Had an encounter with a "republican"

[Egnever]

Yesterday I went to a customers house to fix their computer. When i pulled up i noticed that their neighbors had a few mcsame signs so I commented on it when I got to the customers door. Not something I usually do as its not good for business but we need Obama to get in this time its too damn important.

Anyway I said "wow your neighbor sure likes McCain", To wich my customer replied "well I guess thats why we get along so well as we are republicans too, you must be one of those crazy liberals!"

I simply said Yes I guess I must be, as I didn't want to start a fight about it.

So I go upstairs and start working on the computer.

About five minutes later my customer comes upstairs and says "well if you are one of them liberals you better not read the paper today" I ask why is that and he says "theres an artical in the paper about how the whole economic crisis is Harry Rieds fault". The paper here is decidedly republican but i dont think they would go there. So i ask who wrote the piece and the customer says well it was an Op ED still a little bit over the lijne but believable.

So I ask him "and you buy into that argument?" He says "Well he doesnt like harry ried" , I agree that i am not a huge fan of Harry's but still blaming Harry for the economic crissis seems a little silly no?

He replies "well the dems have had congress for two years now and this stuff just started happening since they got into office."

This is where i take off my try to be nice hat and just start destroying his preconceptions.

"So let me get this straight"" the republicans were in office for the last 8 years and the dems have held congress for two and you think this economic mess is somehow the dems fault. You dont think uit had anything to do with lax regulation on banks that loaned money to people that had no business getting thosde loans? "

"Well" he says "if the dems hadnt pushed to make those loans so easy for low income people to get we wouldnt have this buble in the first place"

"Really?" I reply "so its the dems fault that all these people were given loans by the banks and the bubble had nothing whatsoever to do with the Bush administration holding interest rates at rediculously low levels for years?"

And thats where he folded. "Well You obviously know much more about this than i do I just thought it was a clever op ed".

So again I ask who wrote the Op Ed as I would love to know what writer had such a pathetic grasp of the financial situation we are in. He finally admits that it was a letter to the editor from some random person.

So I just calmly say "well thank god for a second there I thought there was some nationally syndicated writer out there spewing such a ridiculous premise. Good to know it was just some clueless jerk off. Sorry to hear you bought into it".

At that point he turned and walked down stairs and left me to my work :P

Willful ignorance pisses me off.

[ret5hd]

1. Did you get paid cash or by check?

[Egnever]

2. Well I actually took the machine with me

He needed his HDD replaced and that takies more time than i wanted to sit in his house. I will bring it to him monday. So No payment as of yet. I assume it will be a check though.

[Aviation Pro]

5. Answered my question....

...he needed a hard drive replaced? And he couldn't install one himself, format the drive, load Windows and upload his files onto the new drive from a backup he has been diligently keeping?

Oh, wait, you're talking about a Republicant....

:sarcasm:

[MUAD_DIB]

13. Although that kind of thing is second nature to me

many people have trouble even finding the "On" button sometimes.

[Aviation Pro]

3. Just out of curiousity....

...what was wrong with his computer?

[Egnever]

4. His HDD was failing

[ret5hd]

6. Check it for kiddie porn.

[monmouth]

7. HA! You don't know how I love stories like this. They act soooo

superior, can't wait for a "gotcha" and then fail miserably. Thanks for a great post.

[Trajan]

8. I am still bothered by the 'poor should not have gotten a loan' stuff ...

No .. They SHOULD have gotten a loan ... But they SHOULD have gotten PAY RAISES that matched the UPSWING in profits enjoyed by the rich ... After which the poor would be able to make his mortgage payments on time ....

It is BULLSHIT to blame the poor for this: THE POOR SHOULD BE LESS POOR ! ....

Both the poor and middle class have been denied their basic right to a fair piece of the pie: That is not OUR fault ... it is the fault of the greedy bastards who run the economy .....

[justiceischeap]

16. I'm confused about this whole "people who shouldn't be getting loans were getting loans"

I'm one of those people who shouldn't have got a mortgage and guess what? I didn't get one. I was trying to buy a 40K house and most of the mortgage companies laughed me out the door. Hell, I had a heck of a time several years later getting a car loan.

[1corona4u]

17. It wasn't just the poor.....

there were people of ALL income levels that took a loan they couldn't afford. Like the interest only loans. Many people defaulted on those. They took them so they could get more house, for less payment, never even looked down the road. That was really stupid. Or ARM's. Lots of things happened to crash us. Like very lax loan procedures, and not just for the poor. I bought my house, just pre-bubble, with zero down, stated income, and 100% financing. BUT, I had every intention of paying my mortgage. I had a higher rate initially, but refinanced a year later, at a low fixed 30 yr. I had equity then too, because of the bubble, but I did not take it all out like a lot of people did. I still have equity even now. Not as much as before, but I'm not upside down. I never intended to keep the first note though. Some people that took those bad loans, never thought it through.

[Trajan]

19. I would agree the structure of some of these loans were invalid and unreasonable

And I would assert that EVERY poor and middle class income strata were denied decent wage increases.

Personally: I bought three houses since 1994 ... Two sold for the note, and one sold for more than a 56% appreciation ....

I was STILL budgeted at the margin, and could have easily defaulted if one or another financial hiccup had occurred ....

I will scream from the rooftops: WE NEED WAGE INCREASES, because I think that is the BIGGEST problem we face in the Middle Class ...

I dont want credit: I want a livable income ....

[1corona4u]

20. Oh, I totally agree...

after searching for a job, for 2 years, to replace the 50K a year job I quit, I found that for the same job I had, as a DM, they wanted to pay 25K. Fuck, I made 25K 10 years ago...

Needless to say, I am still looking....but I have a business on the side that I kicked into high gear when I quit the other job. Still, I need more income, because I can't live at the level that I did before I quit my job. And, I had a good reason to quit, otherwise, I wouldn't have.

[MadMaddie]

21. Better yet the poor and the middle class should have

been buying a home not at the top of the range that they qualified for right? If they would have bought modest and simple homes some may have been able to make it.

But you are right let's not forget the mortgage brokers they encouraged the behavior too, more money for them.

We all have to learn to live within our means.

[Trajan]

23. When agents and loan officers tell you you can afford something

And you do the math and find the payments are within acceptable limits, then you may jump on it ...

The resets may have seemed a long ways away .... and SURELY the market will continue to ramp up without fail ... And they could always refinance ......

It is obvious many got caught in the trap made of their own ignorance ...

But I really dont blame someone for buying a house, even if it was 'too much house' .... IF you can swing the payments, then THAT is what matters ....

The problem is: The whole refinance cycle fell apart ... AND without decent raises to make up the reset level, buyers were dead in the water ....

[MadMaddie]

26. This is true

[WallStreetNobody]

9. Next time ask him if he knows what a CDS is? And...

Ask him if he can explain how off-balance sheet leverage works. Ask him if he understands how the tranching of securitized loans leads to systemic risk throughout the CDOs whole structure - oh and ask if he knows what a CDO is. Ask him if he realizes how utterly stupid it sounds for him to blame the global financial meltdown and loss of tens of trillions of dollars on some poor people who defaulted on their mortgage. Oh and if he really thinks this all started because of mortgages to poor people ask him if he realizes most subprime borrowers were white and most of the problem subprime mortgages were for over $400k (i.e. not for little houses in the ghetto). Ask him if he can explain why AIG needed to be bailed out, and ask him how big the entire stock market is and then ask him if he knows the completely unregulated and uncollateralized CDS market is bigger than it. Ask him if he knows that it is totally unregulated because of Phil Gramm, McCain's chief economic adviser. Ask him if he realizes the single biggest reason for the bailouts is because of the systemic risk the CDS market has created.

We can go on and on, the fact is this guy wouldn't be able to answer one single question. Yet he somehow has the ability to claim Harry Reid and poor people caused all of this because he read a letter-to-the-editor.

[grantcart]

10. Did you get some good referrals? lol

yesterday I blew a sale when I went to an AA home where he supported McCain and she Obama lol. I told him to watch MTP today he was sure he was going to support McCain.

[OwnedByFerrets]

11. Arm yourself even better for the next confrontation...

http://www.newsweek.com/id/163451

"Such a country would be more stable, Bush argued, and more prosperous. "America is a stronger country every single time a family moves into a home of their own," he said in October 2004. To achieve his vision, Bush pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the "zero-down-payment initiative," which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment"

[DainBramaged]

12. I would have left a little something for him (scripted of course)

that would pop up whenever the computer went to any website with the letters RNC;

[Elwood P Dowd]

14. Why didn't you tell him the Dems haven't controlled congress for 2 years.

They've only had a small majority in the house since January 2007. The senate is tied at 49-49-2. That's not control of congress. Oh, and the repukes set a senate record with 62 filibusters in 2007.

[dgibby]

15. set his parental controls to exclude all conservative sites!

[and-justice-for-all]

18. Haha! You smacked a repig down!

Congrats!

[Cha]

22. Good for you, Egnever~ being so

reasoned and calm:)

[progressoid]

24. You crazy liberal with your logic and facts and stuff like that.

[jazzjunkysue]

25. I just had this happen in a bar. They're scared and they've been sent out to scare people.

The asshole I had to trounce said "Liberals don't want to listen."

So I guess these freepers are going out and attempting interventions but it's not going well.

This asshole believes everying faus news tells him. He laps it up.

He actually insisted that Obama is a terrorist. I said, 'Well, actually, no, he's a harvard phd graduate." But the guy insisted he's still a terrorist. I said, "Well, if you believe that, then your next president is a terrorist."

Of course he tried to argue that it's not over yet, to which I relied, He's only 130 electoral points behind Obama. It's real over."

To which he replied, "Well, I just don't like him or the people he hangs around with." And I shut him up with "You're entitled to your own opinion. You're not entitled to your own facts."

And I excused myself and left. Asshole.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

27. You are nicer than me

I will not, I repeat.. Not do any sort of work for "them."

I can't.

I have come to the end of my rope. I will not knowingly shop at a pro-republican store nor hire a republican to do any work for me. Joe the fucking plumber better be voting for Obama or he is not unstopping my drain.

I can't be civilized when they say stupid shit. I told a friend of mine, who called, and wanted to "drop by" tonight - "Are you still dumb enough to believe that Obama is the antichrist and that McCain is a war hero?

He said yes.

I told him to visit someone with a room temperature I.Q. and hung up.

This person? I've known since 1978.

Fuck them. I have zero tolerance for their dumbasses.

[scheming daemons]

28. You should have "fixed" his computer to have DU as his default home page

[Egnever]

29. LOL well I am working on it right now

Maybe ill do something like that..Course I already threw a $20 dumbfuck republican charge on top.

[jillan]

30. I'm so sick of people saying the Dems have been in charge of Congress for the last 2 years.

That in itself is a lie.

We won the majority in Nov 2006 - didn't start until Jan 2007.
It's only been about 1 1/2 years....and how much can we really get done when this administration either vetoes everything or adds a signing statement.

[knixphan]

31. Bravo, Egnever!

:yourock: