The "Reality Show" that needs to be done......

[Mind_your_head]

"Take my crappy circumstances and turn them around".....

That would be a reality show that people could actually learn from!

How to get themselves out of credit card debt. How to SUCCESSFULLY get a loan modification. I've got these bills and this amount of income, how best to manage it, I lost my job and am my unemployment ran out, although the bills keep coming, my spouse has cancer and I don't have healthcare, etc.

What do you think? Would that be a great REALITY SHOW or what? What is more REAL than those issues for millions of Americans?

I've often wondered how the 'experts' in money management would handle *my* life ~ or many of the other millions of lives. Those with all the money want us to believe that 'they know better than us'.....let them prove it! Let's "pretend" to put them in *difficult circumstances and let them teach us how we can "pull ourselves up with our own bootstraps"...let THEM show us how THEY would "pull themselves up", if they were put in our shoes.

They're very smart, ya know. Mebbe we could learn sumthing.

[DJ13]

1. Any 20 somethings getting drunk?

Can they be voted off the show?

Lots of stunts and eating bugs?

Nah, it would never sell.........

[SoCalDem]

2. Never happen.. these fake-ality shows are to entertain people

and to have them say.. "Hey I could do that, but wait, I never follow through with anything..that's why I have 14 rolls of flocked wallpaper in the garage, and piles of warped two by fours beside the garage".

And debt still comes with a lot of shame attached to it. People might not want to go on tv so all their friends can see just how destitute they are..

Many Americans want the "money-fairy" to visit them while they sleep, and when they wake up, everything will be all better.

[Mind_your_head]

4. Yes, for many RICH Americans the money fairy of which you speak

has already visited them. The Bush tax credits, the hand-outs to the FOUR BIG BANKS.

I was talking about a Reality show for the REAL AMERICANS....ya know, the ones who send their kids over to Afghanistan and Iraq. They've/we've got problems! Real problems. And there is no "money fairy" in THEIR/OUR future, no indeed.

There is no shame when you are actively trying to get work ~ any work ~ and no one will hire you.....b/c there are not enough jobs, and you're too old (around 50 the body is prone to lots of illness, even if none has evidenced itself so far....it's 'coming' employers figure).

So, if you can't get a job after trying and trying and trying some more....and the bills keep coming....and you've worked through your savings (there wasn't very much return on your money, so you had to eat into principal).....it looks bad.

Glad you apparently "got yours" SoCal! Or mebbe not, no one is 'protected' in this environment. Some of us may succumb earlier than others, but in this environment, the same fate awaits us all from this mighty maw!

[SoCalDem]

5. I just meant that a "real" reality show, is not what media is looking for

and that the "fix" is a LONG HAUL...years , in most cases.

and giving a false hope that "the viewers can do this too" is not real reality.

It's very different from sprucing up a house to sell, or building a patio in 24 hrs with 42 of your closest friends working for free.

What would work though would be to use stimulus money to set up community aid centers to start up local WPA-style projects so people could have employment (even if it was just part time)...and for people to help others renovate & upgrade their homes.

getting people out of crushing credit card debt requires large infusions of cash.. and I don;t see any "show" helping with that, unless it's to pay them a la Kate-1+8

[Mind_your_head]

6. You're saying that those 'reality shows' aren't REAL!!!!

:wow: I'm Shocked!!! :sarcasm:

you said: and giving a false hope that "the viewers can do this too" is not real reality.

All that I am suggesting is that a REAL 'reality show' (a show that focuses on people's REAL problems and how to responsibly address/extricate themselves from those problems, even if it takes a long time) would be HUGELY successful.

Of course, the PTB (*powers that be*) wouldn't like that. Ignorance is their stock-in-trade and what they feed upon/live for.

BTW, people WILL get out of "crushing credit card debt" b/c you can't "get blood out of a turnip". People have been bled DRY.....there's nothing more to give! The goose that gave the golden eggs has been killed! kapish? Dead. Gone.

btw, I have no cc debt (I have a mortgage though). Haven't had a cc in many, many YEARS, by my choice. So I'm "just an 'observer'. I don't have any *skin* in the cc 'debate'.

[SoCalDem]

7. No CC debt here either..not since 2004

but we are a minority, I fear..
Every weekend there are "shows" that preach money management, but life has a way of butting in while people are trying to dig out.

CC companies themselves, may cure the problem by forcing millions into bankruptcy.

Around here, they don't even bother with the "counseling sessions" since so many people are SO deep in debt, it would take more years to pay off, than they have left to them.. Out local paper told of a couple who had $75K in CC debt, one part-time job between them and a mortgaged house, on which no payments had been made for 7 months. The lady interviewed, said "no amount of counseling will help this couple, so why waste everyone's time?."

[Mind_your_head]

8. Well, I don't have a job anymore.....so my mortgage is more than a "problem"

and even if I paid off my house, without a job, how will I pay for the property taxes? (and homeowner's insurance?)

[SoCalDem]

9. When my husband retires, we will have to sell our house and downsize a LOT

but we are resigned to that. Even with the downturn, we are not yet upside down, and should be able to at least break even.. But it is a worry for us, as well.
Just nothing we can do about it, just yet..except to keep saving and to spend as little as possible..

[Mind_your_head]

10. Heh.

g'nite SoCalDem, et al.

[Horse with no Name]

3. Absolutely! Why not take that million bucks you are giving to the Octomom

and split it between several people who have sound business plans for small businesses but no capital and then reward the one that does the best.
Wouldn't take much to turn those ugly reality shows into something positive.

[annabanana]

11. too real

Those so-called "reality" shows are just Coliseum Games.