Buffalo Boy's Blog
Giving You More Than Just My Two Cents
Recently in money Category
BP Still Concerned About Shareholders
I couldn't believe the report yesterday that BP had to assure investors of their ability to pay for the mess in the gulf and that BP would have money for dividends.
Stop right there. I don't think BP really realizes how much they are on the line for here. They not only have years if not decades of clean up costs ahead of them, they also have years, if not decades of covering losses suffered by tourism and fishing industries as well as any other related losses incurred by gulf coast residents.
And why are they worried about profits for their investors and themselves for that matter? The biggest environmental disaster probably in human history at this point and their investors are worried about profit?
BP cheif executive Tony Hayward needs to get his head out of his ass and stop worrying about investors, profit and getting his life back and focus more on the clean up of the mess that his company caused.
It was greed and want to save the almighty dollar that led to the lack of safety measures that caused this mess, so to see this trend continue is disturbing
At this point BP shouldn't be worried about profiting their investors, their investors should be worried about BP surviving this mess.
Category: News | environment | money | oil/gas
Mathematical Mayhem
I was up this morning at 2:30 AM, not by choice, it was our precious baby girl Olivia having really her first bad night in quite sometime, she has been the perfect baby all things considered, the kid sleeps up to 11 hours a night without a sweat, never cries and goes about her business. Tonight the heat and humidity got to her.
So while I was up I checked out the news early to a report talking about the national debt. Its hit the $ $13,000,000,000,000 mark. Thats $13 TRILLION.
The US Debt Clock breaks it all down for you into smaller yet still mathematically chaotic numbers for one to stare at around 4:30 in the AM. The numbers are moving on there and while I was watching it in 30 seconds the national debt went up $1 million give or take a few seconds/hundred thousand bucks, at $13 trillion whos counting right? Heres how it broke down at approximately 4:44 AM this morning:
1. National Debt per citizen $42,049 per person, to put that in perspective that is roughly double what my wife makes at her current job and probably the average salary for most professionals in the country.
2. State Debt was around $1.1 trillion, that wasn't even factored into the national debt.
3. What is really frightening was the TOTAL US DEBT, that is combined federal, state, local, business, financial institutions and household debt are a combined $55,732,000,000,000 in debt. Thats $55.7+ trillion for those of you who care not to understand that many zeros. That breaks down into $180,000 or so PER CITIZEN and $688,000 or so PER FAMILY. My daughter can't work for another 14 years or so unless she babysits, but she won't officially be on the books at least until then with working papers and she already owes $180K.
That leads me to three things:
1. Maybe there is something to the idea of allowing illegals to work and get them on the tax roll. Why are we so against making what they do for us legal? How many of us would settle for minimum wage if that picking lettuce? Not I. I have a good job and most of us who are legal can do better than that. What draws illegals here is that they can't get even what farmers pay here to do that work, so why not get them on the payrolls and get that income to count toward the debt and in the process make a national living wage?
2. As much as the teabaggers and repukes want to bitch and complain that the democrats spend too much, this is not and has not been a democrat problem. This is a BIPARTISAN problem and lets face it, if not for George W and Dick we had a budget surplus goiing 10 years ago, they squandered it by coughing up tax credits and lowering taxes on the wealthy. They spent too much on Iraq without budgeting for it and they ran up debt on a shitty war not to mention running programs like Medicare part D which was a money eater and a total train wreck.
3. When are we upping the tax rates on the wealthy. When the wealthy were taxed this country was humming. Its 36% now, it was 39% under Clinton who got a surplus out of it, its been as high as 90% and things were fine. Time to tax the rich.
Category: Miscellaneous | News | money
The Extended Warranty Rip Off
I was driving a 10 year old Toyota Corolla up until New Years Day when I was basically told that I fork over $700 to fix the catalytic converter or it wouldn't pass inspection.
Well, I decided I'd rather put that money into a newer, used vehicle. I shopped around for a day or two, Fucillo, Steve Baldo, Northtown and others.
Well, I ended up back at Fucillo Toyota. They met my standards, a 2008 Nissan Versa, small economical and low mileage, 21,000 to be exact. I was willing to put $1000 down in addition to my trade in value of $1000, so I was basically putting $2000 down.
The deal was sealed when they offered me the car for $10,200, $8200 after trade in. Great done deal.
A month after purchase I noticed that there was an extended warranty on the car that I signed. I obviously wasn't paying close enough attention to the paperwork because if I was I would have turned the thing down.
A) its a Nissan, the thing will run forever if the oil is changed when needed and its taken care of
B) at 21,000 miles it sill had 15000 miles left on the original warranty.
So, I had $1800 added onto the car for an extended warranty that I didn't want or need. Well, obviously I called and complained and the finance manager at Fucillo acted dumb by saying that I wanted this and that I was going to regret it.
I kindly expained to him that the only thing I was regretting was being suckered into buying a warranty I didn't want. So he said he would get the warranty taken off the loan and have the $1800 refunded.
This was February 2nd. It is now April 3rd and the $1800 is still there, ao I called and talked to the finance manager and gave him a piece of my mind. Its been 60 days. If I was 60 days late paying for this warranty they would have dropped me like a bad habit.
In the meantime $1800 extra is on my loan running up the interest on my loan. My payments without the warranty would have been $166 per month, with the $1800 they are $197 per month. Thats a $30 per month difference which by anyone's standards is a huge difference.
They can't redo the loan which I respect that, I will end up paying off the car early, but they need to get this money refunded yesterday. This finance manager is supposed to call me Monday to let me know what the results are. He checked on it today and he said the request was still "processing".
I'll fill everyone in on what happens, in the meantime, beware of the extended warranty scam when you buy your used car.
Category: Miscellaneous | money
Damn Credit Cards
Yesterday I was paying off bills and as I was paying one of my remaining credit cards I noticed the statement from another card online that should have been not just at a zero balance but closed.
It was a Chase Bank credit card and without me knowing or getting any prior knowledge they had closed the account on me last July. It was a card I was planning on keeping because of the cards I have left it had the lowest interest rate.
Well, since it was closed I wanted it paid off. I paid the remaining $400+ balance on the thing in December, zero balance right?
Wrong.
While looking at my statement noticed in February a mystery $7.46 balance showed up. Apparently this was interest from the average daily balance for the month of December that they conveniently forgot to charge me in January.
In addition there was a "minimum" interest fee of $1.00 added to it for February so the balance was $8.46. I know Im screaming about pennies but the point was this card was paid in full, they came up with some bullshit interest charge and kept the account in payment status.
If I hadn't noticed they probably would have nailed me for a late payment fee and the card would have ballooned out of control without any purchases.
So I called and originally they told me that there was nothing they could do which really got me pissed. So I asked for a manager and stated the facts, I paid off the balance in Decemenber, there was a zero balance, how do you get interest from nothing?
Only a credit card company could figure that one out. The manager eventually after about 15 minutes of going back and forth and me refusing to pay a cent of the charges agreed that it was wrong and they dismissed it.
I have essentially two cards and a store card remaining to pay off. Once those are gone Im credit free. If we don't have the cash I ain't buying.
Lop Off New York City
This lame ass idea is the very reason why New York City needs to be lopped off this state and be on its own. Make it I don't know, the 51st state and call it the State Full of Stupid Yankee Fans. Of course that wouldn't be fair to the fans who rank two steps higher than Yankee fans, New York Met fans, so lets just call it The Waste State.
The dumb Yankee fans want to build the captain of the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter a bridge and name it after him so that he doesn't leave when he becomes a free agent. It would be 512 feet long and cost $87 million dollars. As if the millions of dollars he will get offered to stay by the Yankees wouldn't be enough. So instead of building them a monument in Monument Park, lets build them a monument before he retires and earns his way into the Hall of Fame. We still haven't found out if hes on the steroid list, that could change everything. I say if these idiots want to pool their money to build Jeter a bridge fine, go ahead but here are the rules: A) You don't get one cent of New York State money to build it. Don't even ask B) You don't get federal money either. C) EVERY PENNY that goes to this project comes from the city of New York. If that is the case then go ahead and waste your $87 million. I just find it really sad that we can find $87 million for that but how many families in New York City are living in poverty? How many are going without food? How many text books and computers could be bought to modernize and equip the New York City schools with that money? Where is sports going if this is what you have to do to keep a guy on a team? Do the Sabres have to buy Ryan Miller a city block? Should we invest in waterfront real estate to keep Lee Evans a Buffalo Bill? Hell no. Lets be honest, Derek Jeter has great career numbers but hes no Babe Ruth folks. Your treating him like the greatest Yankee ever, hes no where close to the greatest Yankee ever. I can name 5 right now that were better and always will be: Lou Gherig, Mickey Mantle, Joe Dimaggio, Babe Ruth and Don Mattingly. That doesn't include one pitcher so I would start with Jeter at maybe 8th. Far from deserving a bridge. Save your money and buy it for Mark Messier clearly the greatest New York Ranger of all time.Federal Budget/Deficit
I've been avoiding politics at the federal level lately because I think for all intensive purposes with the exception of the insanely ignorant, the majority of Americans see whats going on. Barack Obama stepped into a mess left by an inept administration that for its last 12 months in office did about as close to nothing as it possibly could.
So I have been watching and listening to the banter out there and its comedic really what is coming out of the republican side of things. They want to do literally nothing. The only thing that have done is bitch, but in terms of helping the economy, they want to spend not one penny to fix what their president left us.
Their latest proposal wanted to leave spending flat for the next 10 years, while we do what? Watch the economy tank? They want more tax cuts and less spending. That didn't seem to work under George W. who provided lots of tax cuts for the wealthy and over spent every step of the way.
Remember who started this bailout and stimulus thing too, it was George who started the TARP fund with the first half of the $700 billion. Giving all that money to the Wall Street bankers was okay back then, but since Obama created a budget that would work for average, middle class citizens of this country, forget it.
Mitch McConnell helped show his party's true colors today:
"The administration's budget simply taxes too much, spends too much and borrows too much at a moment when we can least afford it," said the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
My how out of touch he is. Check your pay checks this week, there should be a little extra in there for us all, what is that? Oh, its a tax cut for all of us making less than $250,000 a year. Who spent us into this mess? Your guy, W. by screwing up the invasion of Iraq and not knowing that you can not wage war against a tactic...Terrorism.
Yes, after Obama's budget is laid out we are $1.2 trillion in the hole this year, with in five years depending on who you talk to, its cut about in half. So, unlike George, he has us going in the right direction. You have to spend in order to fix. So a slightly higher figure this year should surprise no one.
Eight years was spent by the republicans screwing things up, finally, this last two weeks or so by the reaction of the markets things might be starting to trickle in the positive direction again, no thanks to the "no idea" republican party. It has everything to do with Barack Obama and the democrats willing to stick their necks out and spend a little to fix the broken mess left behind.
As this market corrects and the stimulus money keeps flowing, the republicans are going to have no choice eventually but to fall in line because what the democrats are doing is ultimately working and the American people are no longer listening to right wing blabber.
Patterson Must Go
Governor Patterson must go. I am a democrat and most of my ideals are left wing but what this guy is doing is just criminal. He is laying the ineptness of our state government on the tax payers and thats wrong.
Yesterday the article in the paper about his desire to tack on a 2% tax on the utilities was just amazing. He knows exactly where that cost will be passed on to, you, me and every other taxpayer who has a phone, heat, and electric bill in this state.
We can not afford anymore taxes, at all. This state and specifically Western New York has been artificially depressed for years now and to have these proposed taxes showing up every day just weighs on the minds of all.
Utilities will pass on the cost of that 2% tax to consumers with an obvious or not so obvious fee on the bill. The crazy thing is, our utility bills already have enough hidden and garbage fees and taxes that already make New York State the 2nd highest utilitiy costs in the country. I Guess Mr. Patterson wants to be number one.
Thats fine, we can have the highest utility bills in the country, but I think this state will have another number one ranking: the highest decline in population as people flee these high taxes. After people leave, then what do you do?
Eventually this government, both state democrats and republicans need to wake up and learn how to run our government without all the waste.
Give The Money Back
If this White House has any balls what so ever they will ask AIG for every penny of bailout money they have recieved. If they can't give it back then they will either have to fold or be taken over by the feds until they can stand on their own with the proper over sight.
This is because apparently the top executives have learned absolutely nothing at AIG. After recieving the latest bailout money, what did they do? They handed out bonuses. Millions of dollars in bonuses to executives who are running the company into the ground and keep coming back for more from the government tit like a heroin addict going back to their dealer. Where do I get a job like there where I can run a company into the ground and still get millions in bonuses from my boss?
Better yet, where can I work for a company that can run itself into the ground, spend foolishly and then never have to worry about it because no matter what, the government will hand me more and more and more.
Enough is enough, the economy can take another hit to get these idiots off Wall Street. Obviously they have learned nothing.NO MORE TAXES
Governor Patterson just doesn't get it does he? You can't get blood from a rock. Thats about all that is left right now in some NY State communities is rock. If you haven't driven through the downtown streets of Niagara Falls in a while, try it, you will see what I mean. Some streets are just boarded up empty homes. Its sad. But its the result of an over taxed, over stressed upstate economy that has seen its population dwindle because people can't give anymore of their hard earned money, especially since salaries in this area especially have been lower on average than other parts of the country to begin with.
The news of how Mr. Patterson is using the federal stimulus money given to NY State should be maddening to all New Yorkers. This money was supposed to go to the states to create jobs, instead it is being put to use to pay down medicaid debt and the state budget and "avoiding nuisance taxes.
Nuisance taxes, lets go over those taxes for bit shall we? Taxes on music downloads like ITunes, concert tickets, sporting event tickets, theatre tickets, hair cuts, satellite television and radio, prewritten software games, pedicures, massages private gym memberships, fees for physicians, fishermen (don't we already pay for a fishing license? I just paid mine, so they are saying I have to pay more?), beer and wine taxes, and people who drive cars (just about everyone). Did I forget to mention the gross reciepts tax on hospital care.
Where the hell do the taxes end in this state? Its completely the opposite of what Barack Obama is trying to do on a federal level. He has decreased income taxes on the middle class and those making less than $250,000 a year. He is raising the taxes on wealthy individuals making more than $250,000 a year to Bill Clinton era rates from 36% to 39%.
Patterson in the mean time is taking out the inability to balance the New York State budget on everyone and its starting to show throughout the communities of this state. Most of the items listed above already are taxed...ITS CALLED NYS SALES TAX!!!!. Why do we need more on top of that?
He says he wants a non-diet soda tax to combat obesity yet at the same time there is a proposed tax on gym memberships? What the hell, I know he is blind but he doesn't have to be stupid too.
Concert tickets are expensive enough without adding more nuisance charges to them. I would love to see the tax on people who drive cars. Hopefully it is not one of those taxes based on miles driven, because if thats the case, Its time to pick up our shit and drive my family right on out of this state.
Maybe if more of us followed suit, the politicians, republicans and democrats alike in Albany would get the hint that they need to get their crap together and start being fiscally responsible or there won't be anyone left in this over taxed state to tax but themselves.
I Got One, But It Was a Pain In The Ass
If it was anyother band I probably would have said screw it, Im not going, but its the Hip, An evening with the Hip which will be a 21/2 to 3 hour show most likely. Luckily my wife was off from work today and managed to work both our laptops until she got through.
She got through around 10:45 this morning and landed me a ticket just outside of the "pit" at Artpark. At 10:00 AM if you tried to get through, the Hip's website had crashed due to all the traffic of fans trying to get through and get their first crack at presales.
Kudos to my wife for sticking it through and getting me one ticket. Yes thats right one. I refuse to pay more than $50 for a concert ticket anymore so I told her if they were more than $50 it will be just me going to the show. She didn't want to go to begin with so I would have bought the second ticket for no one in particular anyway.
This purchase pretty much insures that I will not attend opening day at the Dome though like I did last year, unless I get a nose bleed seat which I may still do.
Back to the ticket purchase. Tickets.com are theives. The ticket cost $59.50, okay by all standards a fair price to see a band who is in my mind anyway one of the top five North American live shows for 3 hours. But then I looked at the print out and there was two fees, surprise, surprise.
The first was a convenient charge of $8, I think they need to rename it to "an inconvenient charge". $8 on top of a $59 ticket? Thats almost a 15% tax ontop of the ticket price which Im sure they get a cut of anyway. Not to mention the fact that nothing of the ticket buying experience was convenient by all accounts. Most going to the show have day jobs, they have to work on Tuesdays at 10 AM that almost took me out of the equation until I found out that my wife was taking today off from work.
Lets face it, besides printing the ticket and putting in an envelope to mail it to the buyer, where is the convenience of buying a ticket through tickets.com or ticketmaster? No one does anything worthy of being called convenient besides charging huge fees on top of already expensive concert, sports and event tickets for a cash strapped public in a bad economy to buy.
Then there was the $3.25 "order processing fee". Okay, thats ridiculous. There is no one processing the order other than the computer and the customer typing in their own information. There really is nothing to process is there? What they have to take 20 seconds to deposit the tickets address side up into an envelope? Didn't we already cover that in the "inconvenient charge"?
After this, I am done. Im resorting to Thursday in the Square or Gateway Concert Series. No money other than for overpriced beers, which really, is beer ever overpriced?
