Sarah Palin, Republican Vice Presidential Candidate

[Elvis]

Here's a study on the matter:

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/bank_ownership.pdf

For Middle Class, Dream of Own House Drowns in Sea of Debt

Key findings:

• The Increase in Home Ownership is Slowing as Housing Costs Increase.
The rise in home ownership rates that began in the mid-1990s has slowed markedly since early 2001, especially for African-Americans.


• Americans Are Borrowing More Than Ever Against Their Homes to Pay Other Expenses, Reinvesting Less Back Into Their Home Equity.
Households have relied more heavily than ever before on borrowing against the equity in their homes to help them pay their bills. This additional borrowing has allowed families to deal with skyrocketing costs such as health care and education during a period of stagnant labor market and wage growth.


• Families Own Less of Their Own Homes Than Ever Before.
During this business cycle, families have owned the smallest share of their own homes since the 1950s. Rapidly rising home values were outpaced by even faster growing debt.


• Historic Increase in Mortgage Debt a Growing Factor in Historically High Personal Bankruptcies.
Mortgage debt has risen higher and faster than ever before during a business cycle, contributing to the economic distress of many families, reflected in record personal bankruptcy rates.


• Historically Low Interest Rates Not Offsetting the Historically High Borrowing.
Although historically low interest rates have helped increase home ownership, the historic level of borrowing more than offsets any gains made by the low interest rates.

- This study was conducted in 2005.


Home Ownership Among the Middle Class

http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/?chartid=504

http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/images/504.gif

Notes: Based on respondents who identified themselves as belonging to the middle class. Whites include only non-Hispanic whites. Blacks include only non-Hispanic blacks. Hispanics are of any race. Don't know responses not shown.

Survey Date: January 24-February 19, 2008

[Olo401]

Sure there is, Gold. Lots and lots of gold, all for the low low price of $909 per ounce!

EDIT: Well maybe saying it's stable is wrong. Pretty sure it hasn't gone down in forever though.

It was around $750 at the start of last week. Either on Wed or Thurs there was a run and the price spiked 200 bucks in five hours.

Before it came down, there was a pretty steady period (about a year or so) where it was between $875-1050/oz.. Most hard commodity metals (copper, silver, lead etc.) have all been trading at record highs over the past 2-3 years. Then again, most commodity anything has as well.

[pohibaba]

It's not unreasonable or terribly uncommon for some middle class people to have multiple houses as investments, having mortgages on each of them and using rental income to pay for them while slowly building equity. They are by no means rich and a lot of them got owned by the housing market, meaning they're worse off than people with a single home these days.

This is exactly what they do; they have some sort of deal with their bank or something where all of the rent money goes into the same account and all of their mortgages get lumped together, and they pay the difference between the two which comes out to about the same as a normal mortgage would be. I know nearly nothing of the details because it's not my family and I honestly have never cared that much. They're by no means poor, but I certainly wouldn't call them rich. The mom is the Vice President of a private university and the dad is currently unemployed. They have 2 cars and they only live in one house, and I promise you that they're not sitting with a ton of money in the bank. All they're doing is trying to secure themselves a comfortable retirement when they get old.

[Neosutra]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=636018

Ignorance, spreading through children since 3000 BC.

[pohibaba]

While it's true that the shirt (and the dad, and most likely the son as he grows up) are pretty fucking moronic, making him turn it inside out/suspending him over it was pretty fucking moronic as well.

[ZarakiKujata]

Holy shit, Slacker Uprising is funny but its kind of late if he wants it to impact this election..

[Elmer the Pointy]

While it's true that the shirt (and the dad, and most likely the son as he grows up) are pretty fucking moronic, making him turn it inside out/suspending him over it was pretty fucking moronic as well.

It's a no-win situation, really. He's 11 years old, and if they let him walk around proudly displaying his shirt, other children will go home and mention it to their parents and the school will have that shit storm to deal with.

[eunhye]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I saved up tons of money and now I have to pay for idiots in NY and idiots who listened to idiots telling them that investing in these securities would make their money ten-fold. Fuck you greedy mfers.

[pohibaba]

It's a no-win situation, really. He's 11 years old, and if they let him walk around proudly displaying his shirt, other children will go home and mention it to their parents and the school will have that shit storm to deal with.

While I completely agree that the school was put into a bad position, most likely they would have only had a handful of parents complain about the shirt if they allowed him to leave it on. Now they're going to have to deal with TONS more shit for taking away the free speech of a 5th grader.

[Dimmauk]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=636018

Ignorance, spreading through children since 3000 BC.

The dad Dann(why the extra N?) sounds like he was reading Rush's lines. Who else says "Liberal Loons"?

[Elvis]

Look this comes down to natural rights.

It's not moronic at all to suspend a fucking retard who knows nothing about politics except for what his ignorant parents have indoctrinated into him.

Look at Fred Phelps and co.

It's just wrong in that it violates his right to free speech. Reconciling that right to the rights of the school to impose it's rules is another scenario.

There are many legal forms of restrictions on free speech. Whether you think that's right or wrong is yet another scenario.

[Dimmauk]

Look this comes down to natural rights.

It's not moronic at all to suspend a fucking retard who knows nothing about politics except for what his ignorant parents have indoctrinated into him.

Look at Fred Phelps and co.

It's just wrong in that it violates his right to free speech. Reconciling that right to the rights of the school to impose it's rules is another scenario.

There are many legal forms of restrictions on free speech. Whether you think that's right or wrong is yet another scenario.

I would think it was a huge distraction to the classroom, and that is why he was suspended.

[Olo401]

This is one amazing summary of the economic situation right now, and the probable endgame scenario.

I'm tellin' ya.. convert your savings to Euros now, because if this government starts printing money to fill in the gaps those dollars are gonna be worth less than the paper we wipe our asses with.

[Elvis]

So what your saying is I should sell all my Desert Storm trading cards asap?

[zoobernut]

"Students do not, the Court tells us in Tinker vs. Des Moines, "shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door." But it is also the case that school administrators have a far greater ability to restrict the speech of their students than the government has to restrict the speech of the general public. Student speech cases require a balancing of the legitimate educational objectives and need for school discipline of administrators against the First Amendment values served by extending speech rights of students.

In Tinker, perhaps the best known of the Court's student speech cases, the Court found that the First Amendment protected the right of high school students to wear black armbands in a public high school, as a form of protest against the Viet Nam War. The Court ruled that this symbolic speech--"closely akin to pure speech"--could only be prohibited by school administrators if they could show that it would cause a substantial disruption of the school's educational mission."

Interesting. Maybe they thought the shirt would be too much of a disruption in class if they can prove that the father has nothing on them. Free speech in schools is kinda fuzzy on one hand it has been said students are still protected under free speech as long as what they are "saying" does not disrupt normal school function.

[pohibaba]

It's not moronic at all to suspend a fucking retard who knows nothing about politics except for what his ignorant parents have indoctrinated into him.

You expect a fifth grader to have formed his own political opinions? You give kids WAY too much credit. And I honestly don't think this had anything to do with "causing a distraction" even though that's the excuse the school will give because 1) They're fifth graders, the teacher will be able to get them to listen to the subject 2) all of the kids that day were supposed to be wearing something special. Like it or not, that school made the choice that his shirt was wrong based upon their values. It's not a school's job to directly correct someone's political or social ignorance (hopefully that will come from the actual act of learning). The school was wrong in this case.

[Dimmauk]

I'm printing up a "911 was an inside job" shirt for my baby girl to wear to kindergarden.

[Elvis]

You're right, he's young. I'll leave it at that.

However, you don't know for sure that it was a political decision. That's your own cynicism projected onto the situation.

The t-shirt isn't just an ignorant political statement. It's an ignorant statement in general. I think most schools would have reprimanded the boy.

[eunhye]

This is one amazing summary of the economic situation right now, and the probable endgame scenario.

I'm tellin' ya.. convert your savings to Euros now, because if this government starts printing money to fill in the gaps those dollars are gonna be worth less than the paper we wipe our asses with.

http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1753.cfm
http://www.cuttingedge.org/population_reduction.jpghttp://www.cuttingedge.org/Combined_disasters.jpghttp://www.cuttingedge.org/Terrorist_nuke.jpg
from blogwars

http://www.sjgames.com/illuminati/im...nati_cards.txt

[Zosi]

Like it or not, that school made the choice that his shirt was wrong based upon their values.

Bull. Shit.

They would've had the exact fucking same reaction if his shirt had said "John McCain should've died in Vietnam like a real hero". Their "value" is a bias against RL political trolling, which is a perfectly valid "value" for an institution that's supposed to be apolitical and focused on teaching children, not hosting political debates.