Barry's economy kicks into gear!

[dutch508]

leftyladyfrommo (7,842 posts) http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025775186

Life as the new Lower Middle Class.

All of my friends (women mostly but not all) have fallen into this whole new class of people. We aren't poor because we have more money than that. But are definitely lower middle class now. Most of us have quite a bit of education and experience but that doesn't matter anymore because we are over 50. Some of us rely on our SS and some of us aren't old enough for that so we are using all of our life savings just to make it until our SS kicks in.

Most of us work some sort of low paying part-time job. No benefits. Obamacare has been a godsend for the people who don't qualify for Medicare yet.

We drive small, economy cars or older cars that we keep repairing and praying that they will make it another 50 miles.

We live in small houses that we mostly own. The thermostat is set on 60 during the day and lower at night because we don't want to run up the gas bill.

We watch how much water we use. We turn off anything electrical that we aren't using to keep the electric bill down.

Food is a problem. It's hard to cook economically for just one or two people. We really need to be eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies but they are so expensive. Now the beans we can afford and we mix them into stuff just about every meal. Or we go to Taco Bell where we can get a $2 burrito.

We don't travel.

Clothes come from Walmart. It's a copout but it's cheaper than Target or K Mart.

I'm currently doing about as well as I was when I first got out of college and got my first job. I'm lucky. I have a warm house and a car and can make my utility payments and still eat. Some of my friends aren't quite so lucky.

This is our new reality. It's not terrible. We get by. But it's sure not how we expected to live out our senior years.

We didn't vote Republican.

Well, there's your problem.

liberalmike27 (2,180 posts)
96. Yea, I resemble that

Luckily I live in the South, but I'm in my computer room, it's about 60 in the house, but I close the door, and light a candle, and turn on an extra computer, instead of turning on the heater. I have the minimum water bill. I do have basic, and Internet, which is my phone. I've got a microwave, but it's broken, my gas is off, and I don't cook here. That was a deliberate solution, as I was paying ten bucks a month, even when I used none of it. I've got a quilt wrapped around me right now, and in truth I'm lucky about the Winter, because I'm pretty hot-natured anyway.

I don't go anywhere much, I don't eat out much, Um... you just told us you don't cook at home...  I'm a few years from SS, and my student loan has defaulted, so they'll probably take my SS when I do get that, and it won't be much, since I never made much.

I've also got a small car, that gets pretty good mileage. Thankfully my friend owns this house, ...but you don't have gas for the stove?... and he gives me a good rent for the neighborhood, but I've been burgled 4 times in 12 years, most recently a hole was shot in my roof, that cost my landlord $260, fairly cheap but unnecessary expense.

Things aren't good, and I blame a lot of the previou paragraph's troubles on the economy being bad too. So, bad economy not only affects me directly, but through others who are experiencing it as well.

Enough whining, although like the original, I turn off everything, unplug things I don't need, and I still try to find little ways to cut my expenses, even though they are pretty minimal now. No insurance, Medicaid I guess, if I need it.

Worst of all, I live in Alabama, one of the poorest states, populated by 65% of idiots that vote Republican. Jeez.

Yeah... ok...

marions ghost (17,876 posts)
48. My view is not so rosy

We are not living in the same times as our grandparents. What's a "good shake" these days? What's the correction for this? I don't think anyone really knows at this point.

I'm tired of trying to "correct" a system that is corrupt to the core. The 1% will continue to take and take. These Corporate Rethuglicons are not capable of reform. Their narcissist/ sociopathic traits will allow them to exploit the rest of us without the slightest bit of guilt or concern for the good of the whole. They have demonstrated this for several years now. I have business-oriented relatives who have money and influence, and those who don't. I see the situation clearly. It's not theoretical to me.

I think many Americans will be forced into extreme austerity conditions before it's all over.

I hope you're right and that people will get mad enough. Maybe when they can no longer get their anti-depressants. That is what it will take. The type of anger that makes people band together and fight back. Because it will never be granted by the 1% rich corporates.

Wait til Barry make 11 million new citizens.

Skidmore (32,524 posts)
88. Pretty much our story too.

Never have made above $60K with combined salaries. We have very little in our home that hasn't been recycled or repurposed. We only buy new if we need a major appliance.

On the surface it looks like we have much. For example, we have a large media library but most of it comes from boxes of VHS and DVD materials that people leave at the curb. On the surface it looks like we have invested thousands of dollars in entertainment. We have only purchased one television in twenty years yet we have several in the house. My husband has been given several of them by people who did not want to repair them or wanted to go to the next model. He repairs them himself. It looks like we have spent thousands again. Used or free books on the bookshelf and on my computer. Every lamp in the house was one that was thrown out by someone else. Side tables in the living room are repurposed trays mounted on stools (made them myself and they look great). Some of the wall art are reclaimed from stuff people tossed out and we have found a couple of pieces of value among them.

What we do buy is food, phone and internet service, copays on medical services, vehicle and vehicle maintenance (an essential where we live), utilities, and occasionally we replace clothing (although I tend to wear stuff I like forever).

We get by. It is much easier because we no longer have children at home and they are busy raising their own families now. Financially, they are so much better off then I could ever have dreamed for myself during my lifetime. I am pleased that they are able to raise their children with less financial stress than I experienced in raising them but sometimes I think that the having of stuff is ever so much more stressful than living with essentials. The older I get the more I want to be saddled with in terms of just sheer stuff. Basically, the essentials for survival without undue worry and an occasional something to nourish the soul is all I would like at this stage of my life.

What a wonderful life. Most of your stuff is scrounged from the DUmp. How fitting.

CountAllVotes (12,685 posts)
89. I have nothing but old stuff as well

I have three television sets, one with a built-in VCR on it. The other two are small ones but hey, they still work.

I dumped the cable down to 12 channels about a year ago (saves about $70/month). We never go on vacations, never.

As for furniture, I have a 25 year old sofa and one recliner and a bunch of very old furniture that belonged to my late parents with dates on them that say 1950; the year my late parents were married!

I buy what clothes I have new as I learned my lesson the hard way about buying used clothing!!!

I bought something "used" that was made out of wool and it had clothing moths living in it and they spread throughout my entire house and I lost thousands of dollars worth of all sorts of things ranging from old rugs to the scotch tape dispenser! My god what a horror of a time I have been having as of recent.

It was just last week that the local power company sent a rep. over to "give us a new refrigerator". There was no new refrigerator in the deal at all (a total damned lie it was!). What he did was red-tag my furnace, stove/oven and even shot to shut down the hot water heater (no luck awhole). He was so stupid that he changed the setting to VERY HOT (RED) and I damn near got burned in the shower before I figured it out. We, yes we, had to figure out what this idiot did and reset it to a lower temperature.

Complaints filed up the awhole believe me by ME and that was after my highly depressed husband (who is 78 years old, a vet and going blind) said, "I want to commit suicide".  Sonofa*******ed B*TCH! 

Power company full of B.S. lies and NO, they will NOT GET AWAY with this! They want the likes of "us" to be = DEAD!!!!!!

Next step for me will be the District Attorney ...

On and on this crap goes and no, the poor never get a damned thing best I can tell. These greedy people (yes greedy -- had a person call me up to tell me I needed a new furnace for $3,000.00 and gee, financing is available I was told!  This was NOT THE CASE but it was the power company that had this place call me up and tell me this pile o'shyte!). Old furnace is working again and it made me know for certain that these people do not care about "us".

  WTF was that?

CountAllVotes (12,685 posts)
93. Thank you

I feel very alone and like a total loser being I can no longer work thanks to having MS.

I was told that the low-income housing in Marin is available if you make less than $80,000.00/year and the cost is $900.00/month for a one bedroom apartment!

$80,000.00/year?

How about $8,000.00/year = homeless.

One big giant  WTF again

 

 

JimDandy (4,391 posts)
103. What is red tagging?

Don't understand why the electric company would be involved with providing fridges or have anything to do with appliances. Sounds like you didn't want him in your house but he entered anyway. How is any of that legal for him to do?

CountAllVotes (12,685 posts)
107. It was a clear case of misrepresentation

Once the guy got in my house and told me that he had no refrigerator for me (mine is too "new") he began to say, oh well let me give you this new shower head for your shower. He began working his way around my entire house and checked the furnace and said it had a problem and the stove (same story) and called up the power company and said that I'd be up and running again within 24-hours. That is what red-tagging is = shut your furnace off so you cannot use and the stove was the same story.

He ended up leaving here 7 hrs later and don't you just know he raked in some OT on that "visit" to help the disabled/elderly.

My husband said the same thing: What authority did he have to red-tag these appliances? He is nothing but some two-bit awhole making $9.00 an hr. that knows nothing.

My friend I was speaking with told me to contact the District Attorney and also the Area Council for the Aged and also the local Senior Resource Center to see if they can assist me. I filed a compliant with the BBB already and they want me to close the matter.

OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!!

It sounds like you are living in an assisted living facility...

happyslug (12,764 posts)
15. That use to be called "Working Class".

Since WWII, the propaganda was do to the great economic engine that was the American Capitalist Economy, the old Working Class could live Middle Class lifestyles. Thus many working class stiffs started to call themselves 'Middle Class" and this was especially true if the terms were limited to "Rich, Middle Class, and poor'.

On the other hand over 1/2 of the people who call themselves 'Middle Class" would opt for 'Working Class' if that option was available. 10% of the people would call themselves Poor, 10% Rich, 40% Working Class, 40% Middle Class. The "Cutoff" tended to be based on the type of work they did and Median Income (Roughly $50,000 a year today). You could have a "Middle Class" professor earning less money then a Working Class Steel Worker (A case one of my Professors pointed out in the 1970s when he was discussing some of his old High School fellow students and what he and they were earning in the mid 1970s).

I bring up the above story for it shows that often the division between Working Class and Middle Class is vague. It does exist and when given an option to show the difference, people recognize and accept the difference. On the other hand, the working class took the biggest hit in the 1970s to 1990s and in reality can NOT go any further down. The Upper Middle Class was hard hit by the inflation of the 1970s (and that they did NOT have cost of living clauses in their contracts) but recovered in the 1980s as the Working Class went rapidly down hill (mostly with the lost of Cost of Living Increases, so that inflation slowly ate their income away).

In the 1980s till 2008, Credit Card debt and student loans kept the working class afloat, but with the economy collapse of 2008 even those options are gone.

Karl Marx made an observation on WHEN AND WHY revolution occur and his observations are read and followed even by the CIA today. Karl Marx was the first to show WHEN such revolutions occur, NOT when things go from bad to worse, but when things bottom out and start to improve. Marx also pointed out as things go downhill, it is the lower end of the Upper Middle Class that indicts a revolution (when what Marx called the Petit Bourgeois income is squeezed so that they are pushed into the working class, you have a revolution. i.e when the people making $50,000 to $100,000 end up making less then $50,000 a year, a revolution is on its way).

You seem to be reporting what Karl Marx said occurs just before a revolution. It is the base a revolution springs from. It takes something else to release the spring but when it is released it is these former upper Middle Class people, who are now in the working class, that lead the people in the revolution. These are the leaders in the street, in the offices and factories who then end up supporting the top end of the Revolution (Who tend to be from the Upper Middle Class for they have the money to be in a position to take over, as opposed to these lower level members of the upper middle class who tend NOT to be in a position to take over.

Side note: Such local leaders can move up as the revolution progresses, but are rarely mention as leaders in the Revolution. Most of the Russian Generals of WWII had small roles in 1917 Revolution, they moved up afterward. In Germany many of the people who ended up running Germany during WWII, had only a small role in the Nazi takeover in 1932, but moved up afterward. In Iran you saw the same thing after the Revolution of 1979.

Just a comment that this is NOT a good sign.

  ****ing Marxists.

leftyladyfrommo (7,842 posts)
68. My house is 750sq ft.

I live ina lower income neighborhood but it's not high crime. Everybody has a car. Most people work somewhere.

I don't think of myself as impoverished. Probably other people seeme that way but I don't. I grew up very middleclass.

Oh, for ****s face. 750 Sq Ft? Thats a single floor house thats 25 ft by 30 ft.

Warpy (79,766 posts)
82. That's about how big my house is

with a badly converted attached one car garage that I'm using to house my enormous beast of a rug loom.

I was impoverished and it wasn't fun. My dad surprised me with a portfolio that generates enough income to live on, enough to buy fresh fruit so I'm middle class at last, even though most people would be pinched by what I live on.

So--- you are living on what your Dad left you? Get the **** out.

CountAllVotes (12,685 posts)
110. That sounds like the house I have Two bedrooms and one very small bathroom which needs to be remodeled badly. I cannot find anyone to help do this job. One guy said he'd redo the caulking in the solitary disabled shower unit that is in there for $300.00. When I asked him, "What about the rest of the shower?". He said that was up to me to do and that I should be used to doing hard core ass busting work being I am a homeowner. I told him that if I was well enough to do all of this, I should be looking for a full-time job somewhere. What a greedy bastard!

I told him that as a person with the disability that I have which is MS, that this is no longer a possible thing for me to do as I live in severe pain and that moving is painful for me much less scrubbing down a bunch of tile and whitened grout. He could have cared less as to what the job entailed, he just wanted $300.00 to recaulk the seal around the pan on the shower unit which needs to be replaced (or something!).

As for my husband, he cannot do it as he has partial sight in one eye only and can no longer read nor drive. He cannot see well enough to do it plus he is pushing 80 years old for Christ's sake (and a vet if that matters one tiny little bit!)! He even tried to get him to do it believe it or not. I feel so very sad for my husband. He is from Ireland and has had an extremely difficult life. Being drafted into the U.S. Army illegally was just the tip of the iceberg that broke and fell off after he came to America in the mid-1950s. Shame on all of us for allowing such crap! 

**** YOU PUKES! Every damned one of you!!!

Yeah... I am sensing a deep deep level of crazy here...

leftyladyfrommo (7,842 posts)
69. We don't want to get married. Most of us aren't interested inmeeting men. We've all had enough of that. Attachments to men have caused a lot of older women to end up on the poor end of things.

KingCharlemagne (1,164 posts)
87. Your post is one of the best arguments for (Democratic) Socialism I have read in quite some time because of all the suffering you and your spouse have undergone, most of it at the hands of or due to actions taken by our capitalist political class. I have little I can offer you, other than comradely solidarity and sympathy. My wife and I are in near-identical circumstances (save that our place doesn't have room for a freezer chest), so I read your post as thought I were reading about my own life.

As a practical aside, I've learned that one can use one's crockpot to prepare stews and such (using on-sale ingredients) and then freeze several leftovers for later consumption. (I've got a whole roasting chicken going in our crockpot right now and will turn some of it into chicken curry and some more of it into a chicken cacciatore sauce, both of which can easily be frozen.) Allows one to take advantage of those sales you reference, although I think you have us beat in the economizing department.

****ing Socialists.

[diesel driver]

In conclusion, their lives (and I use that term loosely) is, was, or always has been, in the shitter, they've voted dimrat all their lives, yet it's all the fault of the republicans.

   Riiiggghhhttt!   

[Tess Anderson]

Hey, I logged in to pull this thread - it is great. I've learned, for example, that warpy has a really tiny house dominated by some loom or something, and that some DUmmy actually believes that the power company was going to give her a free refridgerator. 

DUmmy "skidmore" ought to ask her grown children to help her, if they would. These people are so miserable and nasty, though.

Response to leftyladyfrommo (Reply #68)

Sun Nov 9, 2014, 09:56 AM

 CountAllVotes (12,685 posts)

110. That sounds like the house I have


Two bedrooms and one very small bathroom which needs to be remodeled badly. I cannot find anyone to help do this job. One guy said he'd redo the caulking in the solitary disabled shower unit that is in there for $300.00. When I asked him, "What about the rest of the shower?". He said that was up to me to do and that I should be used to doing hard core ass busting work being I am a homeowner. I told him that if I was well enough to do all of this, I should be looking for a full-time job somewhere. What a greedy bastard!
 
I told him that as a person with the disability that I have which is MS, that this is no longer a possible thing for me to do as I live in severe pain and that moving is painful for me much less scrubbing down a bunch of tile and whitened grout. He could have cared less as to what the job entailed, he just wanted $300.00 to recaulk the seal around the pan on the shower unit which needs to be replaced (or something!).
 
As for my husband, he cannot do it as he has partial sight in one eye only and can no longer read nor drive. He cannot see well enough to do it plus he is pushing 80 years old for Christ's sake (and a vet if that matters one tiny little bit!)! He even tried to get him to do it believe it or not. I feel so very sad for my husband. He is from Ireland and has had an extremely difficult life. Being drafted into the U.S. Army illegally was just the tip of the iceberg that broke and fell off after he came to America in the mid-1950s. Shame on all of us for allowing such crap!



**** YOU PUKES! Every damned one of you!!!

stupid old bitch

[JohnnyReb]

Obama is building one room cow-dung-straw houses for all his supporters......just like in his homeland.

[Big Dog]

My response to all of these complaining DUmmies:

Your "need" does not create a claim against my property. Stop expecting the government to be your thief.

[VivisMom]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025775186

leftyladyfrommo (7,843 posts)

Life as the new Lower Middle Class.

All of my friends (women mostly but not all) have fallen into this whole new class of people. We aren't poor because we have more money than that. But are definitely lower middle class now. Most of us have quite a bit of education and experience but that doesn't matter anymore because we are over 50. Some of us rely on our SS and some of us aren't old enough for that so we are using all of our life savings just to make it until our SS kicks in.

Most of us work some sort of low paying part-time job. No benefits. Obamacare has been a godsend for the people who don't qualify for Medicare yet.

We drive small, economy cars or older cars that we keep repairing and praying that they will make it another 50 miles.

We live in small houses that we mostly own. The thermostat is set on 60 during the day and lower at night because we don't want to run up the gas bill.

We watch how much water we use. We turn off anything electrical that we aren't using to keep the electric bill down.

Food is a problem. It's hard to cook economically for just one or two people. We really need to be eating lots of fresh fruits and veggies but they are so expensive. Now the beans we can afford and we mix them into stuff just about every meal. Or we go to Taco Bell where we can get a $2 burrito.

We don't travel.

Clothes come from Walmart. It's a copout but it's cheaper than Target or K Mart.

I'm currently doing about as well as I was when I first got out of college and got my first job. I'm lucky. I have a warm house and a car and can make my utility payments and still eat. Some of my friends aren't quite so lucky.

This is our new reality. It's not terrible. We get by. But it's sure not how we expected to live out our senior years.

We didn't vote Republican.

Give me a break, lady.

My question to you is: if you have ALLLL this education, and ALLLLL this experience, why are you working a shitty part-time job? What happened to you that you lost your full-time job (assuming you ever had one.) Did you not save anything? No 401k? No IRA? And now you're blaming YOUR lack of planning on the Republicans?

Let me tell you a story, DUmbass: my dad (not a Republican, by the way) is retired, has been retired for for six years now? He worked 40+ years at a labor-intensive full time job (and 20+ years at a part time job to send me to private school) and is not 'poor.' Why? He saved his money. He made smart financial decisions when he was younger to make sure he could retire and not have to live like you do. Now granted he's frugal (the house is always cold in winter, he never leaves a light on if he's not in the room, he owns one set of good clothes) but that's less because he can't afford it and more because he has always been that way. Your problem, leftylady, is that you didn't bother to plan ahead. Don't blame the republicans for your lack of foresight.

[USA4ME]

CountAllVotes

I bought something "used" that was made out of wool and it had clothing moths living in it and they spread throughout my entire house and I lost thousands of dollars worth of all sorts of things ranging from old rugs to the scotch tape dispenser.

Who knew moths were into destroying scotch tape dispensers?

This is why I tune into the island, to learn things I otherwise would have never known.

.

[BlueStateSaint]

Who knew moths were into destroying scotch tape dispensers?

This is why I tune into the island, to learn things I otherwise would have never known.

.

And probably shouldn't have been known in the first place.

[JohnnyReb]

Who knew moths were into destroying scotch tape dispensers?
This is why I tune into the island, to learn things I otherwise would have never known.

Proof of evolution.

[DumbAss Tanker]

He is from Ireland and has had an extremely difficult life. Being drafted into the U.S. Army illegally was just the tip of the iceberg

No, you stupid bitch, I had a friend in an old unit that had originally got into the Army exactly that way...when the draft was in force, it included anyone of age, medically fit, and here on a resident visa, not just citizens.  I suspect my friend did a lot better in life than the poor bastard that got stuck with you, though, he was a USAR LTC (With a CIB from his draftee enlisted Viet Nam service) and an attorney in regular life, last time I saw him.

[Dori]

Did you not save anything? No 401k? No IRA? And now you're blaming YOUR lack of planning on the Republicans?

That's the real story in this thread.

I'm a few years from SS, and my student loan has defaulted

What the......^? 

[JakeStyle]

It was just last week that the local power company sent a rep. over to "give us a new refrigerator". There was no new refrigerator in the deal at all (a total damned lie it was!). What he did was red-tag my furnace, stove/oven and even shot to shut down the hot water heater (no luck awhole). He was so stupid that he changed the setting to VERY HOT (RED) and I damn near got burned in the shower before I figured it out. We, yes we, had to figure out what this idiot did and reset it to a lower temperature.

Complaints filed up the awhole believe me by ME and that was after my highly depressed husband (who is 78 years old, a vet and going blind) said, "I want to commit suicide".  Sonofa*******ed B*TCH!

Good Lord, can you blame the guy?

[BannedFromDU]

liberalmike27 (2,180 posts)

96. Yea, I resemble that

Luckily I live in the South If that's lucky, why did you write your last sentence? I find it interesting that your saving grace is that you don't live in an expensive Blue area., but I'm in my computer room, it's about 60 in the house, but I close the door, and light a candle, and turn on an extra computer, instead of turning on the heater. I hope you fall asleep in there someday I have the minimum water bill.I have zero doubt of that I do have basic, and Internet, which is my phone. I've got a microwave, but it's broken, my gas is off, and I don't cook here. That was a deliberate solution, as I was paying ten bucks a month, even when I used none of it. I've got a quilt wrapped around me right now, and in truth I'm lucky about the Winter, because I'm pretty hot-natured anyway.Sounds like you live better than your Native American idols.

I don't go anywhere much, I don't eat out much, Um... you just told us you don't cook at home...  I'm a few years from SS, and my student loan has defaulted, so they'll probably take my SS when I do get that, and it won't be much, since I never made much. Those are filed under your problem, not ours.

I've also got a small car, that gets pretty good mileage. Thankfully my friend owns this house, Freeloader...but you don't have gas for the stove?... and he gives me a good rent for the neighborhood, but I've been burgled 4 times in 12 years, Probably offset by your burgling, so don't sweat itmost recently a hole was shot in my roof Gee, how could that have happened?, that cost my landlord You just called him your friend. Which is it? $260, fairly cheap but unnecessary expense.Who paid it? You or them?

Things aren't good, and I blame a lot of the previou paragraph's troubles on the economy being bad too.You said you never earned much, you stupid ****. You didn't even pay your student loans. So, bad economy not only affects me directly, but through others who are experiencing it as well.

Enough whining, although like the original, I turn off everything, unplug things I don't need, and I still try to find little ways to cut my expenses, even though they are pretty minimal now. No insurance, Medicaid I guess, if I need it.No, assface, you have 0chucklescare. You are insured. Just pay your premium for the care you said was better than anything you were getting before. And pay your deductible, too. You guys were all about that. You are insured, my friend.

Worst of all, I live in Alabama, one of the poorest states, populated by 65% of idiots that vote Republican. Jeez. I thought you said at the beginning you are lucky to live in a red state.


Also, with all of that misery, without any hope of getting off his sorry two-computer-having ass and working for money, and with the hovel he lives in with no food to eat. HE STILL IDENTIFIES LIVING IN ALABAMA AS THE WORST THING OF ALL.

That, friends, is a liberal for you.

[Carl]

Whining scum.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Wow, just wow. One of the most painful yet revealing DUmp threads I've read in a while.

[delilahmused]

Two words: cognitive dissonance

Cindie

[tanstaafl]

Wow, just wow. One of the most painful yet revealing DUmp threads I've read in a while.

Well, I'm an optimist. I look for the silver lining.

Maybe some of these sad sacks will starve to death.

[landofconfusion80]

Well, I'm an optimist. I look for the silver lining.

Maybe some of these sad sacks will starve to death.

That would be nice...now if we could just figure out how to stop feeding them.....

[fatboy]

It was just last week that the local power company sent a rep. over to "give us a new refrigerator". There was no new refrigerator in the deal at all (a total damned lie it was!). What he did was red-tag my furnace, stove/oven and even shot to shut down the hot water heater (no luck awhole). He was so stupid that he changed the setting to VERY HOT (RED) and I damn near got burned in the shower before I figured it out. We, yes we, had to figure out what this idiot did and reset it to a lower temperature.

Complaints filed up the awhole believe me by ME and that was after my highly depressed husband (who is 78 years old, a vet and going blind) said, "I want to commit suicide".  Sonofa*******ed B*TCH!

I understand there is going to be plenty of new major appliances and all sort soft goods available shortly in Ferguson. All you will need to do is make arrangements for the delivery.

[diesel driver]

Well, I'm an optimist. I look for the silver lining.

Maybe some of these sad sacks will starve to death.

I'm an optimist as well. 

Winter is coming, maybe with all this "Gorebull Warming", several dozen of them will freeze to death as well.   

[BlueStateSaint]

I'm an optimist as well. 

Winter is coming, maybe with all this "Gorebull Warming", several dozen of them will freeze to death as well.   

It is supposed to be a harsher winter . . .

[JohnnyReb]

Obama's economy gears have a few teeth missing.

[diesel driver]

Obama's economy gears have a few teeth missing.

A few?  A FEW?

So many are missing, it's not a cog anymore, it's a pulley!   

[obumazombie]

Obama's economy gears have a few teeth missing.

Maybe massaging the thread's headline might help...

owebuma's economy sucks into gear

[67 Rover]

Obama's economy gears have a few teeth missing.

I bet money it looks and works as well as this setup below. This is why they are teachers and not Engineers.