AlterNet: 10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who've Been Screwing You

[marmar]

10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who've Been Screwing You

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted December 19, 2009.

Tired of getting pushed around by faceless big business? Here are 10 ways to push back!





The New Year is nearly here, and so much has happened. Wait, what's that? Nothing major at all has happened, you say? Oh right, we've been stuck in neutral since dumping the toxic trash of the Republican Bush administration and embracing Democratic promises of hope and change, neither of which have blossomed.

A year of our collective life has flown by and our global culture is still rife with schemers, screw jobs and sorry excuses for solutions. And we just sit back and take it, year after year. But no more. When you make that hefty list of New Year's resolutions, drop some of these bombs. Then duck. You'll get your change faster than you can say, "Teabag this!"

1. Mortgage underwater? Just walk away from it. Even academia says it's OK. Move to the city and rent.

"Homeowners should be walking away in droves," University of Arizona law school professor Brent T. White told the Los Angeles Times. "But they aren't. And it's not because the financial costs of foreclosure outweigh the benefits. One can have a good credit rating again -- meaning above 660 -- within two years after a foreclosure."

In a scholarly paper called "Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis," White tells cash-jacked homeowners that they can return the screw.

We've been championing that course for years, with reports on walkaways and trashouts, as well as violent homeowner blowback. Hell, we called the Great Recession before most did, and we're still calling it another Great Depression in the making. So trust us. And if not us, then take it from the professor, who will soon be joined by a chorus of similarly credentialed whistleblowers as the financial crap truly hits the fan in the years to come. Go ahead, move back to the city and rent. You'll end up there anyway when your suburb runs out of water and malls.

2. Unplug your cable. The easiest way to kill the so-called news networks is to cut them off at their enablers. Don't like the hate spewed by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp nutjobs? Pull your cable bill's plug, or shut down your satellite. Tired of the way that Reality TV, in entertainment and otherwise, has replaced reality itself? Withdraw life support.

First, there's no holy reason you shouldn't be able to subscribe to a channel package of your own choosing. Listen to the voice of wisdom: "It is regrettable that the cable companies continue to balk at offering channels on an a la carte basis and instead continue to raise the price of their bundled offerings." You know who delivered that dose of media sense? John McCain. Yeah, it's that bad. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144679/10_ways_to_screw_over_the_corporate_jackals_who%27ve_been_screwing_you

[Warpy]

1. This is not universally good advice.

1 might be good advice in California, but it's piss poor advice in New England, where rents are typically close to what you'd pay on a mortgage, even if you bought at the top of the market. In addition, there will likely be some nasty consequences for walking away up to 20 years down the line. If you want to dodge duns for the next 20 years and you live in California where rents are low, then consider it.

2 is only good advice for people who are hopelessly addicted to cable snooze. The rest of us watch old movies, history, science, concerts, and the other fare that can be quite good. Just block those blow dried babbler channels and deprogram yourselves.

3 doesn't apply to those of us in mountain states who have Qwest, the one company that told Cheney to go pound sand on privacy issues. Besides, we often have DSL that allows us to read what is being posted on Alternet. We don't all have access to wireless. Not yet.

4 is really kind of silly. I can tell you that the last thieves who broke into my place did turn the futon over to find cash, a lot of effort for absolutely nothing. Right now, your savings are insured. If that changes, then you can reconsider this one. However, to avoid being screwed to the wall, take your checking and loan business to a credit union.

5 is sound advice, but be careful. Don't put it all into green stocks, pick some non green stocks that are paying dividends. Remember, the aim of investing isn't to make a killing on face value in bubble markets, the aim is to let your money work for you through providing income.

6 is sound advice. Get the credit card monkey off your back. Pay the bastards off and stick them in a drawer. Open a junk account for an ATM card and use that for daily expenses. Keeping a reasonably small balance in the junk account limits your losses if you get hacked.

7 doesn't work for me. I'd rather listen to a CD through my Klipsch speakers than MP3s through the nice but limited Altec speakers on my puter. I'm just funny that way, my ears are much better than my eyes. Besides, buying one tune at a time is still supporting The Man.

8 is good unless you drive a hybrid in the city. They're no good for distance driving but they really shine in an urban setting.

9 was covered under cable and should be extended to most "reality" shows, especially the ones on broadcast media. Whiny, backbiting yuppies being cruel to each other in the name of strategy is not entertainment. At least the Romans killed their victims outright instead of sentencing them to a life of humiliation.

10 isn't really practical unless you're a disgusted nutcase who thinks the GOP isn't nutty enough for you. Let them start the third party while we continue to pressure our own party to remind them where the majority opinion lies--and it's not theirs.

My own ways to stick it to The Man are a little more subtle but much more effective:

Shop in thrift shops. Get used stuff unless it really must be new. Be generous to those thrift shops, clean your closet twice a year. If you haven't worn it all season, you're over it and out it goes.

Learn to cook. You can save an amazing amount of money for very little effort if you do this. You don't have to be Escoffier, but don't be surprised if learning to make it edible turns into a hobby of learning to make it wonderful. In addition, you'll decrease your intake of chemicals and salt, keeping far healthier over the long run.

Learn to mend, essential for thrift shop couture. You can also learn to sew, turning a thrift shop horror into something quite nice very easily. Rit dyes are great for turning that ugly pink and purple sweater with words on it into a quite nice black sweater you can wear anywhere.

Get to know your neighbors. That's the first step to setting up neighborhood barter: lending tools for babysitting for loaves of fresh bread for lawn care for simple home repairs for changing the oil in your car. It works beautifully, I've done it that way.

If you're a bottled water addict, save the bottles and buy a filter (I use Brita). You can refill the bottles and the contents will be better for you since the water hasn't sat on a shelf for months, growing who knows what while absorbing BPH from the plastic.

These are only a few off the top of my head, a few that require little effort or talent. They can be done today, in other words, instead of being put off until you are desperate. Some of them will keep you from getting that way.

[tonysam]

2. Number 7 is especially stupid

Downloads are great if you want specific songs but not an entire album, but CDs are the way to go if you want the work of a specific musician or band. There is something to be said about tangible items.

DVDs--forget downloads or rentals. I COLLECT movies and television DVDs, and I will be goddamned if I will give them up.

Ditto for books and newspapers.

[Warpy]

3. A lot of that advice just suggested swapping one corporate master for another

as in the case of a land line versus a cell phone, DSL or cable broadband versus wireless. The money is all going to a soulless corporation and unless you want to cut yourself off completely, you're just going to have to grit your teeth and pay the schmucks.

My advice, however, limits their cash flow nicely. It's all stuff I learned to do when I was poor and I still do most of it now that I inherited being middle class.

I should have tossed refinishing good but screwed up furniture under "mending," though. My place is furnished with castoffs, some of which I had to refinish into a tolerable state.