Closing in. No I am not talking about the Information Society song. I am talking about closing in on the end of Season 2.
Chris came over last week and we shot a a couple of things. Episode 1 is basically finished but it is coming up several minutes short (as are all the episodes). This means I am having to come up with new sketches to insert into the episode.
I am trying to get Chris to come over soon so we can get another couple of bits done.
Editing is going well (if not slow).
As a side note. I have submitted the show for a news story to the local Decatur paper. Maybe they will contact me. That might drum up some new interest.
I posted a new small bit of video to youtube (so check it out). It is from one of those ‘extra’ sketches to stretch an episode.
This is not a comment to the above but rather one on the Cash For Clunkers Program:
Ignore all the gas crap and just look at how the stupid car buyer got taken to the cleaners:
If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you get $4500 off for an apparent "savings" of $1000.
However, you have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1350 on that $4500.
So, rather than save $1000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the feds. In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for. Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that you will now be making.
But wait; it gets even better: you also got ripped off by the dealer.
For example, every dealer was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies, including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for $12,500 the month before the "cash for clunkers" program started.
When "cash for clunkers" came along, they stopped discounting them and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500. So, you paid $3000 more than you would have the month before… (Honda, Toyota , and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did).
So let's do the final tally here:
You traded in a car worth: $3500
You got a discount of: $4500
———
Net so far +$1000
But you have to pay: $1350 in taxes on the $4500
——–
Net so far: -$350
And you paid: $3000 more than the car was selling for the month before
———-
Net -$3350
We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan, but let's just stop here.
So who actually made out on the deal? The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they "gave" you. The car dealers made an extra $3000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies. The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before. And the poor, stupid consumer got saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford.
Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4500 in "free" money from the "government" when in fact, Joe was giving away his $3500 car and paying an additional $3350 for the privilege.
Think this was stupid for those who were crazy enough to swallow this wonderful scheme?
Just wait until we get health care with no additional costs over what most of us now pay for health insurance and the best medical care in the world. Think that scheme might be designed by the same people who came up with Cash for Clunkers?
HOW MANY TIMES DO PEOPLE HAVE TO BE TOLD THAT “THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH?”
A thought on the current financial crisis:
Look at the financial crisis on Wall Street. Benanke and some of the others used to work for firms like Behr Sterns and some of the others that created this mess.
I think it was mainly the repeal of Glass-Steagal which came out of the Great Depression was highly instrumental in creating the economic and financial mess we have today. It was the commerical and investment banks that was a main contributing force causing the Great Depression of the 1930's and the stock market crash of 1929.
With the repeal of Glass-Stegal in 1999, history just repeated itself.