One in Five Expect to Borrow to Heat Homes This Winter

People will be borrowing money or using credit cards to stay warm this winter. Think about what that says about the state of our economic situation under the George Bush regime for just a minute.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/104038/One-in-Five-Expect-to-Borrow-to-Heat-Homes-This-Winter

"For perhaps as many as 27 million American adults, keeping warm this winter will mean borrowing money and 20 million will use credit cards to be able to afford their heating bills, according to a CreditCards.com poll.

Nearly 12 percent of Americans say they will need to borrow money to pay winter heating bills; 9 percent will need to use credit cards to be able to afford their heating bills. The poll, commissioned by CreditCards.com and conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media, surveyed 1,004 randomly selected American adults by telephone Dec. 7-9, 2007 to gauge their attitudes about energy costs in 2008. A majority say they expect oil and gasoline prices to get worse in 2008..."

You haul Sixteen Tons, whadaya get?
Another older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

to borrow the money from and am already in the hole with the utility company. I can only pray to my HP that they will work with me and not cut me off mid-winter :cry: I have never found myself in such a mess in the 56 years I have been on this planet. It is so discouraging and frightening!

The flea market has been slow and nobody wants to rent a room in a house that had a former meth lab on the property.

I was in tears in my county supervisor's office yesterday begging them to find me a pro bono lawyer to help me get the hell out of this haz-mat property.

I was failed by BNTIF(Butte Interagency Narcotics Task Force) when they failed to check under the house for meth waste from the meth cook that lived here before I bought it. They also did not document the stains on the floor in the shed, in fact they made no mention in the police report that they had gone into the large 20x50 shed.

They the failed to send a letter to EPA and Public Health about the bust so that a letter would be sent to the owner of record of possibe haz-mat conditions.

I was failed by DTSC who removed the equipment that was used, but did no testing of the property for contamination (due to lack of funds).

I was failed by the Board of Supes who failed to enact any laws regarding former meth lab testing & clean-up or posting of Mac accessible databases, despite out county being number one per capita a few years ago for meth lab busts. I was failed by all of the above by their failure to notify the public that they haven't done a damn thing to educate the public that there are at least 800 toxic properties in the county (more like 8,000-16,000 as only 5-10% are busted).

I was failed by the seller who did not disclose that his step-son was cooking meth on the property.

I am failed by local attorneys who won't take the case pro bono.

I am failed by the lack of universal, single payer health care because to get health care I had to spend down leaving no funds for a lawyer.

We're headed for a major financial collapse and lifestyle adjustment. No more imported oil. No more burning gas like there was no tomorrow.

The inflation rate in this country is not being measured accurately and hasn't been for a long time. If we were to get an accurate measurement of the inflation rate over the last 8 years it would probably be worse than it was during Jimmy Carter's presidency.

I took an advance on a line of credit to buy heating oil just yesterday.

-Hoot

"Oh yeah, almost forgot our republicon homelander propaganda talking point: 'too bad about you little people.' Smirk."

- republicon homelanders

This is the season when many poor lose their homes and sometimes their lives from trying to heat their homes with space heaters, ovens, or unsafe wood stoves--often because they can't afford the gas bill.

Didn't you get the memo?

but a few weeks ago there was a thread on how to economically heat yourself and/or your home. One of the suggestions was to use a heating pad when you're immobile. I've tried this and it absolutely works. I put it either on my stomach or on my back. I know this isn't going to do be applicable if your power is turned off or if you're in one of those 32-below-zero areas but, barring those circumstances, you might want to try it. It was a suggestion I found helpful.

These will only help if you have old-fashioned free-standing radiators like I do, but they're supposed to save a lot of heat by being placed behind the radiator to reflect back into the room the half of the heat that would otherwise go into the external wall and be lost. They're easy to get in the UK and Canada, but almost impossible to find here -- which is why I had to pay for a dozen when I only need half that number.

I don't know where the pressure points are for getting it put in place, but especially for those of us in older houses, having access to these sorts of devices for heating more efficiently would help a lot. Failing direct government assistance, cooperative buying groups to bring down the price might help.

And meanwhile, if anyone in or near the southeast Pennsylvania area could use half a dozen radiator reflectors, send me a message.

if not - what to do?