Well, long ago I figured out that one depends on the others for the raises, bonuses, [and the paycheck, too]. They may give, or they may withhold. OTOH, if one saves and invests what one could, pretty soon there would be investment income stream which could be seen as a raise and a bonus one gives to oneself, without having to beg for it. If there is enough of it one could even do without a paycheck at all.
There's always the trade off between a guaranteed pay check versus having skills that allow you to be self-employed.
Face it folks, we live in a global economy. Our standard of living is higher than most other countries and we consume like no one else. What passes for poor in this country is considered middle class or rich in other countries. We demand more and more for our dollars and we certainly like the idea of our 401K growing in value. What are companies supposed to do but keep costs down?
"OTOH, if one saves and invests what one could, pretty soon there would be investment income stream which could be seen as a raise and a bonus one gives to oneself, without having to beg for it. If there is enough of it one could even do without a paycheck at all."
I like your thinking! I work for myself. I earn an awesome salary, but I have a real a-hole for a boss some days, LOL!
I'm a big fan of "multiple streams of income." I firmly believe that we each have skills and talents that we can exploit for monetary gain. ;)
You win the prize as the smartest poster on this thread! This article is a typical loony bush-basher hit-piece. The Cron is always hot to trot on finding bad news and one of their favorite after dinner whines is finding some wage stat that shows a drop. They just loooove to hold it up as 'proof' that Americans are all going broke.
The fact is that family wealth and personal income are at all time highs and it just doesn't matter if the Chron is able to find some wages actually went down. Reality is (like you pointed out) that more and more Americans are getting rich on other incomes.
