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So one of these days, I'll get around to voting. My choice will be unpopular with some voters, but ... I don't much care.
I've heard all the talk... I know the general positions of all the candidates.
When one says that the other is all about "redistributing wealth" in such a way as to make it seem derogatory... I think back to my childhood...
If someone hadn't redistributed some wealth, we'd have had nothing.
School lunch was free. Toys for tots came through a few times to give us gifts. Mom was often sick and didn't work and Dad worked his butt off but never could quite get ahead with his 10,000-12,000 annual income to feed the family.
***WARNING: TANGENT AHEAD***
As an adult, I've fought for years over the whole credit card thing... Finding out that after awhile, one or two late payments here and there seems to give big banks the right to charge up to 35% or more in interest - not to count any 'penalties' they provide.
** The following is a hypothetical situation but all too real for many of us. My own personal situation spans 10 to 15 years, instead of the five outlined here, but it's also multiplied several times over as well... It doesn't take long to get snowed under by credit card companies... But it can take a lifetime to dig your way out. **
SCENARIO ONE:
Let's do the math for a second. I open a credit account with Citibank.. I "borrow" 10,000 at 10% APR interest. My monthly payment is, say, 4% of the balance, or $400. I pay the payment of $400, leaving a balance of 9,600 + 83 or $9,683.
Next month, my statement comes... It shows the 'old balance' of 9,600, plus interest charges of $83, (the interest is roughly 10000*10% ($1000) divided by 12, or $83 give or take). The new minimum payment due is 4% or $387.32.
Now, gas prices go up, making the president and vice president's bank accounts go up (but not mine)... (of course, that isn't true, I am sure they severed their ties to big oil before saying "I do" *ahem*). I find myself short on cash, so I send Citibank $300 in month 2.
On next month's statement, I see a few things new:
A beginning balance of 9683, minus $300 in payments, plus interest of around $80, plus a late fee of $39, leaving a new balance of (9683-300+80+39 or $9502). The new minimum payment is $380 plus the $100 left unpaid the prior month ($480). This month, I scrape things together and send the entire minimum payment of $480...
Next month, I get a suprise... Since I've had late payments posted to my account, my interest rate is no longer the 'preferred rate' but is, instead, 24.99%. My beginning balance was $9502, minus my payment of $480 or $9022, PLUS $198 in interest leaving a new balance of $9220. However, last month, in order to scrape the money together to make my minimum payment on time, I charged some gas to my card, so now I am back up to $9,500, and my minimum payment due is still $380.
I see that my interest rate just did a more-than-double trick so I surely don't want to use the card any more, so instead of paying the full amount due, I cut back a little, and send them $200 and pay cash for my gas.
This next month's statement has more surprises... My prior balance, as you recall, was 9,500, minus $200 just paid, but because I didn't pay the minimum due, I have a fee of $39 added to the balance, and since I am now a repeat offender, my interest rate goes up again, and now I find it's at 34.99%. In summary:
Prior balance: 9500
Payments: -200 (9300)
Fees: +39 (9339)
Interest: +272 (9611)
I get into this vicious cycle now, where my minimum payment is roughly $380 to $500, and I am struggling to make it, finding that my balance goes down approximately $100 a month - if I am lucky... Here and there, I make a payment a couple days past due (gotta wait for payday). My interest rate never falls, I use the card sparingly but enough that the $100 balance credit that I should have is canceled out, and this goes on for, say, five years.
At the end of five years, here's what I find in totals:
Original balance: $10,000
New Charges: (average $100 per month for 60 months = $6000)
Payments: (average $400 per month for 60 months = $24000)
Interest: (average $275 per month for 60 months = $16,500)
Fees: (2 late fees per year for 5 years $39 each = $390)
New balance: almost $33000 minus my payments of $24000, or around $9000.
At this rate, I'll pay $400 per month for many, many years, before my original $10,000 balance is paid off. As it is, in five years time, I've "borrowed" a grand total of $16,000 and paid a total of $24000, and still owe another $9000.
If the original terms of the agreement had been followed by all parties - or if the bank were reasonable and not so greedy, and kept an honest interest rate of 10% despite my late payment now and then (whack me with the fees, go for it!) the picture might have been totally different.
Year one:
Original balance: $10000
Payments: $400 per month for year one, or $4800
Interest: (at 10%, approximately $1000)
New charges: $100 per month or $1200
Balance: 10000-4800+1000+1200 or $7400
Year two:
Original balance: $7400
Payments: $400 per month for year two, or $4800
Interest: (at 10%, approximately $740)
New charges: $100 per month or $1200
Balance: 7400-4800+740+1200 or $4540
Year three:
Original balance: $4540
Payments: $400 per month for year three, or $4800
Interest: (at 10%, approximately $454)
New charges: $100 per month or $1200
Balance: 4540-4800+454+1200 or $1394
Guess what... I break even in the third or fourth month of year four. By year five end, I have not only paid my credit card off, but have managed to put about $7000 into the bank...
The finance company just made a fair $2500 or so profit on me, I am happy, they should be too...
But instead... Instead scenario one is lived by many individuals, banks and finance companies today... and now, because I am homeless and can't pay my bill, the bank has to call this 'bad debt' and because I am not paying my credit card as I agreed to five years ago, the bank is hurting, and the federal government needs to bail them out.
I just hope that somehow, someone puts a stop to the craziness involved in credit financing - even though it's been an invisible subject since the big 'bailout' plan had to pass congress in such an emergency. Honestly, I am not paying my citibank cards another dime till I have some money comfortably saved somewhere... because I don't have two nickles to rub together by the time the next payday rolls around.
SCENARIO ONE:
Let's do the math for a second. I open a credit account with Citibank.. I "borrow" 10,000 at 10% APR interest. My monthly payment is, say, 4% of the balance, or $400. I pay the payment of $400, leaving a balance of 9,600 + 83 or $9,683.
Next month, my statement comes... It shows the 'old balance' of 9,600, plus interest charges of $83, (the interest is roughly 10000*10% ($1000) divided by 12, or $83 give or take). The new minimum payment due is 4% or $387.32.
Now, gas prices go up, making the president and vice president's bank accounts go up (but not mine)... (of course, that isn't true, I am sure they severed their ties to big oil before saying "I do" *ahem*). I find myself short on cash, so I send Citibank $300 in month 2.
On next month's statement, I see a few things new:
A beginning balance of 9683, minus $300 in payments, plus interest of around $80, plus a late fee of $39, leaving a new balance of (9683-300+80+39 or $9502). The new minimum payment is $380 plus the $100 left unpaid the prior month ($480). This month, I scrape things together and send the entire minimum payment of $480...
Next month, I get a suprise... Since I've had late payments posted to my account, my interest rate is no longer the 'preferred rate' but is, instead, 24.99%. My beginning balance was $9502, minus my payment of $480 or $9022, PLUS $198 in interest leaving a new balance of $9220. However, last month, in order to scrape the money together to make my minimum payment on time, I charged some gas to my card, so now I am back up to $9,500, and my minimum payment due is still $380.
I see that my interest rate just did a more-than-double trick so I surely don't want to use the card any more, so instead of paying the full amount due, I cut back a little, and send them $200 and pay cash for my gas.
This next month's statement has more surprises... My prior balance, as you recall, was 9,500, minus $200 just paid, but because I didn't pay the minimum due, I have a fee of $39 added to the balance, and since I am now a repeat offender, my interest rate goes up again, and now I find it's at 34.99%. In summary:
Prior balance: 9500
Payments: -200 (9300)
Fees: +39 (9339)
Interest: +272 (9611)
I get into this vicious cycle now, where my minimum payment is roughly $380 to $500, and I am struggling to make it, finding that my balance goes down approximately $100 a month - if I am lucky... Here and there, I make a payment a couple days past due (gotta wait for payday). My interest rate never falls, I use the card sparingly but enough that the $100 balance credit that I should have is canceled out, and this goes on for, say, five years.
At the end of five years, here's what I find in totals:
Original balance: $10,000
New Charges: (average $100 per month for 60 months = $6000)
Payments: (average $400 per month for 60 months = $24000)
Interest: (average $275 per month for 60 months = $16,500)
Fees: (2 late fees per year for 5 years $39 each = $390)
New balance: almost $33000 minus my payments of $24000, or around $9000.
At this rate, I'll pay $400 per month for many, many years, before my original $10,000 balance is paid off. As it is, in five years time, I've "borrowed" a grand total of $16,000 and paid a total of $24000, and still owe another $9000.
SCENARIO TWO (aka the way it should be):
If the original terms of the agreement had been followed by all parties - or if the bank were reasonable and not so greedy, and kept an honest interest rate of 10% despite my late payment now and then (whack me with the fees, go for it!) the picture might have been totally different.
Year one:
Original balance: $10000
Payments: $400 per month for year one, or $4800
Interest: (at 10%, approximately $1000)
New charges: $100 per month or $1200
Balance: 10000-4800+1000+1200 or $7400
Year two:
Original balance: $7400
Payments: $400 per month for year two, or $4800
Interest: (at 10%, approximately $740)
New charges: $100 per month or $1200
Balance: 7400-4800+740+1200 or $4540
Year three:
Original balance: $4540
Payments: $400 per month for year three, or $4800
Interest: (at 10%, approximately $454)
New charges: $100 per month or $1200
Balance: 4540-4800+454+1200 or $1394
Guess what... I break even in the third or fourth month of year four. By year five end, I have not only paid my credit card off, but have managed to put about $7000 into the bank...
The finance company just made a fair $2500 or so profit on me, I am happy, they should be too...
But instead... Instead scenario one is lived by many individuals, banks and finance companies today... and now, because I am homeless and can't pay my bill, the bank has to call this 'bad debt' and because I am not paying my credit card as I agreed to five years ago, the bank is hurting, and the federal government needs to bail them out.
It doesn't matter that I just paid them almost $25000 in payments, on $16,000 in charges, giving them a hefty $9000 in profit... what matters is that on the books, I am a bad debtor, and owe them $9000 that I'll never be able to pay off.
I like the ideal represented by Scenario Two above. We all win... and in a perfect world where money flows freely into my checking account and I never, ever post a late payment, then maybe it's possible to live scenario two. But when one of the bread earner's loses their job, or becomes disabled, or, heaven forbid, gas prices quadruple in a few years time, sometimes crap happens.
Back to my vote.
From an independent-seeming site, I garner the following facts about our candidates:
McCain would cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, and favors permanent tax credits to business for research and development. For people earning 250,000 or more per year, he wants to keep Bushes tax cuts.
Obama says that he'd let the Bush tax cuts expire for those earning 250,000 or more. And the whole corporate tax rate? Leave it at 35%. And end all the loopholes and deductions for industries like Big Oil.
For personal taxes, McCain says, "double the dependent deduction to $7000" and Obama says to implement a $500 per person or $1000 per family 'credit' on the taxes.
The McCain plan means this to me: If I earn enough income to be in a 20% tax bracket, I'd have an extra $3500 exempt from taxes - which means I'd save approximately 20% of 3500, or $700. The Obama plan says I'd save $1000.
Furthermore, Obama says for seniors making less than $50,000 eliminate their taxes. Period. My whole family would benefit directly by that one.
I do get McCain's preachiness about how Obama wants to 'redistribute wealth' while he wants to increase wealth. But from someone who has lived and does live down in the trenches of life in America, I can't afford any more of this "increase the wealth of the wealthy" attitude, in the hopes that some of it might trickle down to me..
In this, I must vote for the person who will enable me, somehow, hopefully, to get that extra $300 tax break - and to hell with those people who are making $250,000 a year. If they can't afford the extra taxes then who can? Certainly not my Mom or Grandmother, both of whom live month to month on their social security checks, just hoping that they'll have enough to pay for their groceries or medicine or both... and feeling terrible because they can't buy nice gifts for their grandkids and greats. They need a break from that, too.
Much of my family supports McCain, and I am sure he is a real American Hero... I do respect the man. But I think his support of the wealthy and of Big Industry is dead wrong. My vote goes for Obama.
I just hope that somehow, someone puts a stop to the craziness involved in credit financing - even though it's been an invisible subject since the big 'bailout' plan had to pass congress in such an emergency. Honestly, I am not paying my citibank cards another dime till I have some money comfortably saved somewhere... because I don't have two nickles to rub together by the time the next payday rolls around.
As for YOU. Just vote. And if your conscience says to vote for McCain, then GO FOR IT. Just do it. May God bless the winner and those he represents.
