Where's the money? Is it coming??

If you are unemployed in California...

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/unemployment-checks-with-600-boost-rolling-out-this-week/2272524/

So it's supposed to be your UI award plus $600 per week for four months.

My max award started on 3/22/2020.

About the federal stimulus check:

https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/economic-impact-payments

A one-time payment of $1200 for single status filers, no dependents. My son's father owes me back child support so his federal stim money is supposed to go to me, even if he considers himself disabled. We'll see how that plays out.

Today is day 26 staying at home with no job and I've seen no money yet. I mean, I'm marking it on my calendar each morning.

A Retirement Wake-up Call

I woke up really early this morning, my body anticipating the time change this weekend and to the noise of the TV being on to that Ed Slott infomercial about saving your retirement. I've seen it before. I'm sure I'll watch it again. But something struck me. 2012 went by so fast and I probably have about 20 more working years before I retire.

FACT: The three things you cannot live without are food, shelter and clothing. People will give you clothes and share their food with you as these things are relatively cheap but you have to maintain a roof over your head or eventually you'll die of exposure to the elements.

FACT: The single most expensive financial decision one will ever make is to buy a house.

I went to lunch the other day with my cheapskate lunch date (who is in retail loan sales) and somehow the conversation always turns to money. Previously, I discussed with him my need to refinance my home  because I currently have a Hybrid 5 year Fixed/6 month Libor Note that's been adjusting for awhile now. Since LIBOR rates are tied to the European economy and it followed the U.S. economy decline with the credit crunch and the housing market crisis, my Note rate dropped from the initial rate and has stayed low... but the economy is improving. Jobs are coming back to the finance market because even I've had opportunities to interview recently for what I do which is highly specialized and I'm not looking for a new job now. And with an improved economy, interest rates will start to creep up higher. And the interest rate I'm paying today for my home loan is close to market rate and I don't want to put myself into a situation where I have a high interest rate and may not be able to refinance in the future. I also know that my loan is owned by Fannie Mae and HARP Loans, that are easier to qualify for with a high LTV and that require no appraisal, are going away next year.

After getting back to work, he sent me this email:

"Your goal this week or next is to contact HR in order to open a 401(k) because retiring poor sucks. I have to turn down seniors all the time (for cash-out refi home loans) and it makes me sad."

I had a 401(k) before I was laid-off from my mortgage job (the company closed) and because it lost half it's value and I didn't know when I was going to get my next job, I liquidated it the moment I could. Almost right after my severance pay ran out, in February 2008, I was hired as a contractor to Fannie Mae for a year and a half driving 150 miles round trip for work each day to manage the default vault at 1800 Tapo Canyon (if your're in the industry, you know that address holds one of the highest number of mortgage loans on the west coast) of loans moving from Countrywide's safekeeping into my custody. I supervised the vault's growth to hold 325,000 files (who knows how large it is today). The stock market tanked in October. HBO produced an excellent movie called "Too Big to Fail" which is a portrayal of what happened in October 2008. I was sitting in the belly of the beast and the beast was required to be bought by B of A and the behest of the U.S. federal government due to B of A exercising a large repurchase of poor performing loans.

FACT: You only have about 45-50 years to save before you retire.

When you're in your 20's and busy establishing your career, home and family, you're probably not thinking a whole hell of a lot about your retirement. My cheapskate lunch date is actually the same age I am, mid-40's, and as he's also a Realtor,  he's put his money to work more than I have in the past so I have to give him some respect for the financial position he's in now as compared to mine own.

My parents, when they retired, didn't really plan for it. Both had to work after retirement because they didn't have homes to sell and live off of the proceeds or even homes that generated a net income from rent. They had no savings accounts, just checking accounts. Both had meager life insurance payouts. I was able to settle my father's estate, but my mothers???

She lived off of credit cards until the day she died. As I cleared out her apartment, I found many newly bought items and at the time, couldn't figure out how she could afford it. That is until I found a brown box in the back of her closet full of unpaid credit card bills which turned into charge offs. She couldn't afford it. She consulted with a family friend, a lawyer, that told her not to pay them after she was 75 and had triple by-pass heart surgery.

I took back to the store those items I could find receipts for and threw the contents of her apartment in storage because it was right before Christmas when she passed. I paid the final utility bills with the cash on hand and that refund money and also ignored those credit card bills. Because of the lack of her financial and retirement planning, I had to pay out of my own pocket for her cremation, her headstone, her funeral and the transfer of her ashes to New York where they were buried with her parents, my grandparent, as she wanted. It took me a year and a half to get rid of that storage unit, finally donating the majority of the contents to Goodwill after giving away some things to friends and I paid for that storage unit, too. I can imagine my story of not being able to settle my mother's estate multiplied by the number new retirees and the debt river that's coming.

So in essence, if the vast majority of people now have the lack of retirement planning, execution and savings like my parents had, you and I will be paying for it all the way through the period the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) goes into retirement (2011 to 2029)  and subsequently passes away passing their unpaid debt onto the large financial institutions who will pass it on to the consumer in the form of higher fees and interest rates. That consumer is you and me.

Ed Slott says the biggest retirement killer are:
1. taxes
Tax free safety zone (life insurance and annuity)
Payouts from Life Insurance are tax free.
Roth IRA's conversions. You can get an annuity inside your Roth IRA.

2. risk 
You cannot rely on the stock market for a secure retirement future. Think about an annuity. It guaranties your retirement income for life.

3. saving money
Sometimes you have to spend money now to save money later. Buy life insurance. Seek out qualified financial planners.

4. uncertainty
No one will ever care about your retirement money more than you.

5. inactivity
Doing nothing will be costly because prices rise and taxes increase. Do something now when you can. If you want a secure financial future, you have to do something about it.

I emailed HR about establishing a new 401(k) blind-copying my friend and then I called and was qualified for a HARP loan all in the same day.

Lets see where I am this time, next year...

From OC Weekly

It's a chuckle:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/09/50_reasons_why_orange_county_is_the_worst_place_in_america.php

GO!

Conversion at work is almost complete. It's been a busy three weeks for me to get there. My boss cut off the OT this week so that I can work on Saturday morning and reconcile then instead of on Monday. But I found out Friday that it really didn't matter.

Friday, I wanted to get up early and watch the Royal Wedding, but I decided to record it instead so
I could get up at my normal time. And then I woke up early anyway. So I watched it and then went to work.

So Friday at work, the last day of conversion, I'm pretty much a zombie. No amount of hot black English tea was working to keep my senses keen. And I'm an ogre without my required minimum 6 hours of sleep. So, recapping... Friday, I was a zombie ogre due to lack of sleep. By the time I got home, the caffeine finally kicked in and was wired for sound and couldn't fall sleep for awhile even though I was fatigued.

Saturday morning, I went to work from 8AM to 12PM. I checked reports and did a bunch of manual processes that I probably could have done on Monday morning, but I wanted to be present and accounted for 'for the team'.

Amid all this end of month/conversion activity, I received an email notification that there is a job opening for me, especially me and my employment experience, in Irvine. Open positions for the type of job I perform are rare. And this one is 7 miles from my home. That would cut my 40 mile/up to two hours a day one-way commute down by 33 miles. If I get this job, I wouldn't even have to take the freeway if I didn't want to. I sent in my resume.

Yahoo.com reported Bin Laden was killed. 9-11 affected my work in 2001 as I was employed with Banker's Trust at the time. I think that the public should be cautious and not breathe that sigh of relief too deeply because there is sure to be someone else in his ranks ready to react in retaliation.

7/14/09: MLB All Star Game Opening Pitch

I'm proud to have a president who can get his pitch over home plate while he wears the colors of his favorite baseball team, blue jeans and sneakers to the All Star game. And the AL won it's 7th straight All Star game. Gravy.

Southern California and the Presidential Town Halls

President Obama will arrive at the Long Beach Airport (LBG) at 3:00 PM on 3/18/09, and then, I imagine, he will board the Presidential helicopter, Marine One to get to Costa Mesa in order to speak at his 'Town Hall Meeting' at the Costa Mesa Fairgrounds (most likely the Pacific Amphitheater) at 4:00 PM, because he probably cannot make it in time to the location with all the rush hour traffic in an hour on the 405 freeway. I'm also guessing that he will be staying at the fabulous Irvine Hyatt Regency located at Jamboree and Main tonight. Why? I know former presidential candidates have stayed there 1) because there are helipads on the parking structures nearby, and 2) that hotel has only one driveway in and three going out. And it's like a fortress inside.

Thankfully, he will be in Los Angeles County on Thursday, 3/19/09, on the same day I took off from work for a doctor's appointment. In Pomona, he will tour the Edison's electric vehicle plant (that makes nothing for the public's consumption). In 2007 according to Edison's Web site, they reportedly tested "advanced battery technologies that could further enhance the emergence of future energy storage applications in the utility industry.". Southern Californians have yet to see anything advanced come from Edison other than the advanced notice required by the PUC before raising the rates on every one's utility bills. See: California regulators approve Edison rate hike I know for a fact he will be in downtown LA at 1:00 PM at the Miguel Contrera Learning Complex which is situated at 322 Lucas Avenue, and then will tape an appearance on the Jay Leno show which is surely going to mess up my co-worker's drive home if the President chooses to commute on the same roads I usually drive home. They tape at 5:00 PM. Again, hopefully, he will be sporting the helicopter to avoid the hellish road conditions around that time. I will me at home watching my local digital station to make double sure I'm as far away from that mess as I can possibly be.

We need those jobs here!

I read this article today:
US firm to close branch due to lack of employees

... and then I thought about all those mortgage companies that closed in Orange county over the past few years (such as the one I used to work at), and all those people who are still struggling to find a decent job because the unemployment rate in California is over 10%, and then I put two and two together and said to myself, "Why can't they move that branch office from North Dakota to my town?" We have ample people who need jobs and enough office space to house a branch off of Redhill Avenue. What can we do to bring this company to California?

And the answer is, "Not a damn thing." The governor has raised taxes again for businesses and employees alike making it unattractive to bring new companies into California from other states. If anything, call centers like the one described in the article that is closing in North Dakota would be located in remote areas like Lancaster where companies can keep the costs and wages low being located in generally depressed areas.

I like the fact the President Obama is throwing money at the problem of unemployment, but I wonder really how it's going to get to the tens of thousands of clerical office workers who need it. People who build roads won't hire me or my friends to do a man's job. People who build houses such as framers, drywall, tile, paint and plumbers, rarely want to take on concrete or asphalt work. And then there is the "We have a job for you *if* you have the experience". The golden question surrounding that is, "How do you get experience in a field you've never worked in before in order to get a good paying job?"

Sometimes, I think the free market economy we live in is highly over-rated.

President Obama and I

President Obama and I are similar people and that I think is why the country is having a hard time dealing with some of his actions and his decisions. I think that based upon the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, both of us are INTJ. It's just my observation, but I'd be kind of surprised if he wasn't.

He has creative ideas to solve problems. Sometimes, people don't like this. People get used to the status quo of fixing things and when you throw a different idea out in the mix, it sometimes doesn't go over very well. It seems everything is subject to criticism but more so when the decision comes from someone who is a leader and an INTJ.

I read something in the news today that didn't make sense to me. President Obama cancelled a meeting with a English politician due to snow, but he said 60 people from a street repair company located in Pennsylvania will be working in Maryland to repair a highway. I wonder what the street repair companies in Maryland are thinking. I wonder if there was any competitive bids process. And I wonder when the job will actually start because yesterday, there was a nor'easter that came through the area. I don't think anyone is working on roads when they are frozen, Mr. President, sir. Maybe that announcement was a little premature. And then I read he's talking to Russia about missile defense. Oops. I know the old saying, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer", but where is Hillary? And who's scheduling this stuff?

History Repeats Itself

12-28-1932 - Ironwood Daily Globe, Ironwood, Michigan

The year 1932 to some is the year of the Lindbergh kidnapping. To some, the year of the Shanghai-Manchuria Adventure. To some it was the third year of the Great Depression. But in the United States, at least, it might well be named the Year of the Forgotten Man.

It was his year. It was he who swung the country from conservative Republicanism to mildly progressive Democracy by a plurality of nearly seven million votes. It was he who swung the American Legion from anti-bonus to pro-bonus, the American Federation of Labor from passive to aggressive. It was he who marched on Washington for the bonus, he who ran the farm strike. It was he, and nearly 12,000,000 of him who were unemployed, who set the country pondering and planning for the future.

Without precedent was the overturn by which, casting well over 33 million Democratic votes, the Forgotten Man climbed into the political driver’s seat. The election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and an overwhelming Democratic House and Senate was the common man’s effort to cope with conditions he had never seen before.

Face The Nation: Nov 2, 2008

I was watching Face the Nation on my local CBS station just because I wanted to see what the politicos had to say this morning two days before the most historic presidential election ever.

One man, Senator John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, who sided clearly with McCane, made me take notice when he said, as I too think, that it was the CRA in the 1970's that started the need for alternative financial vehicles, i.e. interest only notes, because financial institutions were forced into lending to consumers that has less than stellar credit and could not afford the monthly mortgage payment plus taxes and insurance on a thirty year note.

Earlier in my blog, I began to write how the United States got into this big of a financial mess in the first place, but it became too preachy and a diatribe really, so I decided not to publish it to allow more scholarly peoples put the pieces of the puzzle together for themselves or to atleast see if they came to a similiar conclustion as I did. I was happy to hear what I heard this morning from this senator, but saddened that he was an avid supporter of McCane.

On a side note, I cannot support McCane, a man who is older than my mom and so senile he doesn't even know how many houses he owns. Maybe he needs some Ritalin... or a retirement home. He reminds me of the lifetime politicians of yesteryear when almost at the end of their term in office, they would run for yet another position to continue their legacy, err, government funded their way of life they aren't yet comfortable giving up without a fight.

No, Sarah, no!

Please don't vote for McCane - here's why...

Sarah Palin thinks the vice president is in charge of the United States Senate.

Read: Palin Claims Vice President 'In Charge of the U.S. Senate'

Dear Govenor Palin... even Wikipedia got this one right and didn't attend the University of Idaho. What did they teach you in potatohead land? Did you pass minimum requirements to graduate from high school? Do you even remember U.S. History class or was that the period where you and your future husband passed notes back and forth to kill time?

Who was the first Vice President? The right answer from you may win back an ounce of my respect, but I'm still not going to vote for you.

And while I'm on the subject or no-no's, supposedly you made over $250,000 last year per your Public Financial Disclosure Report, so why is it that you need to have the RNC buy you and your family upwards of $150,000 of wardrobe and make-up using political donations?

Read: Sarah Palin went on some kind of RNC-financed shopping spree, Politico says

And then you're going to donate those clothes to charity? The "Everyday Working Class" people I know don't take public funds, buy clothes, wear them once, and give them away.

Read: Palin aide says candidate's clothing to be donated

That is a typical example of the wasteful spending I do not want to be associated with.

Not to mention that you billed the citizens of the great State of Alaska for your children's travel arrangements to political functions where they served no purpose but to be moral support for you and show that you're some kind of super mom but in reality you're too cheap to hire a nanny or to tell your husband he has to watch the kids?

Read: Palin Children Traveled On Alaska's Dime

I am so glad I don't declare to be a Republican. I bet Matt Gonzalez knows the role the Vice President plays in United States government.

Did you hear?

I often sleep with the television on, but this I know I'm sure I heard... Anytime I her the words Fannie Mae my ears perk up now because it may effect my job.

Did you hear this morning at the 4AM hour where it was announced on World News Now that an advisor to Senator McCane was being paid $15,000 a month by Fannie Mae? When the Treasury Department took over the company and found out this was happening, they stopped the payments. Tell me why... Do you know? This had to happen because it would of looked like the current president in office was providing financing funds, in effect sponsoring, McCane's presidential campaign. Eww. I wonder how many times that is going to be a news article today. Probably just that once.

Count Every Vote

You should read about who thought it was important enough to get involved with the organization "People for the American Way" HERE in order to protect your right to vote and make your voice be heard on election day.

...and it wasn't Obama or McCane either.

She Could Go All The Way

I walked by a car in the parking lot on the way into work which had a bumper sticker which read, "Gobama". That inspired me to write this blog.

The Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee meets this weekend to decide the fate of the delegates up for grabs in Michigan and Florida, the two states that moved their primary elections beyond the date allowed and thus disqualified themselves in participating in the 2008 presidential electoral process.

Or did they? I fear shades of the Bush recount and Florida's hanging chad fiasco once more at least in that state. What shenanigans the Michigan constituency can get itself into remains to be seen.

Hillary has got majority of the blue collar workers and elderly on her side, I feel, in both states which could provide her the tipping point she needs before counting in her super delegates at the convention.

I mailed in my ballot today with double postage, dang it.