[Cerek]

The teabaggers aren't adding any more misinformation than the guy in the video and those on the left that keep blaming the economy on the super rich.

And there is nothing wrong with having the goal of living debt-free, because it IS possible to do. You just have to realize you can't buy every shiny new thing that catches your eye.

My mom owns her house and both cars she drives - debt free. I also own the car I drive - bought and paid for. Aside from monthly bills, the only debt I have are my student loans (for getting my teacher license) and hospital bills due to my recent bad health. Until the first of April, my student loans were the only "debt" I had and I'm looking into ways to get the overall amount reduced. In the meantime, I can - and do - afford my monthly payments.

I did lose the house Princess and I bought to foreclosure, but there were a lot of factors that led to that; a renter who simply stopped paying rent, Princess refusing to help out with the mortgage when the payments got behind, and the real estate agent who (although she is a personal friend) only showed the house 3-4 times in 3 years.

Now there are some things *I* could have done about that situation, but didn't. In hindsight, I should have evicted the renter more than a year ago. I took her to court and won the judgment, but she promised to get the payments caught up (she was only 1.5 months behind at that time). So I gave her a second chance. Surprise, surprise...she never followed through and I was too soft-hearted to kick her and her kids out right then. Secondly, I could have listed my house on Craig's List and other sites myself to generate more interest. Would that have produced an offer on the house? No way to know for sure, but it wouldn't have hurt to try. The house we had was very nice and we dropped the price considerably over the years, but never had a single offer brought to the table, even after I switched real estate companies. So I lost the house and my credit rating has taken the hit for it, but that's the way it goes.

As for "needing" credit, I don't really. I've lived without a credit card of any kind for more than 5 years now and, even though I didn't have a steady job for more than 2.5 years, I'm still in the BEST financial shape of my life. Why? Because I don't buy anything I don't NEED.

The banks did help create the economy spiral with all the sub-prime mortgages and ignoring of bad credit rates, but the consumers bear the same amount of responsibility for buying things on credit (such as larger, fancier houses) than they could afford in the first place. You do NOT have to have a $500,000 home to have a roof over your head and there ARE alternatives out there. The housing market has been in the dumps for the last 3 years. I know because it started to crash right after we put our house on the market. But when that happens, you ADJUST to the situation. For us, it meant dropping the price of the house in an effort to keep it comparable to similar homes and keep interest generated.

It also meant shopping for a house we could AFFORD in the first place. We started looking at homes 2 years before we were actually ready to buy and, by doing that, we found the exact house we wanted for a price we could afford then (and now if we had stayed married).

We had an economic boon in the 90's due to the stock market. That and the greed of the 80's led the current generations to think they are SUPPOSED to have anything they see or want. And if they can't afford to pay cash, they'll just put it on the credit card. Other than the sub-prime fiasco, banks are NOT to blame for over-extending their credit. Yes, they offered them the means to do it, but the consumer still bears the responsibility for saying "You know what, I really can't afford to do that, so I'll just pass on your offer".

Even when I had a credit card, my balance was never more than $500. Why? Because I knew that was about the max I could afford to pay back.

As for gas prices, Euro has been paying prices this high for YEARS. I remember when we were complaining about gas being more than $1.50 per gallon and IW members in England were saying "We've been paying $3.50 per gallon for petrol for years". As Micah pointed out, American car manufacturers continue producing gas-hog vehicles, but that is only because American consumers insist on still buying them.

We also DID lose a lot of industries overseas. That is due to several factors as well, but the bottom line is the fact that it was cheaper to produce the goods in another country and ship them back here than to make them here in the first place. Unions don't bear all the blame for that, but they do bear some of it. The auto-workers in Detroit were making upwards of $75/hour and insisting on more several years ago. When a company can go overseas and find workers that will do the same job for $10-15/hour, that isn't a hard decision to make. The textile industries also left the country in droves during the 90's. That wasn't because of unions, though, because the textile workers certainly were NOT getting paid huge hourly wages.

On the other hand, several foreign auto companies are beginning to build factories HERE. Volkswagon is opening a huge factory in Chattanooga, TN and (IIRC) Mercedes is building a plant somewhere in the northern GA area. Those companies are discovering it cost less to build factories over here, but in more rural areas than in large urban hubs. Why? Because those rural areas are looking for jobs and offering companies big incentives to build there.

Still, the bottom line is the fact our own gov't is the worst "consumer" of all, never even considering the concept of NOT spending more money than you have. Their budget talks consist of "We spent this much last year and we need to increase that by this much due to inflation and other factors this year". They've already spent the money that MIGHT have come from the taxes on the super-rich, even though they never got it. And, yes, even a blind person should be able to see that China could literally "buy" the U.S. at any time now simply by calling in our debt to them. But do we try to reduce that debt at all? Not from what I've seen.

So the gov't acts like the general consumer. I see it, I want it, I have to have it. And if I can't afford it, then I'll just borrow the money to buy it. That is acceptable in ISOLATED or RARE instances, but it only works if you STOP the spending after buying that item and start paying off your the debt you just incurred. Instead, general and gov't consumers say "OK, I got THAT item, NOW I want this new item, which means I need to borrow more money for that."

The teabaggers aren't responsible at all for the current economy and, in fact, seem to be advocating the idea of actually living within your means. While it may not be possible for every person to live completely debt free, that doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate and sensible goal to work towards. But hey, don't let irrelevant facts get in the way of a good bashing session to muddy the waters.