Cost of living

Why Can’t We Party Like It’s 1905?

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Why Can’t We Party Like It’s 1905?Paul Rosenberg – When writing historical things, I try to include perspective from people who actually lived through the events. And for money issues in the US, I’m able to do that back to about 1905.

So, do you think life was nasty, brutish, and short in 1905? That there were poor and starving people falling dead on every street corner?

Hardly.

The Wright brothers were flying for 30 minutes at a crack; Einstein was upgrading the laws of physics; telephones and electric lights were being installed all across America; Henry Ford was getting the final pieces in place for his moving assembly line and Model T; radio was being developed; art was flourishing; and the world was more or less at peace. Continue reading →

The Sleeping Giant Awakens

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

The Sleeping Giant AwakensCharles Ortel – Like ravenous bears coming out of hibernation, Americans are emerging now from a lengthy sleep, surveying a barren landscape not of their own making, and preparing to go on a rampage at the polls. On and after November 8, 2022, the true villains will finally be brought to account for despoiling this once-great nation.

A rout is baked into the cards—not simply a Red Wave or even a Red Tsunami, but a brutal and abject rejection of “know-nothing” politicians in both parties who act insolently as “know-it-alls,” even as their policies and moves define economic and geo-political failures downward. Continue reading →

Financial Flight: Fleeing Unaffordable and Dysfunctional Cities

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

urban areasCharles Hugh Smith – For hundreds of years, rural poverty has driven people to urban areas: cities offer paying work and abundant opportunities to get ahead, and these financial incentives have transformed the human populace from largely rural to largely urban in the developed world.

Now a new set of financial pressures are forcing a migration of urban residents out of cities which are increasingly unaffordable and dysfunctional.As highly paid skilled workers and global capital have flooded into high-job-growth regions, living costs and the costs of doing business have skyrocketed: where not too long ago $1,000 a month would secure a modest one-bedroom apartment in major urban job centers, now it takes $2,000 or $3,000 a month to rent a modest flat. Continue reading →

Why Is the Cost of Living so Unaffordable?

~ admin ~ Leave a comment

higher educationCharles Hugh Smith – The mainstream narrative is “the problem is low wages.” Actually, the problem is the soaring cost of living. If essentials such as healthcare, housing, higher education and government services were as cheap as they once were, a wage of $10 or $12 an hour would be more than enough to maintain a decent everyday life.

Here are some examples from the real world. In 1952, it cost $30 to have a baby in an excellent hospital. If we adjust that by official inflation as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s inflation calculator to 2017, the cost would be $275. ($1 in 1952 = $9.16 in 2017).

What does it cost to have a baby delivered in a hospital today? $5,000? $10,000? Who even knows, given the convoluted billing process in today’s sickcare system?

The pharmaceutical cartel jacks up medication costs per dose from $3 tp $600, even when the medication has been around for decades: the Pinworm prescription jumps from $3 to up to $600 a pill Parents, doctors angry over drug price gouging (via John F.)

My father paid 1.8% of his wages for “hospital group insurance” in the early 1950s (for a household of four kids and two adults.) For someone earning $1,000 a week, the equivalent today would be $72 a month out of a monthly gross income of $4,000.

My spouse and I pay $1330 a month for barebones healthcare insurance in today’s sickcare system. Factor out subsidies paid by the employer or state, and minimal healthcare insurance costs tens of thousands of dollars per household annually.

Continue reading →