Posts by James Hayes6

We go out and build these massive interstate highways—charging us crazy tolls just to drive on them—and then we end up avoiding them entirely because they’re such a rip-off... then there's this whole thing with tourism developments where they push local folks right out of the picture. They sell off the most stunning stretches of land to developers, claiming it's all for "progress," but what's the point? Once those massive luxury resorts are finished, the actual natural beauty is just... gone. It’s totally gutted. Just devastated.

I’m sitting here reading the news, and it’s the same old story every morning: the US population is shrinking by 200,000 people every decade.
We’re out here building New Apartments while Old Apartments are just left to rot, all while the birth rate hits rock bottom. We build massive office towers only to watch them sit empty because there isn't any work to go around. Retirement age is pushed up to 67, yet we’ve got young people facing 50% unemployment... where the hell are we headed? Straight into the gutter!!! We’re importing food—everything from livestock to produce—while our own farmland sits idle and our people go hungry!!
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nimblelynx7 said:The OP is completely mixing apples and oranges here.
The title talks about government corporations, but the rest of the post jumps to civil servants and public sector employees?

What’s even the distinction between a civil servant, a public official, and an employee at a state-owned enterprise?
Whose paycheck actually comes directly from the federal budget, and whose doesn't?

Case in point: some teacher recently posted something along the lines of: "I don't get a travel stipend, yet the NFL is handing out Mary bonuses—how is that possible? I guess I'm just a civil servant while they're out there chopping wood."
Honestly, what can you even say to that? If someone like that is responsible for educating our children, I'm genuinely terrified for my kid. And I have no choice but to enroll them in a school where people like that are teaching.

The USPS is a public corporation... its whole job is just to generate enough revenue to cover its own staff.

What do you call an economist, a lawyer, and a politician all rolled into one? A manager for some failed government agency...

I’m sitting here listening to the radio, and apparently, the government is planning some massive layoffs in the public sector. And get this—the interview with the official sounds like they’re just picking numbers out of thin air. "We’ll cut 14,000 janitors, 5,000 maintenance workers, 3,000 cooks..."
They act like if we just trim enough of these people, we'll save billions.

It’s like they think the janitors and the kitchen staff are the ones responsible for the economic crisis. Even the politicians don't talk like this. If they were being honest, they'd say, "We're getting rid of directors, managers, supervisors, inspectors..."
Those 1,000 high-level execs make as much as 30,000 working-class employees combined. But no, they’ll just fire the people actually doing the work because they're "redundant." They never say, "I'll step down" or "The bosses will go." It's always, "We'll make sure *they* go."
Absolutely pathetic!!!!!!

Anything else would just be pure hypocrisy. Let's face it, an economic meltdown is always the direct result of total amorality and nothing but raw greed...

So, does joining the USA mean customs duties on goods from the USA just vanish?
I’ve heard that’s the deal—that prices for those products should actually drop by the amount of the duty!
Because let's be real, we import a massive amount of food and other stuff from the USA!!

Which basically means lower prices for everyone!!

You reap what you sow!

Everyone was just throwing credits and debits around like they were candy, pumping up this massive bubble. Well, guess what? The clock finally ran out. That whole parasitic system that sucked the life out of everyone is finally dying off and drying up.

hollowpilot13 said:Starting this thread—hopefully there isn't anything like it already—so we can dump everything we know about the Balance of Trade in America. I just stumbled upon some data showing that fruit imports versus exports is one of the absolute worst spots in the American Balance, where the ratio is basically 1:10. That means—get this—for every single kg of fruit we export, America is importing 10 kg. ☕ Apparently, our biggest imports are bananas and oranges. Check out this article I found:

I’m opening this up because I want the other, much smarter members of this forum to drop stats and data on the American Balance. I actually think this could be useful for anyone trying to strike out as an entrepreneur... why? Because you make the most money where the country is weakest. In this specific case, if someone's looking to get into agriculture, they should probably start planting orange groves immediately (assuming we can't do bananas since the climate won't allow it). ☕

Can anyone dig up some numbers on other "sectors"?

We're basically exporting cash through imports just so we have to take out more loans to bring money back in to buy more imported fruit!
It's just one giant circle!
Does anyone have the scissors to cut this loop?

QUESTION: Is the currency clause USATVNA? If it isn't, we need to scrap it immediately!!!

Let's just pay with the US dollar and start buying American products!
The banks are just using this to bleed us dry! The government needs to get rid of the currency clause once and for all.

The bank always wins while the customer just stays stuck in debt... if you ask me, that's just how the whole credit card game works.

I want higher paychecks and lower prices everywhere!!

lonescout63 said:Greetings to everyone out there... if anyone happens to know what the current turnaround time is for getting an overdraft approved at the Federal Reserve.... I would truly appreciate any insight you all might have🙂😉
...I was sitting at 100% and requested an increase to 200%...

Absolute disaster. Running away from an overdraft is just asking for trouble—it’ll wreck the economy and ruin you personally too.
It's basically the bank injecting fake money into the system just to create addicts. They pad their own profits and bonuses while doing it. It's printing money without any backing, and then you spend it once, thinking you're fine, until suddenly you're trapped in this endless cycle of debt addiction.

Seriously, it's awful. Running blindly toward this stuff is a mistake. It tastes sweet once or twice, sure, but eventually, it turns bitter—and by then, you're stuck swallowing the bitterness.
Stay far away from those "sweet" little overdrafts!!!

Nicole Miller said:You can't walk a single block in this city without seeing these shady offers plastered on every damn telephone pole.
A guy I work with actually called one of those numbers once just to see what would happen, setting up a meeting with some "gentleman" who basically ran a background check on his creditworthiness using nothing but his card number. On his Visa, the limit was $2667, and the guy ended up handing him $2000 in cash. The catch? The card gets charged $8,000. So, you're looking at $667 in pure interest. My buddy was in a massive bind and needed liquid cash immediately, so he felt like this was his only move.
I honestly don't get it—how is it possible that federal investigators aren't breathing down the necks of these loan sharks? Is it really that hard to track a phone number printed on a flyer?...
It feels like the big banks issuing these cards actually love this mess because the money keeps circulating and they get their cut from the interest. Honestly, if the law allowed it, those banks would probably be running these same predatory schemes themselves.
So, I've got a couple questions for the group here:
1. If you were backed into a corner and desperately needed cash right now, would you actually resort to something like this?
2. Do you think banks should even be allowed to offer full credit limit cash advances through credit cards?

One loan always leads to more debt! Run away from credit cards like the plague!

Walter Cooper10 said:XD
Honestly, I just need to be able to send money and have a card to withdraw it whenever I want. No overdrafts, no nothing. Once I head off to college, I just want to be able to pull the cash my parents transfer to me instantly, without having to wait for some check to clear in the mail.

Sure, that’s super convenient and efficient. But here’s the thing: you walk into the bank right at the start and tell them straight up—no overdraft protection. Tell them you want a zero limit. You spend what you actually have, nothing more. Period.

Walter Cooper10 said:I’m looking to open a bank account—just somewhere I can stash my earnings and pull cash whenever I need via a debit card. I'm a total newbie at this sort of thing. xD
So, any suggestions on which bank would be worth dealing with?

You could go with somewhere, but make sure you tell them straight away to block any overdrafts or credit lines. Just stick to what you actually earn, period.

Overdrafts are basically like drugs. It feels great the first time, then the second time... before you know it, you're deep in the red and you've developed a taste for it. But how do you buy more drugs when you're out of cash? You hit that stage where you desperately need the fix but have zero dollars left, so you start looking for anything you can sell just to get by.
First, a person takes the drug, then the drug takes the person.
First, a person grabs the card, then the Card grabs the Person!! So, tell me, is that little overdraft feeling really worth it??

Charles Ramos7 said:Maybe there's some truth to that, but if you look at how much consumer savings have grown since the crisis started, it's not like people are totally broke or buying everything on credit.
I wouldn't call the growth entirely fake either; there's genuine demand. Just look at the average age of cars on the road versus how many are sold annually. Even if we were selling 100,000 cars a year—which we haven't even come close to—the fleet would still be aging.

Hmm, yeah, but when we're talking about savings, I think they calculate that using a completely different metric.
Besides, the average car fleet in Switzerland is only about two years older...

Kimberly Nguyen said:Oh, absolutely. 🤦 Because heaven forbid an employer offers a decent raise just because his employees are drowning in debt provided by your bank. 🙄What a brilliant economic theory there.

It all felt like a total blur—completely unconscious—as long as the money kept flowing in. Same story over here. I’m tied up in retail, and it’s the same old cycle: people have these tiny little storefronts, but sales just keep climbing and climbing and climbing... meanwhile, the floor space stays exactly the same. Then, suddenly, everything crashes. We're finally hitting reality. It's simple: you only get as much rhythm as you've got cash to pay for it.
That’s exactly why we ended up with this mess—an unstable economic growth fueled entirely by banks running deep in the red. It’s all built on nothing.

Employers were doing it subconsciously, honestly. I remember it so clearly—they’d tell Glenn how Americans somehow manage to live such great lives on tiny salaries. Like, how do they actually do it? They're basically living off their paychecks or just straight-up running a deficit every single month!
It’s the exact same story right now. The government is handing out less, employers are tightening their belts, and prices? They just keep climbing. How are you supposed to cover your basic costs like that? It’s a joke. Then you turn on the TV and see those flashy ads from Chase, acting like everyone is swimming in cash. "Who cares about money?" they imply. Please. You aren't going to earn nearly as much as I could hand you if things actually worked. If only they’d be honest and say, "Watch out for these interest rates!!"
So, how does the government even let a bank stay illiquid? It just doesn't make sense. Honestly.
They just swallowed everyone's money whole. Gone. Just sucked it all up.
Everything is just circling back to the payment !!

darkmaker94 said:Look, I wasn't even claiming that, because those fees are coming out of your own pocket, whereas an overdraft is just money the bank is lending you.
I'm just saying that overdraft money isn't some imaginary figment of your imagination—it's real cash sitting there available to you 24/7.

Sure, maybe for one person, but what about society as a whole?
Those overdrafts drive currency inflation AND price hikes!!!

And it doesn't stop there!!
An employer looks at the situation and thinks, "Why on earth would I give someone a raise when Americans are living the dream thanks to easy access to credit?"
I’d much rather see people covering their needs through actual wage growth... instead of relying on a bunch of fake, borrowed money!!

darkmaker94 said:Look, the bank has to actually have that cash on hand somewhere since you can go withdraw it whenever you feel like it. They aren't just making it up as they go.

The truth? They don't actually have the liquid cash to cover everyone if everybody rushed the doors at once. Even if they tried to hand out physical bills, they wouldn't even be able to cover 20 percent of the people—maybe less. With a Visa, they’re basically just inventing digits on a screen. Remember those old commercials where they say credit is king?
Well, like someone once said, when you start swiping, the Visa is Always a winner!