STINKY SALLY

I taught a class recently with an individual in it that wasn't very pleasant.  She was one of those know-it-all types.  I should've sat down and done something more pleasant like giving my eye paper cuts with coupons and just let her teach the class while she expounds her opinions.  Everyone else in the class were rolling their eyes every time she spoke.   When the topic got to saving money on schooling she explained how she was able to get her college paid for by divorcing her husband.  Well knock me over with a kitten's cough.  I mean who wouldn't want to be married to this darling.  And not a haha she was able to do it, but she said there was some kind of rule where he had to pay for it.  I never heard of such a thing, but from the looks of her he was better off.  I finally had to be trite with her a few times to get her to stop, but with those people it's like trying to separate vaseline from peanut butter.  



As I went through the class I noticed the two gals behind her plugging their nose with their hands.  It wasn't just for a tiny bit, so it got me thinking maybe I had bad breath and it was somehow reaching the back of the room.  I forgot my water, but I had some gum and I had KFC so it wasn't like I just ate some stink mushroom full of garlic, but maybe it's my breath yet.  At the end of the class one of the gals that had her nose plugged came up to me to ask some questions.  I made a comment about the lady in front of her and she said she had to tell me now since I let the cat out of the bag, but she said the lady stank.  Good thing I couldn't smell her because I can tell she would've smelled like old ketchup on a hot day under the armpit of a hairy monkey that liked to jab it's finger at an agitated skunk's behind.  



CHANNEL 5

I'll be on channel 5 at 5:45 PM on Wednesday, 10/8.  They are doing a link in to Oprahs show about saving money for the segment.  I sure hope Leon Bibb will be interviewing me.  I'll try to impress him by answering in Haiku's.



GAS

If we drill in the Arctic National Refuge, the price of gas will go down...drum roll please... a total of...   4 pennies a gallon!  Yes, just 4 cents.  All the hullabaloo about drilling there and all it will go down is a measly 4 cents.  Needless to say we need alternative fuels to get us off our reliance of oil.  My guess is hydrogen will be the fuel of the future.  



Notice how gas prices have been plunging.  The price should be at least down to $2.50 with the price of a barrel around $90.  A month ago when the price was hovering above $90 gas prices were still over $3.50 a gallon....looks like the oil companies will be making another record billions in profit.



And did you notice how everyone is very attentive to saving every penny they can on gas, but tell them to use coupons to save just as much if not more and they squirm like as if they ate a scorpion full of lemon juice.  Coupons also save more than you think than the GetGo gas perks.  For every $50 spent you get 10 cents off per gallon of gas or $3 if you use the full allotment of 30 gallons you are allowed.  Coupons save 10 to 20% off an item and double that at places that double coupons.  Even at 20 cents savings for every $50 spent you will save $6 and that is just barely over 10% savings for every $50 spent.  K-Mart's $5 of $50 purchase coupons are almost just as good.



CVS

Free after extrabucks:

VitaminWater

Always

CVS Vitamin D

Wellpatch for arthritis

NEW OUR TOWN COUPON BOOKS

The new Our Town book are available.  Over 120 more pages than the 2008 book!  A new WINERY section was added with coupons for wineries across Northern Ohio.  Included in the book are golf, fast food, West Side Market, pizza, entertainment, movie, and birthday coupons.  Same price as last year - $25.  If you order from my web-site, it will cost $26 (includes shipping and handling).  Others will charge more for shipping and handling.  See me at one of my classes or pick the book up to get it for $25.



SAVVY SHOPPER BOOKLET

While you're shopping on my web-site also order a Savvy Shopper booklet.  Filled with savings tips.  Dozens of topics including travel, gas savings, home heating, cell phones, weddings, credit cards, and much more.  Over 130 pages!  Around 1,000 different web-sites listed.  Only $8 for the booklet (includes shipping and handling).  Normally $1,000!...or at least I think it's worth that much.  Get it before I decide to increase the price.  You're bound to find something in it that will save you money.

GOING OUT OF BUSINESS

Most of the Ponderosa's in town have gone out of business.  The latest one was in Mentor.  Apparently the owner who had 17 Ponderosas he owned in the area - now down to five - is having some legal issues with an alleged check-kiting scheme.  Workers checks were bouncing.  Might be a harbinger if your checks bounce that they company is in its last days, especially with banks tightening up lending.



FINANCIAL CRISIS

Scary times with this economic crisis.  There are overtones of what happened during the Great Depression that are happening now.  Look up the Great Depression in Wikipedia to see what I mean.  Congress had some legislation to correct the issues, but didn't pass it.  The U.S. has seen foreclosures and bankruptcies at record levels.  The savings rate has been negative recently!  We don't save anywhere near what we did 30 years ago.  People want it all, but don't have the money for it.  Looks like many people are in for an unpleasant reality check.



Banks have slowed down or stopped their lending, made it tougher to get a loan and so it will be tough for people to get loans and businesses too.  Watch as plenty of developments stop and many restaurants and businesses that were living off loans to go out of business.  



It would be nice if they worked, but trickle down economics haven't worked.  There are plenty of stats that have shown the rich getting richer while the poor have gotten poorer.  I haven't seen any stats from this decade or the 80’s that have shown the gains of the rich have equaled or even come anywhere close to any gains by the middle class or poor.  The fear tactic of the rich will stop spending is a hoax to justify the rich getting richer.  The talking head media spouting those words are rich themselves, so of course, they are going to hark it out loud.  It's just how you dress it.  Yes the rich pay the most taxes, but they also earn the most so that is a moot point.



Back a handful of decades ago the rich paid a 91% top marginal tax rate before Kennedy dropped it to 70%.  If you want to get a headache, read more about it here: http://home.att.net/~rdavis2/taxcuts.html.  There was no big boom afterwards back then and there hasn't been now when Bush lowered taxes for the rich.  A total of 75% of all income gains during the Bush administration went to the top 1 percent of earners...so don't believe the hype...after all, the rich are making tons now and have for years and the economy has been in the tank still.  Get the money in the hands of people like the poor and middle class that will spend it to spur the economy just like they decided with the tax break of $1K this year.  



And the poor and middle class actually pay more taxes called regressive taxes such as those charged for gas and groceries - the poor and middle class pay a higher percentage of their income for those items and others.



Here are some proverbs that say it all:

He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich - both come to poverty.

If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.



Here are some other stats that show trickle down hasn't worked...really it should be called trickled on - and the stats below are going to be even more dismal as newer data gets announced reflecting the current economic calamity:



- According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median American family made $58,407 in 2006.  That’s $991 less, when you adjust for inflation, than the median in 2000.  



- The average savings per year of the Bush tax cuts for people with more than $1 million in income was $118,000 and $740 per year for a middle-income taxpayer.



- The national unemployment rate jumped to a 5 year high of 6.1 percent in August 2008.



- The trend shows that people are staying unemployed longer.  Since 2001 the number of weeks people are unemployed has hovered around 15 to 20 weeks.  From the 1950’s to early 1980’s the number of weeks hovered around 8 to 17.  Hasn't gone below 16 weeks since early 2002.



- More than 41% of those on food stamps came from working families in 2006, up from 30% a decade earlier, according to Agriculture Department data.  Florida at 17.9% and Nevada at 17.4% had the highest increase of food stamp enrollment from Feb 2007 to Feb 2008.  Food stamps are available to those with incomes below 130% of the federal poverty level, or $27,560 for a family of four.  They cannot have more than $2,000 or, in some cases, $3,000 in assets, not including homes and, in most states, cars.  The average benefit is about $3 a day per person.  While welfare roles have been reduced by millions since the welfare reform law signed in 1996, the number of recipients of Medicaid, food stamps, and disability benefits has increased from 1996 to 2005 to 36.6%, .5%, and 6.9% respectively.  



- In 2007, household debt (including mortgages) totaled $14.4 trillion, or 139 percent of personal disposable income.  As recently as 2000, those figures were $7.4 trillion and 103 percent of income.



- From 1983 to 2004, the median net worth of upper-income families – defined as households with annual incomes above 150 percent of the median of $50,811 (2008 dollars from the Census Bureau) – grew by 123 percent, while the median net worth of middle-income families rose by just 29 percent.



- The average pay for big company CEO’s was $11.7 million in 2007.  Equates to about 400 workers making around $30,000 a year.  Whatever legislation they pass better include the elimination of golden parachutes.



- The IRS found that the richest one percent of Americans earned a postwar record of 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent a year earlier.  The bottom 50 percent earned 12.8 percent of all income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent the year before.  The last time wealthy Americans had such a high percentage of the national income pie was in the 1920s.  



- At negative 1% in 2006 of disposable personal income, the nation’s personal savings rate is at its lowest level since the Great Depression, a time when the unemployment rate was at 25%.  In 1933 it was -1.5%,  In the post-World War II era the savings rate varied between 7% to 11%.  Negative savings rates occurred in 2005 also.  In 2007 it increased to 0.5 percent.  And now with the banking mess it shows how there are indicators matching what happened during the Great Depression and that includes the government bail-out of the banks and financial firms.  



- The Center of Economic Policy Research found that good jobs, those paying above the median wage of inflation adjusted 1979 dollars of $17 an hour along with health insurance and a retirement plan have decreased 2.6 percent from 2000 to 2006.  The drop was .5 percent in the 1980s and .1 percent in the 1990s.



- A study found that about 40% of Americans say they are saving nothing for retirement.  Part of the reason is that in 2007 inflation rose 4.2% while salaries rose only 3.4%.



- Between 1980 and 2006, even though worker productivity increased 70% and corporate profits increased by 256%, the buying power of the minimum wage decreased 32%.  



- Except for the late 1990’s, pay has been stagnant for more than a generation, barely keeping up with inflation.  In 1973, the median male worker earned $16.88 an hour, adjusted for inflation.  In 2007, they earned $16.85.  The largest gains went to workers at the top of the pay scale.



We have a lot of work to do on other subjects too.  Even though the U.S. is one of the richest industrialized nations, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of infant mortality, poverty, gun violence, divorce, and suicide.



Consumers spend puts about 70% into the economy.  As wages go down and good jobs become harder to find then we may see a correction in the market.  The rich have to realize that more money needs to be put in the hands of low and middle income fast money-spending consumers, otherwise our economy will never get out of this trough.  



Retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion in the past 15 months - and some politicians were touting being able to put money in the stock market.  Yipes.  As we all can see it was a risky proposition since who knows when this market will even out.  This cycle may stay down and may not go up for a long time during a time when baby boomers are entering retirement.  



As far as politics, I'm an independent.  I like and dislike parts of each party.  I've seen too many people get tunnel vision and not see anything wrong in their party and that affects their good judgement.  I'll have to look into the Whig party.  Perhaps they fall more in line with my thinking...plus it sounds cool.



Joe

http://www.joethecouponguy.com