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Comments
Yeah, I know it's for a book. But it's a reality. I see at least 3 different segments to the economy here.
I see folks who know how to milk the welfare system who are getting along but just keep expectin' mo' from the government.
I see folks with soc security and additional retirements who are doing just fine along with high income folks who are buying all those new cars. I see two different Teslas in town as I run to the local Bob Evans to pick up occasional meals. This is a small community.
I see working folks who are trying to be independent and not use the various welfare/support systems. They are struggling. It's easier to just give up and go on total welfare. Not pretty at times, but might be easier. Example is the fellow next door who had a job for 10 or more years and the owner cut back all the managers (full time) and went with lots of low level employees and some newer part time manager types. Wonder why the owenr did that other than to reduce healthcare. Neighbor just found a job after two months or more off. Worked there for 3-4 weeks and was called in and told he was nice guy but it just wasn't working. Unemployed again.
Those kinds of stories are rife through this area where lots of the economy was auto based. So maybe there are streets of gold somewhere in Calilfornia or where the mainstream media folks live and tell us that things are looking up the last 5 years, but it ain't happening here. Nowhere are things close to 5 years ago.
Maybe a good war....will help shape things up in the economy.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I know someone who had been making about $58,000 per year, 4 years ago, who now makes $15 per hour and is in danger of losing his house.
My grandmother's cousin, who's almost 89, has her 70 year old son, her 32 year old granddaughter, her boyfriend, and their 3 young kids all living under one roof. And if anything happens to her, they'd all lose that place in a heartbeat.
About a month ago, I went on a bit of a tirade because of some crap that went down at work. Sad thing is, none of my friends could really identify, because they were on shaky ground with their own jobs, had financial issues, etc. So I really didn't have anyone to vent to. Kinda made me think of a lyric in an old Jackson Browne song... "I look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through...Looking into their eyes I see they're running too..." It did make me chill out though, and appreciate what I've got.
Meanwhile back to American cars....
"Many Americans are carrying higher auto loan balances, but the financial strain isn’t resulting in more missed payments, new data shows.
But Americans are keeping up with the payments. The rate of U.S. auto-loan payments late by 60 days or more was essentially flat in the April-June quarter, inching to 0.80 percent from 0.79 percent in the second quarter of last year, credit reporting agency TransUnion said. The delinquency rate fell from 0.88 percent in the first three months of the year." (Detroit News)
Social decay...hmm...for about 30 years we've lived under the promise of trickle down, and for a decade have been waiting for the "job creators" to jump up...decay indeed.
I wonder if more people these days are having to get their parents or other relatives to co-sign for their loans these days?
This shows the reality of Toureg sales....If you weren't credit worthy, they wouldn't have given you the loan.
For one thing, their lifestyle would have to reflect how much money they actually make.
To me that is living the American Dream of independence from a tyrannical oligarchy.
However there are other ways to pollute farmland. Growing corn for ethanol comes to mind.
Living without debt gives me the flexibility to tighten the old belt pretty darn tight when the economy retracts and to have an emergency fund that really could last me more than a few years.
anyway, send $25 bucks to the ACLU and go car shopping!
Well, I'd say a respectful 'duh' to that, since the country was in depression from when that woman was five through sixteen.
I'd ask her if she thinks things are better now than when she was about 22 through maybe twenty years ago.
I'd ask her not only economically, but in every way.
Now Grandmom, she's old enough to remember when her parents had a car and a truck, a house in Harrisburg and a farm out in the country. They lost the farm in the Depression, as well as the car. Kept the truck, because her father needed it to survive for his business.
Granddad grew up on a tobacco farm, first in North Carolina, then up here in Maryland. Had to drop out of school after 6th grade to help out with the farm and tend to his younger siblings. He was born in 1916 though, so that would've been before the Depression hit. There's an old, stately mansion nearby that had fallen on somewhat hard times, and his family lived in it during the Depression, and tenant-farmed the land. He ended up joining the Marines, in order to get work.
Similarly, my other Granddad, on my Dad's side of the family, and born in 1914, had joined the Marines in order to find work. He lived in Tennessee, in a depressed area. Got out of the Marines in 1939, couldn't find work down there, so he came up here and started working for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Times were rough back then, but people found a way to persevere.
I just went back and looked it up, unemployment peaked at 24.75% in 1933, but was still 14.45% in 1940.
My father was born in 1919, and grew up on a hard scrabble farm in East Texas. In 1939, an Army recruiter promised him 3 hot meals a day, 365 days a year, and he signed up.
My mother was from New York City and was one of seven siblings. She said she cried most every day for the better part of the first year she lived in my Dad's little hometown! After Dad died, she made me promise to never move her anyplace out of town, and we didn't...she loved knowing most everybody and bumping into somebody she knew virtually everywhere she went. I miss that too. It's one of those things that if you didn't experience, it's probably hard to comprehend.
Anyway, both of my parents were poor growing up. My Dad had a good job at our post office, with good hospitalization and retirement, sound saving habits, and retired at age 59.
I'm not sure things are better now than 20+ years ago--overall.
I know I'M better off now than when I was 22, because nowadays 22 years old don't have to worry about being drafted and dropped into a jungle.
Unemployment rate is the same it was in Dec 2008--7.4% and it was the same in 1993 and over 10% in 1983. So for most americans, things haven't changed much---perhaps it's just that different TYPES of people are now unemployed.
Buying a car on credit isn't difficult these days--low interest rates and plenty of factory-financing deals.
Exactly right. Or ask my 90 year old mom. She'll tell you everyone raised their own food so they didn't starve but times were hard. She'll also tell you just about *everything* is better now than in the "old" days. About the only downer she can think of is that you can't hop a passenger train from her old hometown and get to New Orleans. My mother-in-law in the UP used to take the train to Chicago back in the day too. And both moms lived in rural small towns. Cheap cars and cheap gas and airlines put the hurt on passenger rail.
Most people back in the "good old days" didn't much live past their mid-80s, much less were they driving around at that age back then.
My mother-in-law switched back to Buicks after a fling with BMWs in her 70s. My mom's last car was a Mazda Protege that wouldn't die. It really outlasted her ability to drive safely.
More and more people here in the Western Ohio region are driving around in old cars. The newer cars are being sold to lots of older people on SS and other retirements along with the higher income folks who have come through the continuing recession just fine.
And there are lots of new cars being sold in the last 9 months or so here. I keep wondering if it's a bubble that will taper off now that the need for replacements after people kept their money in their pockets for so long have replaced their worn out clunkers.
And is this new car surge related to the cash for clunkers in the past where so many cars got traded for the government push to try to jump start sales back then? Fewer good used cars on market then. That was 4 years ago.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
If the unemployment figures were "adjusted" to lower unemployment rates, then it was still worse in the early 1980s than now.
As for more part-time workers, what that means is "less than 40", not 20.
Sure, the rust belt and agricultural communities are going to take a harder hit, but many parts of the country are boomtowns right now.
Even parts of Detroit are humming and being invested in. Just not the parts we see on TV. There's no "juice" in a success story about Detroit.
What's happening (my two cents) is that people's time reference is shifting to the "present moment". Everyone now lives in the now, the immediate. There is no future or any past for many people anymore. Technology is of course driving this.
Why else would you insist on e-mail in your car?
Yup. That sounds familiar. And Facebook is a prime example. My wife just abandoned her Facebook after all kinds of irritating problems with the self-propagating efforts of FB to expand their knowledge for advertising. Then family took offense that she didn't live her life on FB with them. And that she didn't want every kid's constant emails with their school friends being sent to her email to make her look on FB to see what the drama is.
Bad enough to try to make a point in print on Edmunds to have someone twist the point to try to make it different than originally it was. I can't imagine handling that while driving with my high tech infotainment center.
And the higher equipped cars seem to come with the unneeded centers with 12-inch GPS and control center for the whole capsule.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
As for the Depression years, she says she remembers a happy childhood. Christmas was nothing extravagant. You might get an orange in your stocking, but that was about it. But, she lived in a 5-bedroom house with indoor plumbing and a bathroom, which was a rarity around here. I don't think my house got a bathroom until 1950, when the county ran a water line through. And my grandparents' house, built in 1947, had a "wash room", but still had an outhouse.
She went on to live in Washington DC for awhile, and met her husband in 1942. At the time, he manned an anti-aircraft battery on a hill at what is now the National Arboretum in DC. But then he went off to Belgium, Africa, etc, and came back with what today is known as post-traumatic stress disorder.
She had her ups and downs through life, but I think she's done okay over the years. She says that in many respects things were "better" in the old days. For instance, she mentions about how as a 9 year old, she could go out at night and go visit her best friend who lived about a quarter mile away, and not be worried about anything. Truth be told though, our neighborhood isn't that bad...you could probably do that today, although today you'd have to worry about getting hit by a car at night.
Oh, and yeah, back in the day, she remembers her family raising their own food. Everybody around here did that. In fact, at my house (wasn't my house then, obviously), I remember as a kid, there was an old chicken coop that was falling in on itself, out back by the workshop.
And Grandmom and Granddad always had a garden, going back as long as I could remember. Granddad last had one in 1989, as he died in April 1990. But I remember that summer, helping Grandmom put one in, just because it was a habit for her. That habit eventually died off though, although every once in awhile, my uncle will till up a patch of ground in the spring, plant a few tomatoes or something, and then not tend to it so it just becomes a buffet for the local critters and such.
As for cars outlasting their drivers, that's happened in my family, as well. I got Grandmom's '85 LeSabre, after she couldn't pass the eye test anymore. Ultimately ended up with Granddad's '85 Silverado as well. Grandmom kept it for about 5 or 6 years after he died, but then gave it to my Mom. She got a new F150 in 2002, and sold it to me. On my Dad's side, he gave up driving at 90, back in 2004, and he offered to give me his '94 Taurus. I didn't need it though, so another cousin got it, and it lived a hard life until he gave it away in 2012.
My grandmother's cousin is still driving, but she doesn't know how much longer she'll be ale to. But, GM isn't making any money off of her, and neither is anybody else. She's still driving an 1989 Coupe DeVille that she's had since her then-boyfriend sold her back in 1992. Before that, she had a 1979 Volare wagon and before that, an early 70's Duster with a 318. So, in my lifetime, she's only had two brand-new cars. That Caddy has spoiled her though, and she says she'd love to get another. I doubt if she'd be able to even see over the dashboard of a modern Caddy though...or most modern cars. I'm sure she'd have major visibility issues with all the high beltlines, thick pillars, and such.
Boy, the stories were flying! Most seemed glad to be around to enjoy each other.
Well, I see working at a market, unless you are a manager, as a school job. You know, the one you get at 19 years old while you are studying to make something of your life. Or you are a mom wanting to make some spare change to supplement hubby's income.
People who think a cashier job is a CAREER have made poor choices IMHO. Where are there skills? Did they get an education, or did they learn a valuable trade? I don't see running groceries by bar code scanners as a valuable trade.
I agree, to an extent, but I think a bigger problem is that there just aren't that many good jobs to go around anymore. In many cases, it's not that a cashier job is all these people can do...they're capable of much, much more. But those might be the only types of jobs readily available.
And after a while they get comfortable in that job and lose any confidence they may have had to try and get something better.
OTOH, any job where you are dealing with the general public first-hand, year after year after year, can be challenging just trying to tow that diplomatic line while often being abused. If I had to choose between being a 'lowly' cashier in a grocery store vs sitting behind a desk crunching numbers as an accountant, I'd rather take the paycut of the cashier, than slit my wrists after a few years of accounting.
I wonder how comfortable they're getting, though. I've heard some of the employees at my local Giant grocery store chatting, and occasionally hear about them picking up second jobs, going back to school, etc. So at least some of them aren't just sitting still.
The other day, an older gentleman who helped me out when the self checkout wouldn't scan my nuts (Planter's Honey Barbecue now, everybody get your minds out of the gutter!) said something to another employee, about working two jobs to get ahead, and I chimed in that I had to do it myself, and I know plenty of others who did.
Heck, for a brief moment in time, I was actually working THREE jobs! I hope I never have to do it again, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I'll never forget one of my friends saying I was selfish for having three jobs, because it was taking a job from somebody else. But, if I didn't have those three jobs, the creditors would have been taking something from me! Like my condo!
I remember selling beer in a minor league ball park just to meet young women. That was a fun job. And back in the day, before there were all of these specialty car stereo shops, I used to charge people to help them upgrade their car stereos. I enjoyed it, and made a few dollars as well.
And no, I would definitely not take a big cut in pay to be a cashier!
At that point, I picked up a third part time job delivering pizzas, and did that during the nights and weekend time that I wasn't working the other part time job, which was in a department store. I made a lot more delivering pizzas though, so I started phasing out that department store job fairly quickly. Once I got out of debt, i tried to keep delivering pizzas, but by that time my career was advancing, and I found that I really didn't need the pizza job, so I phased it out, as well.
And no, I wouldn't take a pay cut to be a cashier, either! If I got laid off, I'd be willing to do the job if I had to, to make ends meet, though.
I do see some pretty nice cars, similar to hers, pop up at the swap meets in Carlisle PA from time to time. And they're usually fairly reasonable.
I am about to that point as well. I joined to see pics of my grandkids and it is totally out of control. I get stuff from all over if I accept someone as a friend. Not to mention dealing with a nest of Liberals on Rocky's page.
I do get all the latest on GM from Rocky. He is still a diehard after they dumped on him.
Last Thursday was looking at the Acadia and saw a big puddle under it. Closer inspection revealed it was coolant. Being curious I refilled the empty over flow tank and started it up. In about 30 seconds it dumped out more coolant that I had put in. Watching the temp gauge climb in spurts of 25 degrees I shut off the vehicle and got on the phone to GM roadside assist. They tow it to the nearest dealer and on Friday I get a call around lunchtime asking if it was my Acadia sitting on their lot. So much for Roadside assist passing on the details. Gave the service writer the info on the leaking coolant and he said he would get back to me. Four hours later he calls and tells me they replaced the water pump and the car is ready to go.
Fast forward... I returned home and looked at the work order. It stated that they replaced the water pump and on inspection found fluid leaking from the steering rack. Nice of them to let me know. So I go out and check the fluid level on the power steering unit and shows nothing. Thanks for filling that up knowing there's a leak. Anyway just thought I'd let you know on this 2010 GMC Acadia with 19,719 miles that the water pump and now the rack needs to be replaced.
Luckily I was 5 days from the end of my 3/36 so I got the selling dealer to replace the rack under warranty. I was just thinking that if this had happened one week later I would be looking at $2K in repairs on a vehicle that has less than 20K miles. I think this vehicle will be traded once I get it back since I'm out of the 3/36 period.
Just thought I'd share that story with you.
Buying American cars what does it mean? Don't keep it past 3 years.
But I simply do not believe that a week later you would've been charged.
Your story is not unlike other posts of trans pukings on Accords.
GM covered $2K worth of repairs on my Uplander when it was five years old and had 77K miles--without an extented warranty. One item was a steering rack. It was built before the bankruptcy, of course--although there were those here who flatly said, "GM does not honor the warranty after the bankruptcy." Period.
Simply, is there an import that has the capacity and I'd say, style, of an Acadia? Not that I can think of.
Your dealer does not sound up to the par of my Chevy dealer, unfortunately.
I do see that CR shows cooling to be 'better than average' on a 2010 Acadia (although 'much better than average' on a Traverse with the identical engine). So, like people here say when I say I've had excellent service with my Cobalt, I guess I could say "sample of one".
But I care only about my experience, so you do have my sympathy.
BTW, I believe a water pump is part of GM's 5-year, 100K mile powertrain warranty. If a thermostat and new coolant is, it seems that a water pump would be. But I don't know that without checking.
As noted here previously, GM's powertrain warranty is bested only by HyunKia.
My new VW Touareg TDI has a 10 year 100k mile power train warranty. And from the service I have gotten in the first 28 days I can say with confidence it will be multiple times better than the last GMC dealer I was stuck with.
In fact it was my experience with my 2005 GMC Sierra Hybrid that put me on the side of letting GM fold up and go out of business. Doesn't sound like they are all that much improved as Government Motors.
I agree with you the Acadia is a nice looking whatever it is. It also has lots of room. Worst part is they are GAS HOGS to the max. Looking at Fuelly.com they have gone down hill from the first year 2007. You are lucky to get the city mileage for an average. No where close to their 23 MPG hwy EPA rating.