Daily Thoughts

Remember those names, because when I’m through, they will never forget mine. Merle Whitehead owns the largest real estate company in NY State, and the 7th largest in the country, Realty USA . This is the most recent article I could find on him.
His company bought First Priority Mortgage, and he is the CEO of that company. He is a very rich man.

This man bought my privately held mortgage. His company didn’t buy it, HE bought it. I was never given an account number or a payment coupon book. I was never put into their computers, from what I was told. Someone in his company just sent me a letter every month asking for my money. They haven’t sent one lately. That’s because I will be three months behind as of this month.

Two months ago, I wrote to them asking for a renegotiation. I laid out exactly what I needed to get on my feet. I got no response, so I contacted the President of the company (who I was told owns my mortgage, but I then found out I was wrong). I got a letter from their attorney informing me that they were considering my proposal. I haven’t heard anything since, despite my making several attempts to communicate with them.

I have been given a runaround and lied to by this company ever since I lost my job and informed them that I did not know how much longer I would be able to make the payments. I made my payment last month. I tried to make enough money to do it this month, but I couldn’t.

My house isn’t even worth much more than what I owe them, not because I was stupid and got an ARM I couldn’t pay. I’ve never refinanced my mortgage. I just live in one of the most economically depressed areas of Florida, and fell on hard times, like millions of other U.S. citizens.

I have said before that part of this is my fault, but not all of it. I won’t take responsibility for all of it. I’ve done everything I am able to do to pull myself out of this hole, but I have physical and mental problems that have made it impossible. I take responsibility for what was my fault.

On a whim today, I decided to see if First Priority had foreclosures listed on their website. They do. I believe my house is one of those listed, because it is the only on on my street listed, even though it has no address.

I’ve received no notices, nothing from this company, yet they possibly have foreclosed on my house and have it listed for sale. I don’t know if this is even legal. Could they have foreclosed on a Florida property through the NY courts without serving me with notice? Slimier things have been done.

I’ve been noticing people riding by my house very slowly. I think that First Priority is letting them drive by in an attempt to sell my house out from under me.

I can’t find out if First Priority Mortgage got any of the bailout money. I’m sure they did, considering who owns it.

When I am done, no one will ever forget the name Merle Whitehead or First Priority Mortgage. I won’t be just another statistic. Somebody needs to make this known, that this man, who has bought and sold more real estate than anyone in the United States, and is a multi-multi-millionaire, maybe even a billionaire, may not be what he seems on the outside. I don’t know him personally,so I can’t tell you for sure. I’m just stating the facts in my case.

There is no doubt whatever that he made multi-millions from the housing boom, that much is clear. He owned the realty company and the finance company. I thought that was illegal, but evidently not.  How can our government allow the people who are selling you the house to also finance it?  That should be covered under anti-trust or something.  It’s just plain wrong, in any case.

I’ve never been into social networking, but I will be now. I’m going to post this to every social networking site I can find. I’d appreciate it if you’d help me.

My friend got fired from Publix because he “stole” a pack of cigarettes. He was a manager, and had been for many years. He didn’t really steal them. He was closing, the registers had all been closed, so he took the cigarettes and left the money in the back room so they could put it into the next day’s till.

So, if someone can be fired from Publix for supposedly “stealing” a pack of cigarettes, what are we to do with the multi-millionaire executives who stole $700 BILLION of the taxpayer’s money? My money…your money…everyone’s money.

I do not use the world “stole” lightly. To my way of thinking, the whole bailout is a pyramid scheme cooked up by Bush and Co. to get their buddies as much money as they could before they left office.

How do we fix this? Can they redo the deal once Bush and Co. are gone? By then, will all the money be gone? And where the hell is all this money coming from? We have an astronomical deficit, so where did they get $700 BILLION dollars for these crooks?

And who is ever going to be held accountable for this? Will the execs ever be prosecuted? Where is all the money the mortgage brokers made from their crooked dealings? Will they have to pay any of it back?

I swear, I just can’t take much more of this. The anger is killing me! I’m struggling, and I mean really struggling, and these crooks are walking away with BILLIONS!!

No wonder people are killing themselves right and left.

I seriously cannot see how anyone can think that giving bonuses to executives of companies like the mortgage banks that put us into this crisis are appropriate under ANY circumstances.  I think they all should be fire, no golden umbrellas, no bonus packages, and furthermore have their stock paid out at today’s prices.

I’ve long said that this whole $700 Billion deal was just a way to get a lot of taxpayer money to Bush’s buddies before he left office.  I think everyone knows that, but it’s so unspeakable, that no one will say it.

Well, I’m saying it!  This whole thing was orchestrated to give the most despicable, most corrupt, and most unspeakably horrendous group of elite businessmen mo’ money! mo’ money! mo’ money! before the Republicans got out of office and they didn’t have a chance to get it.  

 This country has been RAPED!!!  I do not speak that word lightly. The wealthy and powerful have literally RAPED our economy, and are walking away unscathed.  

WHY AREN’T WE MORE ANGRY???  WHY AREN’T WE MARCHING ON WASHINGTON, OR EVEN ON WALL STREET??? 

I’ll tell you why.  Because we are afraid.  We are now terrified of our own government, and what they will do to us, or know about us.  We are afraid that Homeland Security will come knocking on our doors if we dare to speak out, just like the Germans were afraid of the Gestapo, the Russians were afraid of the KGB, and the Iraqis were afraid of Saddam Husseins Elite Guard.

I’m not afraid.  I don’t have much, so they can’t take much away from me.  I’m telling you, something has to be done!  I would rather die than to see this country go down in flames while those asshats walk away with money falling out of their pockets and purses.

Anybody got any ideas?  Well, in the meantime, watch this, and maybe it will give you some. 

Appropriate  Compensation for AIG Executives

The gravy train has jumped the tracks, and the UAW is being toppled off of its throne. Just as the Steel Workers union and the Textile Workers Union destroyed their own industries, the UAW has just about done the same for the auto builders.

Auto workers in the American based Toyota and Honda factories make an average of $48 an hour in wages and benefits, as opposed to $70.51 for Ford, $73.26 for GM, and $75.86 for Chrysler. Even at this, the Japanese autos are better built, and they have kicked our butts where hybrid vehicles are concerned.

But the most outrageous statistics at all are these:

When a D3 (Detroit 3 carmaker) lays an employee off, that employee continues to receive all benefits - medical, retirement, etc., etc., PLUS an hourly wage of $31/hour.
Here’s a typical story….
Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.’s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working — on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.
“We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper,” he says. “Otherwise, I just sit.”
Pool is one of more than 12,000 American autoworkers who, instead of installing windshields or bending sheet metal, spend their days counting the hours in a jobs bank set up by Detroit automakers as demanded by the United Auto Workers Union - UAW - as part of an extraordinary job security agreement.

In addition to this nonsense, retired workers also cost the company $31.00 an hour in pensions and benefits. That’s over $1240 a week, or almost $65,000 a year, per retiree. Since retirees now outnumber working employees 2 to 1, that’s quite a chunk of money.

Living in Florida, we have a lot of these retirees in our midst. Having lived here for 12 years, and worked in retail most of that time, I can tell you for a fact, that the retired Michigan auto workers are some of the rudest, most obnoxious people we have to deal with. They also have the strongest sense of entitlement. I guess that comes from making way too much money for way too long without having to get an education.

I, for one, will be happy to see the auto workers and the UAW get its comeuppance. It’s long overdue, and maybe it will humble some of these retirees that make our lives in Florida so miserable.

Sources:
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?52,862419,862509
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2162.cfm

Yeah, thought that would get your attention.

Seriously, though, I have considered it. I won’t lie. The suicide rate is rising among middle aged Americans.

I’m pretty whacked out right now. I’m middle aged, and I don’t see my life ever getting much better. I’m tired of struggling. I’m taking up space and air that some more motivated, much younger person could probably utilize to better advantage.

Some days, I seriously don’t know what keeps me going, except that I don’t want to die with a dirty house. Not that anyone would really care, but I can just see them whispering around kitchen tables for years about how messy my house was when I died.

My grandmother had a nervous breakdown once because she couldn’t get the floors clean enough. She lived in the country. It was the 1950’s, summertime, no a/c, and all the doors and windows were open. She literally went crazy because she couldn’t get all the dust off of the floor.

Now me, I’m going crazy because I don’t care if there is dust on the floor. Believe me, there are more cobwebs in my brain than there are on my ceilings, and I just don’t care. I don’t care about much of anything anymore.

I especially do not give a holy shite what people think of my opinions. Hey, Rush Limbaugh doesn’t care, and look where he is! I’d like to get rich and famous saying outrageous things.

The problem is, the things I would say aren’t really that outrageous, except to some bleeding heart, politically correct segment of the population who thinks you should be nice to everybody. I think there are some people you should not be nice to. Here are just a few:

Illegal Immigrants. Get ‘em the hell out of my country, THEN put up a fence to keep them out! I don’t give a holy crap what kind of jobs they do. Get rid of ‘em! Better yet, put them all into the military and send them to the middle east. Bring our American boys home.

Lifelong Welfare Recipients. Yeah, they supposedly got rid of those by passing laws with loopholes so big, an elephant could fall through. Make THEM do the jobs that the illegal immigrants we just tossed out on their asses used to do.

Child Abusers and Pedophiles. Just shoot ‘em and get it over with. Better yet, hang ‘em in the town square so we can all cheer.

Rapists and Wife Beaters. Send them all to some country where it seems to be acceptable to treat your wife and children like camel dung. I won’t name names, but I’m sure you could think of a few of those countries.

Drug Dealers Who Target Kids. Overdose them on demerol and watch them slowly suffocate while you’re pouring hot wax on their genitals. Yeah, I REALLY REALLY hate these people.

Well Off, Holier Than Thou SAHM’s. O.K., they don’t really belong in the same category with the above people, but they annoy me. I say lock ‘em up in a Head Start room with 100 screaming kids and Barney tapes playing for about a week. See how much better they are than us working moms then.

There are a lot of other types of people I don’t like, but if I put it all in one post, I will have nothing else to rant about, so I’ll stop here. Feel free to name some of your own.

This morning, I had the song “Slip Sliding Away” by Paul Simon running through my head, especially the part where it says.

I know a woman
became a wife
These are the very words she uses to describe her life
She said a good day, ain’t got no rain
She said a bad day is when I lie in bed
and I think of things that might have been

That pretty much how I feel lately, except that I’m not anybody’s wife…thank God!

So I decided to go to my favorite online forum. Someone has been blathering on for weeks about how people have left, somebody got mean, somebody got their feelings hurt. These are all reasonable adults, supposedly. So I’m saying I hope it wasn’t me who hurt anyone’s feelings, and that I hope everyone comes back. Then I get this email saying it WAS me who hurt this person’s feelings and ran everybody off.

Seems this guy was ragging on the U.S., and I told him that if he didn’t like the U.S. to go the f*** back to his country. I know, sounds harsh, but here’s the scenario.

I’m a patriot. I’m totally wrapped up in red, white, and blue. I feel like I have the right to criticize my government because I’m a citizen. It doesn’t matter how you get to be a citizen, you can wait your time and be naturalized, but as a citizen, you have certain inalienable rights. One of these is to not be happy with your government, and to express it as loudly as you damn well please.

I do not feel like these same rights apply to people who come here with absolutely no intention of becoming citizens, partake of whatever the U.S. has to offer, make themselves reasonably successful because of our great country, but still long to return to their native shores, and are only waiting for the opportunity to do so.

I have to say one thing here. I rant a lot about moving to Jamaica, and I would do it. I would go somewhere I could be more at peace in my life if I found I couldn’t find that peace here. And if that country allowed me to be happy and reasonably successful, I would not be bitching about how horrible it was. I would be thanking my lucky stars that there was a country that took me in and allowed me to flourish.

This guy was not happy with Obama being elected President. I don’t really remember the conversation. The thread was deleted, and it was close to the time my mother died, so I seriously don’t know what I said or did back then. I could have shot someone and not remembered, I was that upset. So my nerves were raw, and someone who isn’t a citizen at all had the audacity to attack our next President. I probably lost it.

But to be honest, if my mother were alive and well, and I wasn’t financially and emotionally stressed to the limit, I probably still would have let go on him. Like I said, I have the right to do what he did, he doesn’t. That’s how I feel. I will never change that feeling. If you hate this country so freakin’ much, go the hell back to where you came from.

Nevertheless, I apologized, simply because I did not at the time remember what I had said, or why. I also left the forum. I loved that forum. I had been posting there since 1999. Now it’s lost to me, because someone went behind the scenes whining about how abused he was, and how hurt he was (oh for Christ sake, buck up and be a man!) and turned people against me for saying what any patriotic American could have and probably would have said.

When it comes to this country, I am well aware of the faults and fallacies and downright lies we have to face every day. But I’m sick and tired of bowing down to people who come here for our freedoms and protections, but don’t want to pledge their allegiance to this country, in hopes they can some day go home. In my opinion, political asylum should be abolished. Terrorists have come into this country for years claiming political asylum, and disappeared into the population. From there, they blew up our buildings and killed our people.

This is my country. I don’t care if I hurt your feelings. If you don’t like it, get the hell out! Go back to whatever freaking country you came from, and don’t come back here ever!

I was going to give up this blog, because I was depressed about someone who was trying very hard to make my life miserable. Then I found out that this person is twice as miserable as I am, and I decided to do something else.

Today is going to my first positivity day. I’m tired of being down, and depressed (a physical condition, but I’m fighting it), and negative. I’m going to be positive from now on, and try to turn every day into rainbows and sunshine.

Yes, I know that’s impossible. I know some days I’ll get angry and depressed, but if I can carry one positive thing away from that, I’ll be happy with that day.

The first thing I’m going to do is to say to anyone I’ve had problems with in the past, I’m sorry. I fully accept my part in any problems that we may have had, and I am releasing all of that right now. For my part, you will see no more clinging to past hurts. Yesterday is gone, and there is nothing we can do about it. We may never be friends, but at least we can have a truce, a cease fire if you will.

I’m a creative person. Every day, I’m going to create something, be it a craft project, a writing, a garden spot, anything positive and creative. You can only change the world by creating, not by tearing down.

Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to fight injustice, such as the Google issue. I am sick and tired of corporate greed, and I see my struggles, and my triumph over those struggles, as something positive. Perhaps I can show those with similar problems that they, too, can fight the giants and win.

I struggle daily with financial issues, self-esteem issues, depression issues, and plain out old laziness. My life is just barely liveable. I intend to change that. I’m the only one who can. I’ve been sitting around like Rapunzel waiting for a prince to come and rescue me from my self-built prison tower. Today, I’ll leave the tower and see what good I can do in the world.

If each of us honestly tries to just do one creative, helpful, or positive thing a day, we can change the world. There are more of us than them. Just look at what happened after 9/11. Over 3,000 people died, but millions of people rose to the occasion and brought this country back from the brink of destruction.

Our country is in trouble, no doubt. It’s in trouble because of the greed and avarice of a few very powerful people. Believe me, these demons are laughing all the way to their private planes as they leave our government. Their main goal was to rape the economy and get out. So here we are, some of us, like me, in a real financial crisis. This country has seen worse. We have come back from worse. We can come back from this.

But we can’t come back by expecting the government to bail us out. We can only do it by taking positive steps in our own lives. Start today. Let this be your positivity day as well.

You were supposed to be our safeguard in Congress. You were supposed to be there to guarantee that Obama and his crooked cronies didn’t slam their agenda through the Senate, and onto the taxpayers. Why would you accept the Secretary of State post?

I remember reading that someone threatened you about getting behind Obama or your career in politics in New York was over. I remember watching you at the convention, and even though the words were strong, there was a look in your eyes that couldn’t be disguised….anger.

You know what they’re saying, that this is “keep your friends close, keep your enemies under your thumb.” Why would you let yourself be put under anyone’s thumb, Hillary, why?

And what in the world possessed Bill to let the White House approve all his speeches? OMG! That is just ludicrous, for an upstart President to want to edit an ex-President’s speeches!

I will never understand this, Hillary, as long as I live — unless…

Are you doing this to destroy him once and for all? If he fails at foreign policy, will you run in four years? That would be great, but I don’t see how you could do that. Of course, if Colin Powell is any precedent, you could try your best, quit, write your memoirs, and wait until 2012 to slam his ass to the wall. You and I both know that if Colin Powell had been the nominee instead of John McCain, no Democrat would have had a chance. It could be the same for you, you know.

So go, do your best, but don’t forget, you belong in the east wing, not the west wing.

If I can see that Barack Obama is trying to get Hillary out of the way so she won’t be in the Senate interfering with everything he wants to do, then surely Hillary Clinton can.

Of course he wants her globe trotting, all around the world, all the time. He’d rather have her anywhere but on Capitol Hill making his health care plan look bad. After all, she has a plan of her own.

He knows that they would clash over the health care plan, and that he can’t afford to have an enemy in the Senate as powerful as Hillary. She does still have some faithful supporters, and he knows that she could block anything he wanted to push through if she wanted to.

My advice to Hillary is to stay right where you are. There is growing sentiment against Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and if she stays in the senate, at the end of four years, she could well be one of the most powerful people on Capitol Hill.

But will she have a choice? After all, she was threatened during the end days of the primary to play nice, or she would not have a future in New York politics OR national politics. Will they threaten her again, because they want her out of the way so they can push through Obama’s programs?

Stand tough, Hillary! Don’t let them push you into a position that will take you away from your beloved house and home, and keep you from doing the job you love.

Not that you would not make a great Secretary of State, but all of us who know and love you know that that’s not what you want. You just want to be a Senator. So be one. Stay where you are. How many Secretaries of State went on to bigger and better things? Not many I can think of.

Please, Hillary, stay and fight for us in congress. We need your strength and conviction.

This country is in an economic recession, or so they say. Today, they said it will get much worse, and in the next two years, we will likely be in a depression.

I don’t think I can get any more depressed.

I’m still waiting to hear from my mortgage holder as to whether they will work with me on my mortgage payments. I managed to come up with a payment this month, which keeps me out of bankruptcy court for awhile, but for how long, who knows. I also managed to come up with the money for my homeowner’s insurance payment. If I let that lapse, I’d be done for. They would have cause to foreclose on me even if I was paid up to date.

I’m sure whoever is sitting around deciding my fate has a fat bank account from all the fees they raked in from unsuspecting victims of the mortgage industry. I’m sure they don’t need my money.

The point is, like I said in my last post, they are sick people. They don’t care if they NEED the money. They just WANT it. They can never have enough of it. They will die and make their heirs very wealthy, and for what?

What will the legacy be of these people who destroyed the lives of so many Americans? Will they go down in disgrace? It doesn’t seem so.

Even tonight Paulson admitted that he was just handing over money to the banks, and they were not using it the way they had promised. The oversight that was promised is not in place. $350 Billion has been handed over to these crooks, and they are doing nothing except lining their pockets.

Is it any wonder I’m depressed? I am tired of being a victim. From now on, I’m going to fight back, with words and actions. I’m going to let the world know just what I think should be done to fix this country. I’m sure a lot of people will agree with me, but what are YOU going to do?

We the people truly do have the power here. Without us, there are no banks or mortgage companies or mega-corporations. Without us, there is nothing.

I say we should start shopping locally, refuse to put our money into these stupid, greedy banks, and let them fall. Let them fall hard and fast. Let them make a huge crashing sound that will be heard around the world.

Let’s take care of each other and see what they think of us then. Let’s refuse to enlist in their armed forces, and refuse to fight their wars. Let’s refuse to be victims of their games anymore.

Let’s JUST SAY NO to the greed and corruption that IS this country.

WE are the people, and WE have power. Let’s show them just how much.