On the heels of the Congress’ vote to NOT pass the President’s $700B financial bailout, they’re all getting ready to meet again tonight to see if they can’t get this thing passed. And to top it all off, they’ve thrown in a bunch of new provisions aimed at convincing many of the House Republicans that originally voted against the bill to change their vote and vote to the affirmative this time. Oh goodie.
Now, I’m not really saying I’m for or against this bill, but my point is this. If they already voted on it and our ELECTED OFFICIALS voted it down based on what ‘us’, the constituents told them, then why in the world would they insult our intelligence by throwing in a bunch of other provisions to try and squeeze this thing through? I just don’t get it.
Yes, I do believe that something needs to be done. But why does it always start at the top and work it’s way down to the bottom? This is the problem with policitians. They’ve forgotten that they were elected to represent the people in their respective states. To look out for us to ensure government doesn’t overstep it’s bounds. Hmmmmmm, seems to me like there’s a little bit of that overstepping going on right now.
I guess we’ll just have to wait to see what the results of tonight’s votes are to determine if our beloved politicians have once again taken on the role of telling us what’s best for us.
Filed under Opinions, Rants & Raves by 
Have you been listening to the news at all today? Have you read about the proposed $700B government bail out of Wall Street?
To be completely honest, I’m not sure what to make about Washington climbing into bed with business, especially at this magnitude. Especially if it’s my tax dollars we’re talking about here.
Of course, according to the Secretary of the Treasury and the head of the Federal Reserve are both saying this bail out is necessary to keep things afloat, I wonder how smart it is to be making such huge promises to the folks that got us in this mess to begin with.
So, what’s your take on the issue? How do you feel about the government taking $700B it doesn’t have and giving it to Wall Street in order to fix this financial mess?
Go ahead and leave your thoughts below in the comment section. I’d love to hear what you have to say about it!
Filed under Carolina Business News, Interest Rates, Mortgage Rates, Opinions by
As I’m constantly on the lookout for interesting news and tidbits of information about the Rock Hill SC, Fort Mill SC, and Charlotte NC, I’ll occassionally come across articles or blog posts that really jump out at me. The one I came across today is one of them.
This article ranked the top 25 most over-rated ‘things’. There were things like crocs, Donald Trump, owning a car (uuuhhh, they’ve obviously never been to middle America!), and even owning a home. I think that right there should tell you how credible this list is, but the one that really jumped out at me was when they listed ‘Charlotte NC’ and then asked if it was the ‘worst city in America’. Excuse me!?!
Some of the reasons they listed were a rising crime rate, a weakening economy thanks to some big hits some of the local companies have been taking, namely Wachovia, Bank of America, and Lowes, and “driving to the beach or the mountains isn’t as easy as it once was, with rising gas prices, traffic and sprawl.” Uuuuhhh, did they suddenly demolish the interstates that lead to either the beach or the mountains?
Now I may be a bit biased, but I think the Charlotte area’s a fantastic place to live and I believe it will continue to be for many years to come. Are there some issues like rising crime and urban sprawl that need to be dealt with? Absolutely, but what city in America doesn’t have those issues?
Granted, the recent hits taken by Wachovia, Bank of America, and Lowes are certainly downers, but they’re not going anywhere any time soon. They’re all behemoths in their respective industries and there’s no way they’d decline to a point where it totally destroys the Charlotte economy like we’ve seen when local factories decimate small towns. Charlotte’s just too big and diverse for that to happen.
I guess overall I was a bit surprised by the ‘honor’, but when you consider they also listed amongst their things that are over-rated Angelina Jolie and the Nintendo Wii, and they suggest buying a mid-90′s Geo Metro instead of a Toyota Prius, you can draw your own conclusions.
So what’s your take? What do you think about Charlotte being ranked as one of the top 25 most over-rated ‘things’?
Go ahead and leave your comments below.
You can read the whole article on Charlotte HERE.
Filed under Carolina Real Estate, Charlotte NC, Life In the Carolinas, Opinions by
After a long, but somewhat exciting off-season, my beloved Carolina Panthers are finally ready to kick things off again! Sure, they’ve played 4 pre-season games, but let’s face it, they don’t hold a candle to the regular season.
The pundits and know-it-all talking heads are pretty mixed up when it comes to where the Panthers will finish this season as the predictions are all over the board. I for one think they’ve underestimating them. I’ll go out on a limb and say they win 10 games, win the division, and make it to the NFC Championship game. Again.
Of course I could be totally wrong and they could fall flat on their faces, which of course would mean John Fox would probably get the boot. I like him so I’m really hoping that doesn’t happen.
Anyway, the long, dreadful wait is finally over as the Panthers kick off on Sunday against the favored San Diego Chargers at 4:15pm ET.
Go Panthers!
Filed under Carolina Sports Beat, Opinions, Rants & Raves by
With Hurrican Gustav monopolizing all the headlines this past week, it would be nice to get a break from all this talk about hurricanes and tropical storms, but unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen as 3 more tropical depressions or storms are forming in the Atlantic and could be headed our way as early as this weekend.
Hanna, the first of the 3 storms was initially projected to head out way by Friday, but according to the NWS, it has weaked quite a bit and is now hanging out near the Bahamas. While there is still a chance it could regain strength and begin moving our way, the weather geeks really don’t know how much strength it’s going to gain.
And given all the rain we received last week from Fay, it’s a pretty safe bet we’d all enjoy a bit of a break to allow the ground to dry out just a bit so it can absorb even more.  Yes, we need the moisture, but I think we’d all prefer a bit at a time instead of getting dumped on within justa few hours!
The other 2 possible tropical storms are still in their early stages out in the Atlantic, but Tropical Storms Ike and Josephine both have very good chances of gathering strength and heading towards the Carolinas. Given that we’re in the peak of hurrican season, I’m afraid we’re not out of the woods yet and probably won’t be given the current pace of storms.
Again, while we could definitely use the moisture, I don’t think anybody wants the huge amounts we took last week that caused flooding up in Cabarrus County, just north of Charlotte NC. But I guess we really can’t control it either, so all we’re left with is getting ourselves prepared, and saying our prayers that we don’t have repeate of Hurrican Katrina any time soon!
Filed under Life In the Carolinas, Opinions by
