Had a good start to the day but it's not
turning out to be that way,,,, we just had a meeting on
our benefits and as expected the cost is going up,,,,,,I
feel like cussin!!!!!!!!!!! I am so mad,,,,,,,,, greedy CEOS!!! more money for there pockets,, nothing but rotten dirty,,,,you fill in the blank!!!!!!!! I am so sick of the love of money,, We are heading for another depression! and what’s even worse is that where I work is one of the better places to work! I can't imagine how people "with families no less" that make much less than I, have any kind of quality of life! What is going on America?!!! okay,,i'm done,,,, feel much better,,,,

 

I agree with you. I am not rich by any means, but I make a good living. I wonder how those that make less are able to live comfortably sometimes.

Health insurance is outrageous! And for these higher premiums you can expect less coverage and higher deductibles. Mine is $1000 each for me and my son before insurance pays the first penny.

College costs are rising much much faster than inflation as a whole, too. I shudder to think what it will cost me to put my son through college in about 7 more years.

To go along with our lower relative standard of living...........you can count on the government to be doing less and less .....and your private employer to be doing less and less to help you prepare for retirement. Very few places now offer a defined benefit pension. So to retire comfortably one day, you better be chunking a HUGE amount of money away for your own retirement.

This is probably going to be the first generation that overall won't live as comfortably as their parents, barring a big inheritance from them.

 

i just read an interesting article in the paper today and i think it goes along with inflation

cost of living in 1944
postage stamp 3 cents
gallon on gas 15 cents
loaf of bread 10 cents

here is the kicker

annual wages (national average) $2,400
Brand new house (national average) $3,450

how did houses get to be so expensive. back then you could buy on for a little over a grand more than the average citizen made in a year now they are triple or quadruple or more what the average american makes.

 

One big factor for the rise in costs for houses and automobiles is credit. If you spread out the payment the purchase does not look as big.

I really don't care for corporation bashing. If you don't like how much something costs then don't buy it. There are alternatives. I suppose you don't have any investments or a 401K? Where do you think all those profits come from? Then again this is America where you can go out and start your own company and become the CEO.

I do agree that health insurance has gotten nasty but I sure don't want our government handling it. The biggest problem I see is that there are a lot of people that are not paying for it. This started to be an issue with auto insurance and they made a law making it mandatory to have insurance. I'm not saying this is the best way to handle the problem but something needs to be done.

 

Some thing has got to be done about the health care situation. For myself alone I am paying 78.00 per month and it's not the greatest coverage. Co-pays are going out of control. My poor parents whom are retired are paying around the neighborhood of $400-500 per month, this is insane. It just makes me so mad because not only do I see myself making less and less each year I see my dreams slipping away also,, guess the new CTD is going to have to wait.. But ya know I should mention that I am very blessed to have a good job because I can pay my bills and still have a few toys. My old 90 isn't the greatest truck in the world but non the less I still enjoy the ol girl and it does all my work.. I’m just afraid that with our ever-growing hunger for the Chinese market and big companies demanding for more and more profits that we are on an irreversible downward spiral...

 

The people that retire from where I work have to pay $1200 dollars a month for health insurance.

 

That's pretty cheap. I have heard of higher cable bills.

 

Oh well, the price of diesel went down .02 cents today

 

But the price of food went up.

 

How did houses get so expensive? Simple, they became monuments to excess not houses.

People made fun of me when I built my house, 1678 SF, came in at about 125-130K total. The insane thing is all of these other people are starting at 3,000 SF and going up from there! Thats just that much more to clean, heat, cool, and fill with stuff, not to mention most have multiple levels that will become a problem as they age and become less mobile.....

As for Health care? Most of you don't want to know what I get hit with, lets say my employer isn't the best, but I also now pay more attention to what we go to the Dr. for. ( I never have been a Dr. freak ) Wifey has finally discovered that Drs. generally do nothing more than prescribe pills that do little but comfort you until you get better anyway. Ultimately I fear we will get socialized medicine rammed down our throats anyway.

If I have a rant about all of this is the charges the Insurance company will not pay. They make me PRE-REGISTER, and then they come up will all kinds of services and charges that they say are not "reasonable and customary".

WHY DID YOU HAVE ME REGISTER? If my Mechanic tried that garbage, the state would have him shut down, why is it any different than a Dr. or Hospital? If a Mechanic tried charging me 500 dollars for each 3 dollar spark plug, the state would have him charged with fraud, how is a Hospital charging 8 dollars for a 12 cent Aspirin any different?

Rant mode off..........................

 

If you live within your means you can have a nice home and SOME luxuries. But you CAN NOT drive a Escalade, and a Yukon for the wife AND have a $200,000 home when you are making $60,000 a year. It is called common sense and as you guys know, not many people have that anymore.

I built my 3,500sq ft. loghome for right at $150,000. It all depends on how much work you want to do on your own. If you get a new home turn keyed then sure you are going to pay big bucks. I had mine "dried in" and then took my time finishing the inside myself. If you don't fall into the "I NEED IT Right Now" trap you can build a house that is nice AND affordable with some hard work, patience and planning.
I heat this house with a multifuel coal boiler that sits in my garage. It is cold and windy on top of this mountain and my heating cost was $250 last year. Cooling is with ceiling fans only. No A/C. I don't need it.

We only have one new vehicle at a time ( the CTD ) and then we drive older 4 cylinders for work.( I drive a Metro to work and the wife has a 94 Accord) We would rather fire up the grill at home than eat out 5 nights a week. Entertainment to us is either hunting on our property or riding 4 wheelers or the horses during the day and having a camp fire with friends up to drink some cocktails in the evening.

BTW, my CTD is an "R" title. I paid $22,000 for it and it only had 8,000 miles on it and even smelled new. Was fixed right and just like off the showroom floor. saved about $18,000.

The bottom line is you have to live within your means and stay out of debt as much as possible. If that means you have to give up the Escalade then so be it..

 

one thing you have to realize about healthcare is the doctors therapists etc... don't for the most part get to just choose what they charge... all government controlled.. so while it costs more to heat and cool our buisness and keeps the lights on whatever.. medicare etc... says they are going to pay and cover less while keeping the pricing structure the same... honestly I don't know why anybody wants to be in health care anymore... just too dang hard and to much government bs to wade through....


I'd KILL for $78 a month for medical insurance... family being self employeed and me having a prior heart condition, $78 about what I pay per week!

 

I dont know if you are talking to me but if you were then the answer is yes i do have a 401K that i put 10% of my income in every year and my employer matchs it 5%. I also bought a house that i paid $121000 it is 1890sqft. I do not live about my means i was just saying how did the average price of a house more that double the national wage average. oh yeah and by the way i am only 21 years old

 

There are too many topics of conversation going on at once here. One person's talking about inflation, another about healthcare, another about something else.

To the extent that inflation raises the cost of everything, well that IS a factor. The largest fault of this is the spendthrift ways of the gov't and the endless race politicians have to outspend and outpromise each other. Pretty soon no one be will be responsible for any portion of their own lives.

So on one hand we have dilution of the worth of a dollar. Look at the price of gold for proof. It used to be a dollar would buy 1/200oz of gold-- now it one quarter of that.


On another hand--- healthcare. We are witnessing the convergence of some interesting factors. First is the aging of America as the largest portion of our population turns into sr citizens (Baby Boomers). This bloc is also the highest voter turnout. Hence, the direction of gov't reflects largely the interests of this bloc. This leads to the second factor- a new entitlement.
In years past, no one imagined that it was someone else's responsibility to pay for your healthcare. Certainly our Founders had never envisioned that it was the role of gov't to ensure your longevity. But we have discovered a new interpretation of the Constitution-- instead of not being able to take away your life, the gov't is now apparently supposed to guarantee it.
A third factor is the emergence of a culture of victimhood fueled by eager trial lawyers concerned with their own income more than anything else. These are the John Edwardses of the world-- suing doctors and insurance companies and making a very comfortable living doing it (and in some cases, parlaying that income and power into a Senate seat and Presidential aspirations). Now an honest medical mistake (surgical instrument left inside) with no adverse consequences ends up as a multi-million dollar punitive damage award. Who pays for this? The money doesn't make itself.
Another factor is the rate of advances in medical technology. The latest technology is pricey. Companies that develop this technology invest tons of money, and expect even more tons of money in profit as a result- like the drug companies do. New drugs are costly to develop.

With the emergence of a healthcare entitlement, what we will soon see is a healthcare machine that is essentially a form of corporate welfare where taxpayer money is funnelled to drug companies and other medical technology companies while we are told that the benefit is the aged and poor, which no one could object to. In reality, overall quality of care will decrease and we will see a larger and larger bureacracy take in ever-increasing amounts of money and deliver less and less in return.

As in all federal bureacracies, they will increase their size and deliver less, as they have always done-- public transportation, education, you name it.

So as our debt mounts ever higher and higher (new records reached every year), we justify it on the grounds that the GDP grew enough to keep the percentage manageable. Coporations drive the economy, and they have a symbiotic relationship with the gov't where each ensures the prosperity of the other: corporations pay billions in taxes and receive billions in welfare (and favorable international trade arrangements, etc).

So if you want "something" to be done about healthcare, then here's what must be done:

1) Teach Americans to learn to say "no" to themselves for a change.
2) End corporate welfare. No more Amtraks and "farm bills" that just line the pockets of large corporations.
3) Let accountability reign in the private market-- if you smoke and live on quadruple bacon Cholesterol burgers, you will have negative consequences
4) Protect the market from predators: trial lawyers and politicians and over-regulation that drive up cost through lawsuits.
5) Let people band together and gain insurance as a group. Shouldn't triathletes get a better health insurance rates? Shouldn't race car drivers get cheaper car insurance (assuming they are better drivers)?
6) Conduct the immigration enforcement whose absence drives up costs as thousands of non-citizens get ER medical care at no cost to themselves-- but at cost to all the legal taxpayers. Treat them once at the ER, then deport them.

There's more to this issue, but I suspect this thread has already taken a direction more appropriate for discussion at www.all-politics.net

Justin

 

I was talking to the person that was bashing the "big corporations". Where do you think the profits go from these corporations? Sure the CEO's, etc. get big bonuses, but those bonuses are made because they helped in designing an infrastructure that would create large profits, the rest of the profits go to stockholders which are people like you and me with 401K plans.

So be careful when you are bashing corporate America, you may be heavily invested in them and not realize it.

When I was 21 years old I had a 1200 sq. ft. house and drove a little 4-banger Nissan pickup with 120K miles on it