Rethinking my Spending Habits

The old cheap treats I used to feed my dogs are made of unspecified animal byproducts held together by synthetic chemical preservatives. My dogs, M and Q, loved them. However, because I am filled with the overwhelming desire to fix that which is not broken, I decided they need to eat healthier. Enter Mr. Fancypants' Super Expensive All-Natural Organic Treats Made from Happy Cows Who Got to Watch Cable TV and Have Massages Every Other Day Before Being Painlessly Hugged to Death by Angels.

The dogs hate them. They spit them out and refused to take any more, despite my insistence that they should eat them since I paid a lot of money for them. These are dogs who love trash, rotting animal carcasses, and cat barf. The Q has been known to snack on Kleenex straight out of the box (bet you can't eat just one!), and just last week he ate half of a 3 foot tall stack of fancy paper napkins.*

Maybe I'll cut out the middle man and feed them dollar bills, I thought derisively. These stupid dogs don't know the value of money.

When I thought about it more, though, I realized that maybe it is I who could learn a lesson from my dogs. I'm trying to force them to eat expensive treats for silly health reasons, and they're trying to tell me that they're happier licking the cans in the recycling bin.

M: Did you SEE how much money she spent on those nasty treats?
Q: I know, right? Is she made of money? Does she not know about these tough economic times?
M: Remember last week when we got a whole block of fancy cheese because she was afraid of a little mold?
Q: That girl needs recessionista lessons. Did you know that several years ago, she had to use the bathroom in the backyard with me for a whole month because she couldn't afford a plumber to fix the drains?
M: I heard that was because she used her emergency house fund to buy a digital camera.
Q: Some people never learn.




*Are you wondering why I own a 3 foot tall stack of fancy paper napkins? It was an anonymous gift. One of the good parts about my crappy ghetto neighborhood is that as well as stealing things from me, sometimes people leave me things. Besides the napkins, I've also gotten a bag of grass seed (this may have been a comment about the sad state of my front yard), a washing machine, and a bag of frozen bagels.

What do Kevin Bacon and the Royal Bank of Scotland have in common?

Lady Blogpants, below, has addressed some of the underlying causes of the dismaying drop in the billionaire population. Today’s arrest of Bernie Madoff highlights yet another factor, which is that some of them are getting a one-way ticket to the big house. Mr. Madoff, you remember, ran a Ponzi scheme that left him rich but cost his investors $65 billion. Let me say that again for full effect. $65 BILLION. The list of people from whom he stole, from grandmas in Florida retirement communities to Elie Wiesel, reveals what a morally bereft waste of organic compounds he is. He stole the life savings of a Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning Holocaust survivor AND 15.2 million from his charity, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. That takes a special kind of asshole. I fail to see any reason whatsoever that this man should be allowed to live in human society, but a quick death at the hands of a vigilante squad seems too good for him, also. Justice will certainly not be served by him living out the remainder of his years at the expense of the American taxpayer in a cushy white-collar prison where he will enjoy amenities (health care, cable tv, air conditioning) that many completely innocent people in this country don’t get. How is it fair that Bernie Madoff gets air-conditioning when I don’t? Let me get this right. I'm the one who DIDN'T steal $65 billion, yet he will be lounging in comfort in his climate-controlled cell, flipping the bird to the summer heat, whilst I languish in the desert sun in a pool of my own sweat?

Here’s what he said to the judge in court. "I am actually grateful for this opportunity to publicly comment about my crimes, for which I am deeply sorry and ashamed," he said. Yes, after you’ve gotten caught is a great time to make a truly compelling apology. Your frantic dispersal of assets after the shit hit the fan showed us exactly how sorry you are. You know when would have been a more convincing time to publicly comment about your crimes? BEFORE you got caught. Maybe even a long time ago when you first started. Or maybe, just maybe, you could have realized beforehand that stealing money from Kevin Bacon and the Royal Bank of Scotland is morally and legally wrong and then NOT DONE IT. Oh, now I’m just talking nonsense.

The Great Billionaire Shortage

Economically alert reader Laura from Bakersfield wrote in to let us know she read a simply horrifying article in the Wall Street Journal. It said that there are fewer billionaires than there used to be. Now, at first I assumed that was because the economic climate was impacting their habitat and they were going extinct as a result. I pictured a sad Bill Gates swimming miles through the Arctic seas looking for an ice shelf sturdy enough to have his pups upon. Then that got me thinking about Planet Earth, and how now Disney has apparently turned it into a regular movie instead of the 10-hour BBC-produced David Attenborough-narrated documentary extravaganza that got me through the long winter of 2007-2008, and if Disney makes it all cutesy-poo and doesn't show great white sharks slingshotting seals through the air I am going to be most displeased.

Anyway, it turns out it's not that billionaires are dying off any faster than usual, it's that some of them have lost enough money to drop down to being merely hundred millionaires. Can you imagine? In fact, as of 2009, there are only 793 billionaires left in the whole world. It is unknown how many of them are breeding pairs producing viable offspring, and scientists have found that billionaire offspring tend to be inbred fucktards anyway. To make matters worse, the Bush administration had downgraded billionaires from their previous "endangered" status, to merely "threatened", and Obama shows no signs of re-listing them. OH TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES, WILL YOU SHOW NO MERCY TO THOSE WHO LEAST DESERVE IT?

As Goes Cleveland

The more I read, the more I realize the members of the These Tough Economic Times team are pretty well insulated from the bad things happening in other places right now. We all still have jobs, although the team member who works for a well known adult TV network (motto: "Hoping Old Dudes Will Still Pay for Soft-Core Porn on TV in the Age of Free Hard-Core Porn on the Internet") has been wisely squirreling away his pennies for a while. Those of us who own houses are managing to keep up with mortgage payments, although said houses may not be worth quite as much as they once were. Except for Blogtastic's, which I understand was quite literally the cheapest house in Reno. None of us had enough money to invest in stocks or any other worthless pieces of paper (fingers crossed on the dollar!). We live in cities not economically dependent on car manufacturing or industry in general. In short, we're doing okay. Have I rubbed it in enough?

But holy hell, did you read the Sunday New York Times article about the thousands of abandoned, worthless houses in Cleveland? The Cleve is not doing well, you guys. Houses are selling for less than their original 1920s prices--you can buy one for $500. Of course, that house has had all its appliances and pipes ripped out by scavengers, bums have been living in it, and gangs enjoy the occasional crack party there. Oh yeah, and it's in Cleveland. But still, I kind of feel like I should buy one just because I can. Not to "flip" like all the profiteering assholes who helped cause this mess, but just to have. I'll never be able to afford one in the urban West for which I have such fondness; can't I just have one in Ohio? I would hug it and squeeze it and call it George. Oo! Maybe I could put it on a flatbed truck and move it somewhere that isn't Cleveland!

I am totally okay with all the poorly-planned, ugly sprawly 1990s McMansion suburbs being abandoned and reverting back to nature, or becoming home bases for roving bands of highwaymen. It would be kind of neat to have a post-apocalyptic part of town, especially because it would presumably eventually have a Thunderdome and some crazy new style of dancing. But I am not cool with that happening to 1920s houses in a historical neighborhood called Slavic Village. Even if they are in Cleveland.

News of the Painfully Obvious

Yahoo news headline: Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke Says Regulatory Overhaul Needed.

Gee, do you think? I can’t imagine what tipped you off on that. Perhaps the fact that we are surrounded by crumbling financial institutions taking millions upon millions of dollars of aid from the federal government after years of unregulated financial free-for-all? Good eye, Detective Bernanke.

Bernanke also said the U.S. recession could end this year only if the government is successful in getting financial markets to operate more normally again. So, let me get this right… once we can get the financial market to quit operating like it’s in a recession, we won’t be in a recession anymore. Basically you’re saying that the recession will end this year if we can end the recession. That’s very insightful. Thanks, Wizard Bernanke! He’s full of other truisms, too, such as that big companies shouldn’t take excessive risks that threaten billions of dollars of investors’ and taxpayers’ money. If only people never did things that they shouldn’t. I also shouldn’t punch you in the mouth if ever I see you in person, Mr. Bernanke.

If only there were some kind of institution responsible for regulatory oversight...

Looks Like Somebody's Got Money These Days...

Hippies...

How To Fit In When Using Public Transportation: Hobo Slang Lesson 1

Let's face it. If this country keeps heading the direction we're in (experiencing slight inconveniences in our spending budgets) then we might as well just accept that it's a matter of months before we're all riding the fucking rails. And by that I mean "public transportation". What? You've never ridden a bus or subway before? What if the common folk spot you as an outsider and try to eat you?

Here's how to fit in: Hobo Slang! Hobo Slang has been passed on from the original old timey bums who hopped on trains to the modern dirty bum low class people who take public transportation and now on to you! Here are a few examples of hobo slang and how to use it. Pay attention or you'll look like a sweet back (someone only sampling hobo life)!

LESSON 1:

Bindle Stick: your polka dot bandanna full of belongings tied to a stick.
"Let me pull this single lima bean out of my bindle stick and split it with a knife so we can share it!"

Zook: an old worn out prostitute.
"Hi I'm a Zook! What's your name?"

Beagles: hot dogs
"Beagles! Beagles! I love Beagles!"

Chicken In The Clay: A chicken rolled in mud and then roasted.
"What the fuck do you mean I can't start a fire in the middle of the bus? I'm trying to cook a fucking chicken in the clay!"

The Big Burg: New York City
"Eyy This isn't-a how they-a make-a pizza in The Big Burg!"
Other hobo slang for New York City: Big Town (BE WARNED: Big Town is hobo slang for both New York AND Chicago so using Big Town in the above sentence could bring on a NY vs Chicago style pizza debate).

Clay On The Shuck: ears of corn rolled in clay and set out to roast
"Hey fellow passengers I'm making a Clay on the-wait why the fuck am I covering food with mud before I cook it?"

Dummy: A tramp that pretends to be deaf and dumb
"I can't pay the bus fare today. I'm Helen Keller! I mean I'm a dummy!"

Fag: a) a cigarette butt, b) a young hobo with homosexual tendencies
"Pardon me do you have a lighter? I think after this cigarette I'm going to attempt to have homosexual intercourse with that fag in the back of the subway"

Glomming The Grapevine: stealing clothes from a clothesline
"You wouldn't believe the deals at the Macy's sale this weekend! I felt like I was glommerganging the gloomerzang... oooh I can never get this hobo slang stuff right! Fuck it I'm getting a cab and putting it on my credit card! Hey how do you get off this thing? Conductor! Stop this bus immediately!"

Now go try those out and stay tuned for lesson 2!!!!

Recessionista. Meet the Depressionista.

Screw you Miss FancyPants Recessionista, with your free online grocery coupons and bags of prewashed arugula, the Depressionista is in the house (well, the foreclosed faux-Tuscan mini-manse in Elk Grove that's about to be snapped up for dimes on the dollar by some shady ex-Countrywide exec, but in the house nonetheless). Shattering the stereotype of the tech-averse geriatric who wouldn't know YouTube from a catheter tube, 93-year old Clara has her own Depression-era cooking channel. While thankfully short on recipes that I would've normally associated with Depression-era cuisine (no possum soup, squirrel soup, or any other soup made from small rodents) it is eerily similar to cheap ass bachelor food I ate in college and still enjoy when my wife is out of town. Throw a bunch of shit in a pan, fry it up, then put ketchup on it. If it tasted as horrible as it looked, well, you could always go and get pizza. I don't think pizza was an option during the Depression. Some things are surprising. Clara uses olive oil in some of her recipes and I wonder how available a good extra virgin olive oil was in 1933. I tend to think of the Depression as a Crisco and lard kinda time. Anyway, study up, because when things get really bad, like hock your iPhone at Slim's Gold 'n' Guns Pawn Palace bad, you may need to have a few extra kidney bean and potato recipes up your sleeve.

I totally did not make this up

I like to make fun of the jackasses who took out stupid loans to finance their unreasonable lifestyles as much as the next guy. Silly me, I bought a crappy little house in a crappy ghetto neighborhood (Motto: Even the cops won't come here!) because that's what I could afford; if I'd known I could have gotten bailed out of an adjustable rate mortgage on a fancy schmancy house with new-fangled luxuries like air-conditioning and functional doors, I certainly would have.

However, I read an article in the newspaper today that sheds light on a different facet of the housing crisis. While there were many people who were greedy and stupid, there were also some people who were just plain and simple stupid. A whole group of people in New York City apparently got swindled out of their houses by a company called "Home Savers"*, which promised to help them get out of debt by refinancing their mortgages but in actuality tricked the people out of the titles to their houses in order to get overinflated mortgages from IndyMac. I have pretty much zero financial or real estate savvy, but I think that even I would recognize a scam such as this, especially right about the time that I signed over the deed to my house. The article is mainly about one sad little old lady named Waver Brickhouse, for whom I actually do feel sorry. It would be nice to live in a world where people don't go out of their way to steal houses from little old ladies.

In any case, this story brings to the forefront another important point, which is that somewhere in New York City is a housing crisis victim whose actual name is Waver Brickhouse.

*I like that the house-stealing company is named "Home Savers". It's like the happy names that Bush gave to things to cover up their devious intent, like the "Healthy Forest Initiative" that allowed clear-cutting on National Forests with no environmental review, or "Enhanced Interrogation", which meant government-sanctioned torture.