Did You Agree To Rip Yourself Off?

       Here is something to think about with all of the financial crisis making the daily news.  Have you signed anything legal agreeing to rip yourself off financially?  Many people probably haven’t realized this aspect of the times yet…but, a normally smart thing to do each summer is to sign up for a budget plan with your winter heating fuel supplier…agreeing to “lock in” a price when the prices are low during the summer…just in case the price of heating oil/gas goes up, like it normally does in the fall and winter months.

        This year…against any predictable reasoning…gas prices have fallen, sharply.  Still, once people sign on the dotted line to lock in a heating source price…they truly are locked in at that price.   I think as people discover this situation for themselves…there is going to be alot of anger of being caught in this situation.  Some say, that most years it makes sense to lock in and it works out to their advantage…but, this year has really challenged that theory.

          Locking in makes sense usually; the agreement is usually accomplished in mid summer.  Well….if you remember correctly, in July…gas prices were sky high.  In my neck of the woods…gasoline prices have dropped from an all time high of approximately $4.25 down to now a $2.88 cents a gallon.  If you apply that thought process to home heating oil/propane….you can just imagine how much money that people are loosing.

          With the rising cost of food, rent/mortgage payments, health insurance, and other necessities…people can ill afford to pay extra when they don’t have to.  I, for one, am glad that i didn’t lock in my propane prices; like i was advised to! 

          Did you get ripped off by signing an agreement to lock in your heating costs this year?  If you did…you are not alone…and personally i don’t think anyone expected such a situation…but, it really is a gamble trying to predict the future with heating costs.  I am pretty sure that, next year, companies will have a hard time getting people who were burned this year, to sign on the dotted line.  Just stop and think about how many people are living on fixed incomes…i almost hate to see winter arrive because…we will see more people suffering and living in dangerous conditions, in colder climates, because of this.

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Mr. Love Em & Leave Em-Gets Left Himself!

       The infamous Hugh Hefner, publisher/owner of Playboy magazine, is lonely but not alone.  His longtime girlfriend Holly Madison has left him.  She is still residing in the Playboy mansion for the time being as she is also part of his business…however, their personal romantic relationship is over.  The reason being is that Holly wanted & hoped for marriage and babies. 

        Approximately six months ago, Holly found out that Hugh is no longer able to father children at the age of 82.  Marriage also was not in the cards; as he is still married to wife, Kimberly Conrad.  You would think that a woman who lived with, at least, two other women in their relationship…that not only would she understand that marriage was not part of the plan…but, that bringing children into such an arrangement would NOT be a good thing. 

        Still, other than the obvious perks of living with an extremely wealthy man who could offer many material things in life…one has to wonder what, if any, benefit there is for women who range from ages 18-28 would find from being one of several romantic partners with an 82 year old man who lives such a public life of a player. 

        For his part in this debacle, Hugh says that he has been down in the dumps since the split.  At the same time, Hugh makes it a plainly obvious that he is moving on.  He is already looking for new partners to add to his female menagerie.  He says that he will NOT live alone.

        If a person was to think on the psychological side of this equasion…you’d have to wonder why a man who is aging is so bent on surrounding himself with young beautiful women, in large numbers all at the same time, and who is so determined not to live alone.  It is not as if these young women can keep him from aging or knocking on death’s door when the time comes.  It seems such an empty pursuit; a steady avoidance of anything deeper than a temporary commitment.  Hugh was married twice; one marriage ended in divorce, and the other in a long term seperation that continues to this day. 

        Still, there has been a considerable amount of interest in the life of the man who founded Playboy magazine and the business behind it.  There seems to be no shortage of women who are willing to become a part of his lifestyle.  Many of those women have gone on to make a name for themselves in the entertainment industry themselves.  Morally, many people have taken issues with the man, his business, and the message that is implied of living an alternative lifestyle that is in direct opposition to traditional relationships regarding men and women. 

        The image of Hugh Hefner and his life are rolled into a neat little wrap of sexual freedom, financial indulgences, celebrity dalliances and carefree relationships.  However, beneath the surface of such fairytales are usually layers of pain, anger, dysfunction, fear and abandonment issues. 

         In the end, only Mr. Hefner has the answers to such ponderings.  If there are such issues in his life, we will probably never know it.  I am fairly sure, buried in a file cabinet in a lawyers office somewhere, is probably a stack of documents; attesting to the fact of an agreement of confidentiality between Mr. Hefner and the bevy of beauties who have come and gone out of his very public life. Otherwise, don’t you think we would have heard lurid tales of love em and leave em situations from those who have felt jilted by Hugh Hefner, in the past?

        

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Titanic, US Economy & Rescue Boats…What Do They Have In Common

        Titanic, the US economy & rescue boats; what do they have in common?  Much!  Do you remember seeing the pictures of the Titanic ship as she prepared for her maiden voyage?  It was large, it was the ultimate in luxury and it was celebrated as “unsinkable”.  The US economy has sort of lived in luxury even if it has been on “borrowed/credit” monies.  I think many thought the structure of the US economy was unsinkable as well.  We now know differently because of the financial crisis that many have been working so hard to “rescue”.  It is common sense, if you live outside of your means to pay for it…you will loose it all.

          While i think we will probably be saved from the fate of most of the passengers and crew of the Titanic; there are some who will definately suffer.  This morning on the news programs it was announced that the biparisan effort to “fix” the economy has reached a tenative agreement on the way to do that.

           What we need to do is wait to see the methods that are employed in this fix- it solution.  Waiting feels a bit wrong because things are so very important and desperate for many Americans.  There has been suffering already.  Some of the suffers have already been in extreme situations…loosing their homes, filing bankruptsy, working more than one job trying to make ends meet; some have been successful in changing their financial direction and some were not.  Hearing that taxpayers are going to have to fix this problem with more taxes when they are already pushed against the wall is terrifying.  So, some quick explanations of this “bailout”  is very important to calming the fears of the public.

           It is going to be crucial to learn lessons from the Titanic experience.  Even now, knowing that it sunk, knowing that lives were lost…do you think that if the passengers and crew on that ship had each had a bucket and a will to survive that they would not have made the trip up and down the stairs to make an attempt, several times over, to try to bail out the water in the bowels of that ship?  Of course they would have. 

           Had that ship had more lifeboats (rescue boats in our case) would more lives have been saved?  Certainly.  So, What does the Titanic ship and the US economy have in common…they both needed rescuing, they both carried movers and shakers, people had a vested interest in saving them both, lives were and are at stake in both situations.  Can the US economy survive when the Titanic ship did not?  It is possible!

          Let’s pray that the bi-partisan plan has figured in enough rescue boats to save not ONLY the large banking systems, the mortgage companies, the credit card organizations; but, the people at the base of each of those situations…the taxpayers…the recipients of those services.  The little people who are drowning in the flood as we speak need their own rescue ships; or, the overall plan will fail. The future impact of this bailout is not only important to the US but to the global economy as well.

         We must not forget that any of those businesses cannot possibly make a comeback if the little people can NOT afford to make use of those services…and, they can’t do that if they are loosing their jobs, their homes, their families to the high cost of living!  We all want and need to survive…the will to survive is there; if there are enough rescue ships in this plan, we may just be able to keep the ship of the US economy floating long enough to make it healthy again.  We all may be traveling at a lower level than luxury or first class…but, that is alright…at least we will have the chance to recover.  We just have to adjust how we think and make choices in our day to day lives that are within our means to pay for them…what a novel idea!

            

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Britney’s Sole Mate Makes It Legal

      News today was announced that Britney Spears and her ex-mate, Kevin Federline have agreed to a custody agreement that is going before the court, for a judge’s signature to become official.  Kevin Federline will get sole custody of the two boys that he and Britney had together; Jayden James and his older brother Sean Preston, once that document is signed by court officials. 

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