Verizon came out yesterday or the day before with a plan that was just bound to piss off the masses. Mid-January, those paying their bill by credit or debit card would be assessed a $2.00 fee for the convenience. Customers could save 2 dollars by using an electronic check, money order or mailing in a payment where real people who get salaries and benefits would have to be hired to process the payments. Apparently the Verizon masses rejected the plan quite vociferously and as of today, Verizon announced it had listened to input from customers and would not implement the plan.
I guess Verizon Wireless (who has you locked in with their contracts) remembered none too fondly what happened to the darling of the stock market, Netflix. It restructured its pricing plan and divided into 2 branches–one streaming and one for hard copy dvd movies and blue ray. In some cases, the cost of belonging to Netflix went up by 60%. People left like rats off a sinking ship. CEO Reed Hastings took the heat but it didn’t help. In 2 month’s time Netflix lost over 800,000 customers. The stock has plunged 75%. According to Huffington Post:
Hastings has repeatedly taken the blame for mismanaging the announcement of the price increase in July and then making things worse two months later by trying to spin off Netflix’s DVD-by-mail rental service into a separate website called Qwikster. Since scrapping that idea in October, Hastings has been trying to repair some of the damage.
That will probably take a while. Netflix’s stock price has plunged 75 percent since mid-July to wipe out $12 billion in shareholder wealth. The backlash surprised and humbled Hastings, who revealed at an investor conference this month that he once thought Netflix’s stock would hit $1,000. Netflix’s stock gained $2.87 Thursday to close at $73.84, down from its July high of just under $305.
That maneuver just tells us how volatile some of the stock is to customer satisfaction. I had planned on purchasing more Verizon this week and decided to h0ld off, thinking of Netflix. Meanwhile, HBOgo, Amazon streaming which just happens to be free if you buy the Amazon Prime free shipping plan, and Best Buy all are vying for Netflix defectors. it all reminds me of that tragic error made by Coca Cola. New coke was just miserable. That CEO lost his job.
Is this what decline looks like? According to new supplemental data from the Census Bureau, nearly half of Americans—a shocking record number—have fallen under the poverty line or are classified as “low income” and barely scraping by. Many in the middle class have dropped to the low-income threshold, meaning they make less than $45,000 for a family of four, because of pay cuts or spouses losing jobs. They number 97.3 million, and together with the 49.1 million in poverty, they represent about 48 percent of the U.S. population, or 146.4 million. That’s up by 4 million from 2009 numbers.
That seems rather high for a poverty threshold. What defines ‘poor?’ What criteria is used? Does it vary from region to region? Many starting pay jobs in this area are below $45,000. Recently separated or divorced women often have to restart careers making this much money. Are they all living in poverty? Starting pay in Prince William County for a first year teacher is $43,615 for 195 days work. No paid holidays etc. That’s below the poverty level if that teacher has a spouse and kids.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think living on $45,000 would be picnic, but I think you can have a roof over your head and clothes on your back, even in Northern Virginia. Do we need to rethink what poor is? What does poor mean to you?
Will Northern Virginia suffer a financial relapse? If yes, what will cause it? What can we do to insulate ourselves and our families from it?
More than 60 percent of states pay their rank-and-file employees better than Virginia.
And when compared to the average salary among Virginia’s private-sector employees, the outlook for state government worker pay in Virginia is even worse, ranking 48th in the nation.
Those startling statistics come from a recently released report from the state’s Department of Human Resources Management using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The numbers are in stark contrast to this year’s analysis of compensation details for 104,552 state employees by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which shows the average state salary of roughly $52,553 — nearly identical to the average salary in the state’s private sector.
The Super Committee, charged with shaving $1.2 Trillion dollars off the federal debt, failed to answer their mandate and now admits defeat. The committee was comprised of 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats. They have met since August, 2011.
I haven’t followed them. I saw that all 6 Republicans chosen for the committee were tied to Grover Norquist pledges so the entire committee became a joke. Committees should consist of people who have a willingness to compromise. Those committed to a pledge won’t be able to do that. Why were people chosen who were bound to a pledge that technically could not involve any outcome that involved taxes being raised anywhere? Do we all just look stupid?
Hold on to your 401k and other investments today. The ride should be like a roller coaster….all going downhill. The pledgers are bound to destroy us to save us.
No person committed to a pledge should have ever been chosen for a committee that by definition will require compromise. Thanks R’s. Thanks for nothing, again. And you want my Independent vote because? Yea, I want to be broke. I want my social security, my medicare and my other retirement funds broke. That just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Let’s protect the rich from any tax increase at all and stick it to the senior citizens and the middle class.
Rachel Maddow warns us all about our 401Ks(authorized in 1978). Our nest eggs give us a false sense of security. They are riddled with hidden fees. Everyone needs to see this segment of Rachel Maddow. Meanwhile, don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.
Just a few tidbits about your 401k–it is only worth 76% of what you see. Why? Taxes haven’t been taken out. The 403B is its ugly evil twin (those often have annuity zingers attached that cost you money). That’s if you live in Virginia. Most people who contribute to a plan get some free money. That is good. However, if you don’t get matching funds, you are far better off using an IRA as a retirement vehicle. Why? More choices. Company 401k plans are usually limited in choices.
Over the weekend, former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke the following when he accepted the Jury du Prix Tocqueville Prize in France:
The foregoing observation is especially relevant to our understanding of the challenge facing contemporary America. Though a democracy, it is becoming a country of socially ominous extremes between the few super rich and the increasingly many who are deprived. In America today the top 1% of the richest families own around 35% of the entire nation’s wealth, while the bottom 90% own around 25%. It should be a source of perhaps even greater concern that the majority of all currently serving Congressmen and Senators, and similarly most of the top officials in the executive branch, fall in the category of the very rich, the so-called top 1%.
At the same time, though still a unique super-power, America finds it difficult to cope with the consequences of the increasingly accelerating global changes that are spinning out of control, both on the socio-economic and on the geopolitical levels. Socio-economically, the world is becoming a single playing-field in which 3 dynamic realities increasingly prevail: globalization, “internetization”, and deregulation.
By now, everyone is familiar with the Wall Street protesters. All sorts of folks have commented on who they are and billing them as anti capitalists. I am not so sure that is correct. The protesters have not delivered their message well.
To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped.
In fact, we are witnessing America’s first true Internet-era movement, which — unlike civil rights protests, labor marches, or even the Obama campaign — does not take its cue from a charismatic leader, express itself in bumper-sticker-length goals and understand itself as having a particular endpoint.
So who are these protesters? We do we think vs what do we know? Are these simply people who want reform? Wall Street isn’t innocent so they should not be playing the victim. Is CNN right in its assessment?
It all started with a tweet from an SMU student to ABC news asking for help finding Made in America products for her dorm room. It seems that the college catalog for dorm shopping had NO products that were made in America. So the search began.
Diane Sawyer reported some amazing figures. If colleges and universities had Made in America products in the catalogs they provide the nearly 3 million new students entering college this year, a half million jobs would be created. $46 Billion dollars are spent each year to outfit new rooms. Over 800 colleges use this catalog and all the schools got money back for distributing the catalogs to incoming freshmen.
Will the colleges switch? Probably only if students and taxpayers insist! Why are we peddling foreign made products?
Good job ABC News for ferreting out this glaring problem. Good for SMU for agreeing to change. No one had asked. Therefore, no one knew.
So why is President Obama the villain in all of this? At what point are the Republicans going to admit their culpability in extreme debt over 8 years? Any time it is brought up, Obama is accused of trying to blame Bush. Well…we need to stop blaming anyone. However, facts are facts.
Financing 2 wars and a drug program and cutting taxes caused the problem. There was more going out than coming in. It is a relatively simple math problem. I liked having a tax cut. Who wouldn’t? But it contributed largely to our current situation, given our expenditures during the Bush years. Let’s all just be honest where it came from and come up with solutions to fix the problem rather that racing right up to the edge of the cliff over ideology.
The S & P also needs the American people to collectively give it the finger. Where was that agency before the Crash of 2008? Obviously playing switch.
Tea Party Senate candidate Jamie Radtke apparently isn’t practicing what she preaches. On Friday she stated on her website that she was running for office because of the fiscal “ineptitude, mismanagement and irresponsibility” of the nation’s current leaders. However, it appears her own house isn’t in order.
The larger problem for Radtke emerges further down in her report. As of June 30, she had $46,000 in the bank and $84,000 in debt. While about $6,000 of that total is money Radtke owes to herself for campaign expenses, roughly $70,000 is money she owes to various consulting firms.
Asked for comment, Radtke’s campaign turned its guns against Allen.
“Here are the facts: When this campaign is over, Jamie’s debt will be paid and gone,” said Radtke spokesman Chuck Hansen. “Meanwhile, the $3.1 trillion in debt George Allen voted for while senator is still on our books.”
It’s not uncommon for campaigns to owe money to vendors, but it’s relatively rare for candidates to have more debts than money in the bank. And given that Radtke isn’t nearly as well-known among Virginia voters as Allen is, it’s widely assumed in state political circles that she will have to improve her fundraising if she hopes to mount a strong challenge in the GOP primary.
I don’t care if the lady is in debt or not. Campaign financing is obscene to me anyway. It takes one’s breath away. But isn’t Ms. Radtke a little on the hypocritical side to be in debt herself all while telling us that the current national leaders are inept, irresponsible and mismanage their financial responsibilities?
Radtke needs to learn to run with the big dogs or stay on the porch. She also needs to tell her IT staff to check for code error mistakes on the website. Ouch.
Nationally, Republicans are widely critical of their party’s leadership in the debt talks. Nearly six in 10 in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll say GOP leaders are not doing enough to compromise with Obama on deficit issues.
Half of the Republicans surveyed in the poll said the best way to reduce the deficit is by an exclusive focus on cutting federal spending, but nearly as many accept new taxes as part of the mix. Most Republicans support higher taxes on those earning $250,000 and up annually and on oil and gas companies.
Obama made that pointFriday night after Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Cantor abandoned the talks, saying “There are a lot of Republican voters out there who are puzzled as to why it couldn’t get done. Because the fact of the matter is the vast majority of the American people believe we should have a balanced approach.”
Rachel Maddow has given us a little history on Bob McDonnell’s tenure in Virginia and how he has gravitated towards the centrist position on raising the debt ceiling:
It isn’t so much that McDonnell is a centrist. It is that he got kicked in the teeth with the reality of what will happen to Virginia should August 2 happen without legislation.
Are you prepared for Virginia, with its pride in fiscal responsibility, to be one of the first off the cliff and lose its Triple A bond rating? I, for one, am not.
Tea-jaddists are not winning the war of words with anyone but their base and I hear that is getting a little shakey. There is a certain arrogance in assuming that one knows all the answers to not just the US economy but also to the global economy.
What’s to not like? This questions is usually answered as ‘job killer.’ I have been thinking about this ‘job killer’ on every street. I have been told that if income taxes go up just 1% on millionaires, it will kill jobs. Instead, I am supposed to like having the budget cuts on the backs of the middle class and on seniors with both medicare and social security. Read more…
After President Obama said he wasn’t going to second guess the Supreme Court Justices, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was not as shy to put on his constitutional law professor hat:
At a Politico Playbook breakfast on May 25, Geithner was asked by host Mike Allen about the negotiations over default and the debt ceiling.
“I think there are some people who are pretending not to understand it, who think there’s leverage for them in threatening a default,” Geithner said. “I don’t understand it as a negotiating position. I mean really think about it, you’re going to say that– can I read you the 14th amendment?”
Geithner was responding to a letter Johnson sent President Barack Obama in May, signed by 22 other Senate Republicans, that argued the government would have enough revenue to continue functioning if the government hit the debt ceiling and suggested the White House should make contingency spending plans for that event.
Geithner said in his letter that many members of the GOP, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, acknowledge that raising the debt ceiling is the responsible thing to do, and he quoted Boehner saying, “I think raising the debt limit is the responsible thing to do for our country, the responsible thing for our economy … if we were to fail to increase the debt limit, we would send our economy into a tail spin.”
Geithner also noted that Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a favorite of the Tea Party, said in 2010: “You don’t have much choice if you charge something on your credit card. You have to pay for it, and that’s effectively what this debt limit is … we’ve already spent the money. The question is now, do we shut down the government or do we fund what we’ve already done?
Even conservative icon President Ronald Reagan spoke out against playing with the debt limit, according to Geithner. Reagan wrote in 1983: “This country now possesses the strongest credit in the world. The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the costs, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.”
Why is this a political issue? I don’t want to hear something stupid Obama supposedly said 5-6 years ago. It doesn’t really matter. In fact, it is irrelevant. Let’s put politics aside and do what needs to happen for the good of the country. The money has already been spent. If every American gave $5 bucks a month, think how we could reduce the debt. Why shouldn’t we pay for it? It is we who reaped the benefits.
