What mortgage crisis?

Youtube

They are not just wrong, they are obnoxious and wrong.

What caused the mortgage crisis?

This is why we cannot vote the wrong way.

Youtube

click above and use pause if you need to slow it down.

Stop & Shop sells gas. Some customers get to use it. Some just pay.

If you buy groceries at the Stop & Shop in Hudson, MA ., you are also buying Stop & Shop gasoline, or more accurately; gasoline credits. Unlike an actual gasoline purchase, the credits expire. If you want to use the credits, you will have to drive to Grafton Street in Worcester some 20 miles away.
Redeeming gasoline credits will cost you a gallon of gasoline even if you are tooling around in a Prius. Before continuing with the mathematics, let's consider physics for a moment, shall we?

The Toyota Prius boasts a curb weight of 2432 lbs.

The Toyota Land Cruiser lists curb weight at 5699 lbs. and has an additional specification, towing option you know, GVWR 7275 lbs. Presumably, this means the Land Cruiser is rated to pull an additional ton or so.

For the sake of simplicity (and face facts; if you drive a Prius, physics was not your major) let us limit our discussion to curb weight. The Prius gets just under 50 mpg. The Land Cruiser get under 20 mpg. Two Prius on a scale would weigh less than one Land Cruiser. (This is a clue of physics to come...)

What happens if we take an object with a weight less than 2.5 pounds and crash it together with an object that weighs between 5.5 and 7.5 pounds? Too complicated? OK. Lets say a typical three-year-old collides with a typical-ten-year old. After the collision...which one is crying?

And which one is hungry?

Some things are just true.

One of those true things is that Stop & Shop is ripping you off. If a portion of what we pay for groceries is going to expiring gas credits we have to buy at a Stop & Shop 2 gallons of gas away...Stop & Shop is doing their best to knowingly make you pay more for less.

Is Hannafords? They are right across the street...

Car dealers lie...some more than others.

We all know that selling cars is a competitive field and we know that car dealers are not known for their scruples. Here is an example of a dealer actually advertising their lack of scruples:

Here is the envelope. Looks like a) a check from a state agency, b) a marketing campaign from a car dealer, c) a tax bill.

click on image for larger view

Here is what was in the envelope:
A check from Westboro Mitsubushi for more than a thousand dollars!
It even has an "Official" stamp!

Westboro Mitsubishi is hoping to get exactly
what segment of the car buying public with this campaign?

The envelope is at least misleading; arguably blatantly deceptive.

The "check" is not a check, officially.

Who, that can read and understand basic English, would open this mail,
read the non-check and want to buy a car from this dealer?

Birthday Party Blues

The problem with your charity.

Spam. In a word: spam.

The soft spot in your heart for endangered species, or victims of rare ailments, or the generally downtrodden. etc. etc, most often ends up with you directing me to a website with your particular charity presenting a heart-wrenching case on an expensive platform where you offer the opportunity to instead of buying your seven-year-old a nice birthday present, we might buy a share in the gift of, I am not making this up, a goat for an underprivileged family in a third world country.

We would certainly respect your wishes to spend money on your chosen charity rather than celebrating the birthday of your child, but a trip to Learning Express or some such retailer for a nice toy or game, perhaps a jigsaw puzzle of a goat, will end with a nice toy or game for your birthday girl. A donation to your favorite charity, on the other hand, will result in a mailbox (voice, email and snail mail) full of pleas for more of our money, most of which would go to executives running the “charity” as opposed to actual goats.

While you might want use to give money to provide goats to third world families and to the executives that manage these programs, we, too, have a cause: We want the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution protected. In fact, we will match every dollar you send to the NRA with money for third world goats.

The NRA, by the way, will spend every cent of your donation and then some more trying to extract more money from you. They will call, mail, and email relentlessly. They might do something during off-hours to protect our constitutional second amendment rights, but they will certainly try to sell us insurance and some coffee cups and t-shirts. What about the folks with the goats?

You have been fairly warned about contributing to the NRA. Protecting our second amendment rights is an important cause. Support it through the NRA and enter a world of spam. What about the goats? Do they have t-shirts for sale or perhaps carbon credits?

Carbon credits! Why didn’t I think of that sooner?!

Our youngster is celebrating a birthday! Please don’t get them a game or a puzzle. Don’t get them something they might have a little fun with before they grow up. Instead, please invest in Carbon Credits in their name. While you are at it, add your name, address, phone number, email address etc., to the list of moonbats investing in snake oil and carbon credits.

By the way, if you do not know where to buy carbon credits; we sell them, third aisle on the right, next to the toys for kids.

The farmer's global view of ethanol

click on image for larger view

Special $199 or is it? Are they stupid or do they think we are?

A One Day Sale at MACY’S!

And what are the deals?

Well, let’s look at their ad in the local newspaper, shall we?

A Jacket for $59.99. Nice, the weather is getting cooler.

Sneakers for $29.99. Not bad

Blender for $19.99. Perfect for the dorm.

Wait. What’s this? The small print says the blender is $29 after special. But the big bold print says SPECIAL 19.99. What’s going on here? Does the ad mean that the Special 19.99 is taken off the regular price? If Special 19.99 means 19.99 is deducted from the regular price, wouldn't the result be $30.00? Is MACY'S confused or trying to confuse us? Now if a Bella Cucina blender turns out not to be made in Italy, but actually made in China, that would be really confusing.

What’s going on is false advertising. That’s what. Or maybe not. They might just be incompetent.

Regular $600 minus Special $199 is $401 which is not even close to $288.

If you go to MACY'S looking for the Special $199 ring from the ad, how much is the ring?

What do you think?

Is MACY'S incompetent or intentionally using deceptive advertising?

This is clearly one or the other.

This particular MACY'S ad was run in Massachusetts. Should the Massachusetts Attorney General be doing something to protect citizens from either incompetent or intentionally deceptive advertising? Maybe she's too busy with illegal aliens.


Ask Martha Coakley:

Consumer Hotline Hours

Effective July 1, the Attorney General’s Public Inquiry & Assistance Center hotline will observe restricted hours of operation. The hotline (617-727-8400) will be open Monday through Thursday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. You may file consumer complaints via email any day at any time by completing our Consumer Complaint form.

Monday through Thursday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Where do we apply for that job?

It is lunchtime on Friday afternoon at the Super Stop & Shop in Hudson, Massachusetts. A warm humid day in the first days of September and the children are back at school. Friday afternoon means payday for many and although direct deposit is a popular service banks offer, there are some who prefer a check on payday. Actually, they would prefer cash, but as long as they can cash the check right away…a check will do.

Lunchtime on Friday and an older car with Brazilian flags on the bumpers and hanging from the rearview mirror parks in the fire lane directly in front of the entrance to the Super Stop & Shop. Two young Hispanic men, dressed for a game of hip-hop basketball with thinly trimmed beards and checks in hand enter the Stop & Shop a few feet from where they parked, illegally, in the fire lane. The handicapped parking is twenty or thirty feet away from the front of the store and for where they parked, directly in front of the store entrance. If you have ever been at a grocery store (or similar venue) when someone had a medical emergency or there was a fire alarm or some reason for the Police and Fire and Ambulance/EMT services to show up, then you have seen where the emergency vehicles were stationed. That is where the two young men, dressed for hip-hop basketball with checks in hand were parked.

Inside the Super Stop & Shop in Hudson, Massachusetts at lunchtime on Friday afternoon, these two young men joined a group of similarly dressed men, many sporting Brazilian flags emblazoned on their sleeveless t-shirts or more convincingly with a tattoo.

They were lined up to cash their checks at the Stop & Shop branch of, get this, Citizen’s Bank. That’s right: Citizen’s. Next stop: wire the money back to Brazil, where they are citizens. Legal citizens.

When people want to immigrate to the United States and want to assimilate, want to adhere to the laws of the United States and contribute as well as benefit from a United States way of life, that is indeed the American way. When people want to come into the United States illegally with no intention of assimilation, intending to export U.S. dollars earned illegally and tax-free; overloading emergency room services for “free” medical care at taxpayer expense; overloading our public school systems with the children of parents who do not and have no intention of ever speaking English; that is not immigration. That is an invasion of criminals. Who is parked in the fire lane when you need EMT services at the grocery store? That’s who.