardholders who aren't behind on payments but whose credit scores have fallen for other reasons. Now, some consumers complain, Bank of America is increasing rates based on no apparent deterioration in their credit scores at all.

Another trick I noticed is the statements a coming later in the month now with the same due date. If the bill is not paid immediately upon receipt you may very well be looking at a stiff late fee, plus this new interest rate.

Anonymous said...

It's funny how they're telling you to get a home equity loan instead of dropping the golf club membership and all the other materialistic crap. I remember when my area got hit by the tech bust back in 2000. The social services people were complaining that some of their cases had private golf club memberships and refused to drop them. Their kids were still attending private schools. Yet they wanted assistance

Paige Turner said...

RE: Bigtime debt...

Until recently, huge revolving charge card debt could be consolidated into tax-deductible home equity loans.

Now, many Nouveau Riche home debtors are underwater in their mortgages and leaving their credit cards maxed out and unpaid.

To make things worse, cash-strapped banks are jacking up fees and interest rates as a last ditch effort to squeeze more money out of debt slaves.

A real eye opener on how banks are operating this new credit card scam can be found HERE.

The US economy is quickly losing altitude and is very close to crashing.

V.L.

Anonymous said...

If Americans really lived within their means we would be a 2nd tier country. The myth of the American Deam is that a-hole and his lawn mower.

Anonymous said...

sometimes i fantasize about this very scenario happening to some of the parents in my kids school.

Frank R said...

"From the point of view of an anthropologist, are the guys only doing that to score chicks?"

That would make sense on the surface, but in Scottsdale even the chicks do it too. So I really don't quite understand it all.

For some reason, everything in Scottsdale revolves around material possessions no matter how much debt is behind it. There is no life or hobbies outside of material possessions.

If you meet a guy who has a Hummer H2, for example (tons of those in Scottsdale), you will find that the H2 is the center of his life. He has no other purpose other than his H2.

I'd imagine some guys do it because they think it will get them chicks, but everyone, both male & female, is doing it.

Weird, weird place.

Anonymous said...

"every filipino in california"

NAILED IT !

------------------

I work with a lot of filipinos and almost all of them are finished financially. They all bought during the boom with nothing down, maxed out all their credit cards, helocs,etc. Many of them kids older than 18 went back to their homeland but pulled out all the equity of their homes and maxed their CCs before they did.

Anonymous said...

There is no life or hobbies outside of material possessions.

If you meet a guy who has a Hummer H2, for example (tons of those in Scottsdale), you will find that the H2 is the center of his life. He has no other purpose other than his H2.

This is very true. There is little intellectual curiosity in Scottsdale and people just seem to exist to show off their chrome wheels. It's a weird place for sure. It's hard to even find one person to have an intellectual talk with about politics. I was in the banking industry in Scottsdale up until recently and, without question, people here are absolutely buried in debt and have no fear of taking on more. The credit card debt that I've seen on people that have the "look" of wealth is breathtaking.

Anonymous said...

My sister in law who comes begging to my wife for $$$ so my wife's nieces and nephews can have food while they play on their nintendo wii, on the 42 inch flat screen tv, on the brand new huge oversized couches, and on and on ...

Anonymous said...

the first time i saw commercial, i know it was over, it was just a matter of time

Anonymous said...

I hated that commercial! I remember when I first saw it, after the guy said he was in debt up to his eyeballs, I thought that the rest of the commercial was going to be for some corporation that assists you in getting out of debt by, at least in part, telling you to not spend more than you can. Then as the commercial went on I see it was for Lending Tree, basically to encourage you to go deeper into debt by mortgaging your house even more. I was so pissed when I first saw it I yelled at the TV, something like "why don't you just fu**ing not buy sh*t you can't afford instead, idiot!"

Anonymous said...

Forgot to mention, I love that show "Big Spender", which I think is on A&E. I love how the guy (I forget his name) tells people to basically stop buying unnecessary sh*t and pay off outstanding debts as much as possible. We need that mentality to be more common on TV and in the media in general.

Anonymous said...

"How many people do you know like this? "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs""
------------------------------------
I think that would be every GenXer I
have worked with. Still living with their parents at age 30, getting calls from their credit card company asking where this months payment is.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of just about everyone around here in Orange County, California.

Drowning in debt. Enslavened to their mortgage, cars, bratty kids, spray on tans and and botox treatments.

When will they ever learn? When?

Pathetic.

Anonymous said...

"I think that would be every GenXer I have worked with."

Whatever boomer douche. Did you ever think that GenX is in debt because you boomer fu*ks are selfish pieces of sh*t? I will bet that you either got a well paying job right out of high school and/or your parents or the government paid for your college education - either way, you fu*ks didn't have to pay for your education and did not have to worry about people shipping all the good jobs overseas. And, you probably have a pension to boot. What the fu*k is a pension?

Eat a di*k, di*k.

Anonymous said...

My husband and I have friends who are married with two children. They live in an upper middle class neighborhood. He is self employed and she is a professional making decent money.

They have taken home equity loans out to buy, among other things, a 1960 Corvette, 1968 Camaro, new construction addition to the house ($100K), new kitchen (granite counters and sink, $2K coffee maker, wall mounted Sony flat screen), and cruise vacations every year. They have already used two refinancings to pay off credit card debt in excess of $50K each time. She is currently driving a Mercedes.

Meanwhile, they are now $70K in credit card debt and are just now looking into consolidating. He was looking to refinance another time, but she has finally listened to my warnings about house values plunging and the fact that they may have no more equity left.

We are childless, with two paid off cars and only a resonable mortgage as debt.

My husband tells me to mind my own business.

Anonymous said...

I honestly think Bi Polar personality is a full blown epidemic in this country. I actually had someone tell me that they were going to get a HELOC and buy some toys so they could itemize deductions.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anthropologist,

I would be curious how much "equity" financed breast augmentation from 2003 to present?

Anonymous said...

anon 7:42 -

you can add every filipino on the East Coast too. I nearly wet myself reading your remarks.

Anonymous said...

Man, did I find the correct website. I am a trailblazer in the sense that I had a $350,000 plus credit card balance circa 2004. The funny thing is I did not give a damn, because even if these charge-offs and civil judgments have destroyed my credit, I know that in about 7-10 years I will have a clean credit record because all that stuff will just kinda evaporate because credit bureaus Fair Isaac and Co. and all those damn bastards have the capacity to keep records on your credit for only the most recent 7-10 years or so. So I really don't give a damn about credit. I just had a ball building up my credit line during a period of 12 years. I remember having 2 AMEX cards, $18,000 credit line, MBNA $38,000 credit line, 2 Discover cards $12,000 plus, Citibank $12,000. Man, those were the Vega$ daze. Great times. Now, I live beneath my means, chill out. I am just waiting to do it all over again. Anyways, those banks create money out of thin air anyways. F*ck those bastards.

Anonymous said...

In the last year, my parents have whittled their credit-card debt down from $24k to $19k.

They're still in debt but at least they're not making the problem worse -- which makes them better than most people in the country.