Posted on 08/25/2007 5:30:31 AM PDT by Hydroshock
I do not agree with claims that money doesn’t go as far as it used to.
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Well, today I bought a small cup of ice cream for myself and one for my wife. I paid five dollars plus forty eight cents in sales tax. This was for ice cream in a throw away clear plastic cup, a cone costs half a dollar more per person. I remember when the sales tax of forty eight cents would have bought four ice cream cones with more ice cream in each cone than what we got in the cup and there would have been at least six cents change to me after paying for the ice cream and the sales tax. Just one little example, I think we can safely say that money does not go as far as it used to. The mere fact that you have been smart enough to figure out how to survive does not alter that reality.
And you don’t know how to adjust for inflation. That is the only way you can make comparisons over time.
And you don’t know how to adjust for inflation. That is the only way you can make comparisons over time.
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Oh, I know how to adjust for inflation, and I know that wages for working people in my area are nowhere near keeping up with inflation regardless of what the official CPI figures out of Washington say. I am simply trying to figure out why you don’t believe that “money doesn’t go as far”. The true inflation rate now is worse than it was when Richard Nixon layed on wage and price controls.
Free market in action, bub. The trick is figuring out how to make it work for you.
Not true when you factor in EITC. $12/hour puts someone right in the fattest part of the EITC payback scheme - sometimes $3-4 grand a year.
I told you why. You are just stuck on stupid. Your ice cream cone example ignores one thing. You have always afforded the ice cream. so, are you one of those workers? Or is your heart bleeding from afar?
You are just stuck on stupid. Your ice cream cone example ignores one thing. You have always afforded the ice cream. so, are you one of those workers?
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Since you have resorted to calling me stupid I will say that from here it looks as though you are stuck on stupid. You seem to be saying that whether or not I can afford the ice cream cone has something to do with what the rate of inflation is. As I told you before, the mere fact that you or I or anyone else is able to get along has nothing to do with how far the money goes. You seem to have a hard time saying what you mean. My personal situation has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Of course if you happen to be relatively well off and can afford whatever you want then in your little box I suppose the money goes as far as you want it to but that has zero to do with whether the CPI figures are cooked.
During the year, to factor in commutes to and from the job, being away from the children, placing them with strangers, wardrobe,etc.,
...when you see how much disposable income you have left after all the expenses...you may as well stay home and just cutback...eat more beans and less wieners.
There also often are state aid programs for child care. Food stamps. CHIP.
Basically, there is just a regional shortage of people.
How they can get 7 TIMES that now just doesn't compute.
Basically, there is just a regional shortage of people.
Exactly...so where's out disagreement then?
We need the illegal to be made legal...in the most efficient and fair manner. (And while I have ideas along that vein, too many here would construe it as 'amnesty')
How about instead doing what they did during boom days in Oklahoma and Wyoming and Montana before illegal immigration was prevalent? Raise wages. Pay to relocate people from elsewhere. Lots of underemployed people in the coal and rust belts of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Pay their relocation costs. Pay 'em a living wage once they get there.
Nah, let's instead bring in illegal labor. Stick the actual cost of living (schoool taxes, medical care, other bennies) on the taxpayer. THAT is the problem with your position.
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That is only part of the problem with DCP's (and the other WA amnesty people's) position. Once the illegals are given amnesty (that is the word no matter how they spin) then why would they continue to work for the same wages and no benefits that the do today? They won't. They will place demands that they will get since they will be a powerful voting bloc and then we will see a new wave of illegals to 'do the jobs that (formally illegal) Americans won't do".
We went through a tight labor market when I lived in NE. There seemed an unspoken preferance of getting through it over bringing in people from the outside. It got so tight under Clinton that Iowa Beef was recruiting homeless people to work in packing plants from under bridges in the East and setting them up in dorms. I remember complaints about the problems they brought with them. In my own biz we found a lot of applicants were excons and needed policies about hiring them.
I've known a few and they live like Wall Street lawyers. Nothing wrong with that, running restaurants is hard work. But, if they need to cut into their bottom line by raising the hourly wage a few bucks they are not going to suffer. It's the cost of doing business.
The article began by saying that a McDonalds was automating its drive through with a telematketing operation in Texas. So, what's wrong with that? Texans need jobs, too. I have read that this innovation gets good results, probably because those workers specialize in taking orders and getting it right whereas employees in the store rotate jobs and may not be that proficient.
Just in case you don't know, if you take the wealth or income of someone like a McDonald's owner and try to spread it over the workers in a company you will find that it makes almost no difference in the workers' wages. Technological innovation can, though by boosting productivity.
Just for fun, I noticed this week that the Powerball jackpot was $315 million. I have been having fun fantasizing about having everyone in America winning that and getting a million dollars. So far I have eliminated the Social Security, welfare, and unemployment payments and offices, mentally.
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