Microsoft pulling Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Gates ads

Suffering Miami Fan wrote:

<quoted text>Funny stuff.
However,(just to be honest and fair and balanced and truthful) documets have to 8 point font or larger, and ARMs have separate, clear pages WITH MONTHLY PAYMENT CHANGES showing what their new payment was going to be. No 2 point invisible ink on that.
But you were right on the money, these folks figured homes would keep increasing in value, and that their income would shoot up in five years while gas would stay at 1.50.
The buyers that can show they were defrauded should get relief, but those that bought a bad deal should lose their home just like the folks that bought Enron stock lost everything. JMO...

And the phony lenders are responsible for the losers who sit up at night (cause they sleep during the day waiting for their unemployement check) watching infomercials and see how easy it is to fkip houses with no out of pocket money. They pick up a couple spare homes. Relize that to fix them up, they need a job to pay for materials. Getting a job would take away time from their soaps. Then when the mortgage comes due, they realize they don't have enough money so they default. Damn that George Bush.

Bush was not at fault, and neither Obama or McCain will make a difference in this. It is a bigger issue than one man, one party, or even one election cycle can resolve.

I dislike Bill Clinton (my wife made threats on my manhood after HE cheated on HIS wife, he ruined it for ALOT of men in those days), but he made it clear where the cause of this was. Speculators shifted their money after the .com bust to real estate. To get more money funnelling in to real estate, they offered folks maxed out mortgages, so thatthe same "churn" that occurred with stocks also occurred with houses. Once the blood(money) was churned out, the sharks(speculators) moved on to the next kill (oil,gold), and left the bones to people that thought they had bought meat. Those folks dropped the keys off, the banks ate the debt, and the folks with the money were off to their next victims.

Speculators start the frenzy, but rarely pay for the frenzy they start.

It is like folks that are buying gold and oil now, when the price is high. Who are they buying it from? The same folks that sold them Pets.Com , then left to buy homes for flipping, and then bought gold at 500.00.

Bush is innocent, this has happened long before the GOP even existed, it is just that the government coming in to rescue banks that fell for this is a desperate and wrong decision that occurred with Crysler, with the SNLs, with the airlines, and now with the banks.

It is not a free market when there is no downside. Smart banks will not be getting rescued, only the stupid ones will. Reward the smart banks, let the dumb ones die. Enron was not rescued, and over time we survived. I will survive without AIG, let another company buy out their shares and punish the owners of AIG for bad business moves.

Arby's bought Wendy's. How? Because despite a bigger market share, Wedny's left themselves open to a buyout from a much smaller yet smarter competitor.

Let the free market decide, not the lobbyists.

And to tie this back to the Seinfeld commercials, Microsoft saw that the commercial had no impact, because it made NO SENSE, so it died, and got replaced with a more aggressive "I am PC" commercial. Like "Aren't you hungery for Burger King now?" replacing the dreadful "Where's Ned" ads, it is the free market choosing the better product.

"Speculators start the frenzy, but rarely pay for the frenzy they start.
"

Very close to the mark, but where does the definition of Speculator end ? Is it the people who play the market for a living or is it the new 'get rich quick' crowd who historically were not risk takers ? Are they the Wall Street crowd or the young crowd with a a 'throw caution to the wind' mentality aided by a system that doesn't punish their stupidity ?

In a recent interview with Neil Cavuto, Vt Senator Bernie Sanders stated that the rich should pay for this bailout. They were the ones making the money, the taxpayer should not foot the bill. First question is how do you know who was in it to make money (speculator) and who was legitimately swallowed in the system ? When Cavuto asked what was the definition of 'rich', Sanders would not answer. Neil referred to the moving target that Obama has placed on the tax cuts for the rich.'Rich' has gone from $5,000,000 to $1,000,000 to $250,000. Sanders laughed and asked if that was a serious question. Neil responded yes. Sanders said the 'rich' were those who made money in this banking crisis. Cavuto pressed the issue asking was it the Forbes 400 ? The Forbes 500 ? Sanders, an Independant, kept pointing to those who abused the system and not taxpayers. He said until he received a written proposal of the bailout from Bush, he could not answer the question.???????

Regardless if it's $1 trillion of $750 million, how is it he can't define 'the rich'. If you are in his list of rich, then the effect of the Bush proposal is how much you're responsible for not if you're responsible. It's more political doubletalk. Like he's saying "Well, if it's a $500 million bailout, we can pass that off on those with a worth of $xxx,xxx but if it goes to $1 trillion, the amount owed by each person would increases to $x,xxx,xxx and that's too much (especially if I'm part of the rich crowd). We'll need to increase the number of rich people to help pay this off.

Mangler wrote:

I'd argue that all dollars used in advertising are wasted ... but that would annoy anyone in that industry.
<quoted text>

I'd say some businesses need advertising , depending on products or services offered , and competition . When I started my own business , I spent a few bucks on it , but I discovered "word of mouth" reputation was all that was needed . Now advertising is not necessary .

That's how we work ... word of mouth. Someone created a website for grins, but our customers come back and are sent from other customers. As for yellow pages ads ... gee, can I pay $3,000 for the East Broward book, then 3,500 for the Fort Laderdale book, then another $3,000 or the west Broward book?

And honestly, who needs commercials for Coke or McDonalds or Toyota? We know what we want most of the time and usually only commercials that offer a price break over what we actually want will get us to try the other product. It's rare (for me) to try something outside of what I like and be pursuaded away from my tastes.

I've never been sitting in my car and gone ... gee, I wonder what I can spend another $30k on. Who's making cars today?

Ignignokt wrote:

<quoted text>
I'd say some businesses need advertising , depending on products or services offered , and competition . When I started my own business , I spent a few bucks on it , but I discovered "word of mouth" reputation was all that was needed . Now advertising is not necessary .