[strider3700]

I'm hoping others are interested in ranting about some of the people they see living well above their means.

Over the weekend a family conflict revelealed some info about one of my cousins. Since that part of the family effectively stole $160,000 from my grandpa to help themselves and this cousin out I feel like ranting and sharing just what most of my grandpas life savings went towards.

First off half went towards paying off the aunts mortgage. thats a piss off but not gross excess.

The rest appears to have gone to the cousin.

He is a school principal. His wife a teacher. Combined they should make about $110,000/year.

They have a brand new mcmansion in the trendy neighbour hood, lot size is under 10,000 sqft. Total cost $450,000. Too bad they had problems during the construction. Little things like the foundation not being laid out correctly so it's noticably out of square, non of the windows lining up correctly so it looks like hell, oh and of course they entire thing is slapped together OSB.

For cars He had to trade in his V-10 dodge ram for a 2005 audi s4 with the v6 apparently the gas was getting pricey on the truck. The new car is very pretty. It's also $47,000

His wife drives a brand new jetta

He needed the truck to pull his brand new 30 foot speedboat. I hear that daddy took over the payments on that one though so it's not really his anymore.

To top it all off he appears to have a serious coke habit. We know this because a local biker mentioned to my dad that he was looking for this cousin thinking my family would care and be willing to bail him out. I wouldn't be surprised if my dad gave the biker his home address.

Anyways, grandpa is out $160,000 and living with my parents for free now since the aunt kicked him out now that he's broke. We're more then a little pissed but since grandpa won't go after them there isn't much we can do.

[Schweinshaxe]

Why don't you kick your cousin's ass? I think this is one of the worst things I've ever heard!

Take it to court for fucks sake! Make him pay back that money to your Grandpa! I would have killed that SOB if I were you...

Bastard!

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schweinshaxe', '8')O

Why don't you kick your cousin's ass? I think this is one of the worst things I've ever heard!

Take it to court for fucks sake! Make him pay back that money to your Grandpa! I would have killed that SOB if I were you...

Bastard!

[dbarberic]

I'm putting in a new gourmet kitchen with cherry cabinetry, granite counter tops, tile back splash, and stainless steel energy star appliances.

It is nearly 100% paid in cash, however.

Is that living in excess?

[PenultimateManStanding]

wow, that's a serious story, strider. Bad faith and betrayal are tragic.

[Specop_007]

Not the first time I've heard of family screwin family.
Always sad when it happens. Nothing hurts worse then when its your own family who sinks a knife in your back.

[Schweinshaxe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dbarberic', 'I')'m putting in a new gourmet kitchen with cherry cabinetry, granite counter tops, tile back splash, and stainless steel energy star appliances.

It is nearly 100% paid in cash, however.

Is that living in excess?

[galacticsurfer]

Older generation a soft touch, especially if going soft in the head. My brothers are fighting to see who is controlling the old man's estate and if he is competent or not. Very unpleasant.

My wife complained as we were on vacation in a vacation park with little houses in a green wood setting that an overweight vacationer took his car daily to pick up breakfast 5 minutes by foot from his vacation house. This sort of nonsense impresses her more than all the technical crap I talk about. she sees this laziness as a sign of the end of our way of life.

[Peak_Modernity]

It's not on the same scale as the original post about the missing $160,000, but how's this?

[strider3700]

Very purty. However I doubt whoever owns that is mortgaged at 50% of the take home pay. I was thinking more along the lines of McDonalds workers driving escolades...

[kam30en]

Everywhere I go I see excess. And its not even excess that'll be usable post-peak. I see people buying 500 watt plasma tvs, giant SUVS, ipods with all the accessories ($500...kind retard), mcmansions....they grow flowers in there garden instead of vegetables, they would sooner upgrade to a bigger vehicle than buy a solar panel. Public transport is only for poor people or drug addicts. Everyone yuppie talking on a cell phone thinks life is all about "deals" and "portfolios", not realizing he lives in a giant feeding pen and has absolutely no control of the food. I just wish I could watch all those dumbasses starve to death....too bad I'll be tucked away in rural america, with enough guns and ammo to defend my property.

[pedalling_faster]

here are 2 recent pictures from San Diego.



the top one is highway 5. it's stop-and-go traffic for miles & miles.

the bottom one is a street near highway 5. also, stop-and-go traffic for miles & miles.

it looks like a society that was designed to use the maximum amount of gas possible. the miles per gallon in both pictures is 1 or 2.

admittedly, a hypocritical statement - the pics were taken from the window of my truck. if i had walked the errand i was doing when i took the pictures, it would have been about 6 miles.

i did the commute shown in the pictures until about january 2004.

- - -

wow, don't know what to say about that family situation, except to say i hope the larger family pulls together.

[Vexed]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nyone want to share gross examples of excess they see?

[mekrob]

I don't know about other school districts, but I'm sure it's the case. In my old public school district (few years ago), there is a computer for about every 3 or 4 students and teachers. They leave them running almost all day and they barely let the students use them. And these aren't your shitty Windows 95 computers which is all that students in HS need them for (Internet for researching and world processing) but brand new Pentium 4 IBM's fully loaded. They get new computers every 3-4 years as well to make sure they're 'top of the line' even though we never use them. And we wonder why we have to cut school days because we're running out of money...

Here at UNC, everyone is required to have a laptop (high performance as well is required) despite the fact that there are several computer labs each with hundreds multi-thousand dollars brand new computers and printers blasting out papers all the time.