Rant The 3rd

Rant the 3^rd and final.

I have edited this, a lot, over the last few days. I have cleaned it up a bit and it’s not so much a rant anymore as it is a written sadness as to what is happening , not just to us, though this is what this about, but to thousands if not millions just like us.

It is also NOT about whining. I wrote a week or two ago that G-D is in control and all is well. This is still my belief. G-D has His plans and purpose and I will be content in that knowledge.

So here it is in a nut shell. Our world has come to a screaming halt. My credit rating is about to drop through the floor. We will be loosing our house to foreclosure and everything that we have tried to build on for the past 20 years will come crashing down around our ears and there is nothing that we can do to stop it. This is not so much about what has happened as it is about how.

Welcome to the American dream.

I must take a moment first to talk about our wonderful financial system and institutions that we have in this great nation of ours. Where else in the world can you live where the banking and auto industry can rob you blind and make you believe that it’s a good thing? Where else can you go, that when you want to try and talk to a real person you will likely get nothing but a machine or, if you are really lucky, you get to talk to someone who lives in another country who promptly tells you that there is nothing that can be done to help, or they tell you what it is you need to do and you follow all the rules and you are promptly and completely ignored?

If I was a powerful business man or someone from the government trying to contact them, they would respond with much groveling, but because I am but a mere peon I can’t get the time of day from them. Such has become the acceptable way of life in America now.

There was a comment someone once made that goes something to the effect that if the American people really understood the banking industry that the bankers would all be tarred and feathered. I have truly come to understand this.

The first of the offending institutions probably will not come as a shock to you, Bank of America. They have been all over the business news for some of their less then savory practices and all over the internet for a host of complaints that, by far, out weigh my small bit of rant but here it is.

In the state of Arkansas, because I am 100% disabled from the military, I do not have to pay property taxes. All that is required is a particular form from the VA stating as such and then you send it in with all your paper work and it is supposed to be a done deal.

Well B of A has decided that it will play by its own rules and has ignored that paperwork even after I had it sent again via the county tax office. When you try to call you get the aforementioned lack of service and you are essentially ignored. So as the tax rate has gone up so has my payment. But they are not alone.

My home owners insurance went up as well. I can’t get much of an explanation as to why except that we live in Tornado country. OK fine, but that hasn’t changed in the last year and a half so why does it need to go up so dramatically? Are they planning on sending a Tornado our way?

The Town of Clinton, in order to make things appealing to Pilgrims Pride, gave them a huge break on everything from water to electricity. They re- did their septic systems and fixed roads, all this in the hopes of attracting them back to the area, but of course the cost had to be eaten by someone, so all our utilities doubled and tripled almost overnight and to add insult to injury, no sign that Pilgrims Pride is going to reopen.

Property taxes went up of which I wasn’t supposed to have to pay in the first place.

Van Buren County added a 5% sales tax on top of the states 9%. Now we are paying 14% every time we go shopping and as most of you know the food prices have been going up as well.

Have you noticed a pattern here? Everything has gone up dramatically in the last year, everything that is except for my paycheck. Our current bunch of legislators have seen to it that we have not received any kind of COLA for what is now going into our 3^rd year.

I would just love to see some of them try and live on what we get paid, but that is, in part, some of the point in this. We have successfully lived on one income for the last 15 years. We have had to move a bit to keep our heads above water, but up until now, we have been able to. We have wondered if the day was going to come when it would finally become too much and we would loose everything, but we have kept at it. For the record we home school our kids and I would rather eat nothing but bread and water rather then put my children into one of those mind numbing schools, so that is the primary reason for just one income.

Well the day finally arrived last week, where we finally hit a wall…hard. It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been our mistake but in this case someone else made a mistake, has admitted to it, over the phone anyhow, and yet will do nothing to rectify the situation.

Last month, after much research on the part of my wife, we traded in our car for a Van.

My wife  found what appeared to be a good deal. There was a catch though that we were not aware of until it was too late.

Last week after payday we went to register the car and received a rather rude shock.

Apparently Red River Dodge, Chrysler and Jeep, in Heber Springs, Arkansas, did not include the tax in the cost of the vehicle.

Never in my life have I ever bought a vehicle where the taxes were not included. I didn’t even know it was possible to do that. Try going to Wal-Mart and walking out of the store with out paying the taxes. They would drag you away in handcuffs.

We contacted the car dealer about this apparent oversight and the short version is that they are going to do nothing. Their argument is that I should have asked about it sooner, while at the same time admitting it was their mistake, that they should have said something at the time of signing. I am not sure how I can ask about something if I am not even aware of the problem, but that is why they are a business and I am but a mere mortal. The simplest thing would have been for them to own up to it and take care of the problem, but instead, like most businesses in today’s world, their own profits are put ahead of doing the right thing.

This has been the proverbial straw that has broken the camels back or, in our case at least, the bank. I can’t afford to pay the tax unless I skip all the other bills including the mortgage. We have hit the wall that many have already hit and many more are going to hit unless things change. One clerical error, one unforeseen bill and everything that you have worked for can disappear.

I am not telling you this to invoke any kind of sympathy. I am not telling you this because I want any thing from you. It’s not about losing the house or having to move out of the area. It is the way that it happened that troubles me and should trouble you as well. We have not been living beyond our means. We have no credit cards and other then our house and car we have bought nothing on credit. Yet all it has taken is one major unexpected bill and the cost of living to go up and it has pushed us over the edge.

You are not nearly as far away from disaster as you might think you are.

My faith and belief in G-D has not diminished. If anything I know that it will become stronger because I am going to have to rely on Him more to make things happen for us.

But I would ask you to consider this; while everyone in the political arena debates over who is deserving of what help, or you intellectually decide that only certain people are worthy of your attention, you may be next on the list to go down and your intellectual debate won’t hold water much like the cup that will be missing from your hand.

Governments will fail. Economies will collapse. Religions may disappear.

But G-D will always remain. That is all I can base my hope on, and He is enough.

End of Rant.