Tag Money

Buddy can you spare a billion

Michael 13 Comments

One of the annoyances of being addicted to 70 and 80 year old movies (and older even), is having to translate certain period references to their twenty-first century equivalents, most notably (at least for this discussion), is money. As in, the value of money.

An obvious fact of money is that money of this year is almost always going to be worth less than money next year. (Eventually it will likely become worthless but that is a discussion for a different day.) The point being, when someone in a movie made in 1933 tosses down a dollar coin in payment for a meatloaf dinner, pie, and coffee – and gets change(!) you instinctively know money went a lot farther then. (Further?) (Whatever). Those aren’t so bothersome. But when someone says something like, “I want to put $1,000 down on Nag #1 to win in the third race,” I get to wondering, just how much is that guy gambling.

I did some research, and I found out that $1,000 American dollars in 1933, when adjusted for inflation is the rough equivalent of $24,000-$27,000 today (depending on whose rate of inflation you want to apply. So our erstwhile horse race lover is splurging with let’s say $25,000 on his horse race.

Some of the more criminal endeavors in the so called gilded age were really up there. A garden variety kidnapping when the perpetrators then demand “$50,000 or youse’ll never see da brat again,” are looking for a payout of $1.25 million of today’s dollar bills. (In December 2024 a cryptocurrency executive was kidnapped and returned after a ransom of $1 million was paid so maybe that’s not so far off.) (I wonder if those guys got money or crypto for their ransom???) (Anyway…)

In the 1930s, the richest man in the world was John D. Rockefeller. Topping out at about $1.4 billion 1934 dollars, making him worth $35 billion dollars today. Some would pooh pooh that trifling amount. Today’s richest of the rich are worth over $200 billion dollars, except they aren’t. A billionaire in the 1930s had a billion dollars in dollars. True, some of that might be in the value of their business (in Rockefeller’s case, Standard Oil), but their businesses were worth their values in real dollars. Today’s wealth is more a standard of leverage than liquidity. If John D. wanted to buy the New York Times for $20 million dollars, he would have gone to the bank, taken out $20 million dollars (or maybe he’d get it out of his change jar at home), and paid Adolf Ochs $20 million dollars. (He didn’t do that and probably missed out on a great deal because newspapers were a dime a dozen during the depression years.) Today if someone wanted to buy say Twitter, they’d be lots of stocks transferred and “financial considerations” made but nobody ends up with real folding money to put in their wallets.

The other thing about the difference between 90 years of inflation is that not only has inflation devalued the dollar. So called market adjustments must also be taking into consideration to really determine the purchasing power of a dollar is. Remember those $25,000 dollars oof today’s money that would buy you 1,000 of 1933 dollars. You need about 2&1/2 times that much to buy what $1,000 would buy in 1933. The actual spend equivalent of $1,000 1933 dollars in about $62,000 today.

Put another way, in 1933 the average income was $1,300 per year. The average house cost $5,700 or 4.4 times the annual average income. In 2024, the average U.S. income was $62,000, the average house cost $520,000 or 8.4 times the average annual income. We are actually making more money but getting less spending power. By inflation only, that average $1,300 dollars is about $32,000 today but the average income is almost twice that. By calculating for inflation alone, that $5,700 house should cost $140,000 today. The house price rose 3.4 times higher than the rate of inflation.

Remember those numbers when you read in this morning’s paper that your Senators approved the Big Bastardly Bill taking even more of your money away. I’m sorry, any billionaires reading please, please ignore that last statement. You’re going to get to keep 38% more than you did last year. Everybody else go out for dinner this year. After next year’s tax bill you probably can’t afford meatloaf, pie, and coffee all in one meal.

Fourth (million) and ten

Michael 2 Comments

I can’t help it. It’s been too long. I am going there. I have to do it. It’s time to fuel the fire. So let’s open the controversy right now. I don’t like football.

There, I said it. I don’t like football.

I don’t see the point. There’s no real skill involved, no sort of strategy, and it’s so boring! They budget 3-1/2 hours of TV time to play a 60 minute game, that has a total of maybe 8-10 minutes of action. Bowling has more action. Even golf has more action and I think that’s a waste masquerading as sport also.

But boy people go nuts for that “game.” Billions of dollars change hands every year because of it. According the BetMGM the average team salary of just the players is over $188 million. The minimum salary per player for 2022 is $705,000.  Let than sink in. Everybody out there who will make that much this year, please raise your hand. Anybody? No? Okay, how about this.  That $705,000 is $45,000 more than last year’s minimum salary. Who out there got a $45,000 raise this year for being the lowest paid employee? Hmm. How about, how many of you make $45,000 a year. Ah, finally, I see some hands.  NFL practice squad players earn a minimum of $11,500 per week, which comes to $207,000 for 18 weeks of work. These are the guys the teams use to play act as the opposing team during practices and possibly develop into “full time” team members. Think of them as football interns.

Of course, players aren’t the only ones on the field during a game. Also roaming around between the goal posts are the 8 referees officiating each game (technically 1 referee, 1 umpire, 5 judges and 1 replay official). They make an average of $205,000 per year. And we won’t even talk about the coaches. (But the lowest paid NFL head coach will make $3 million, but I don’t want to talk about it.)   

Enough about what people make playing the game. What about what people make playing on the game. ESPN estimates over 45.5 million people will bet more than $12 billion this year. The teams will split about $270 million of that.

And then there are some people who actually go to the games. They will spend about $10 million for tickets which represent only 1.25% of a team’s revenue. Three billion dollars will be spent on NFL merchandise, 2/3 of that on jerseys. It seems you aren’t allowed into a stadium without wearing a replica jersey. In case the team needs an emergency fill in? 

You might think I am bitter about how much money is generated by a group of people who were not finalists in their high schools “most likely to succeed” voting nor had to worry about which way to flip their mortarboard tassels. (If you understood that reference you probably aren’t an NFL football player.) No, I just can’t figure out how football became the American National Religion. Twenty-two men squat across from each other over a not round ball, officially a “prolate spheroid” (seriously – look it up), and after a series of grunts, they hurl themselves into each other with much banging and clanging of protective equipment. After everyone falls down, they pick themselves up, congratulate themselves on a fine display of testosterone, mill about for a while, then line up and do it again.

Twenty-one million TV viewers tuned into the NFL opener between Buffalo and Los Angeles last Thursday. That’s down from the 25 million who watched last year’s opening game. Hmm. I wonder. Maybe those 4 million people who have seen the light.

Blog Art 4

What we do today is because of the encouragement of those who came before us. The generations following us are built on what we share with them – facts and visions. Where will your visions of today fit into the world of tomorrow? Read a tale of encouraging visions at http://www.ROAMcare.org. It will be worth the few minutes.  

 

Your wealth is in your well-being

Michael 4 Comments

Someone finally hit it. The billion dollar plus Mega Millions lottery prize has been won. By one person. Or by one ticket. It could have been a pool of a couple dozen people each throwing $10 into a hat to maximize their odds. Or I suppose that technically would be to minimize their odds. I wasn’t one of them. Although my odds were just as good. I’ve written about it more than once. Everything in life is fifty-fifty. No long odds there. Either it will or it won’t. Either it doesn’t or it don’t. Pass or fail. True or false. That’s life.

But somebody’s coin did fall heads up, or tails down if you’d rather and they woke up Saturday morning at least $350 million richer. That’s about what they would get out of a billion dollar prize after taxes if they took the cash option. Of course from that they would have the fees they will undoubtedly incur when they hire the some bodies to advise them if they should take the cash or wait out the annuity payments, to rewrite their wills, trusts, and all the other legal things suddenly mega-rich people need, to find them suitable new houses (at least 3), cars (5), boats (2, maybe 3) and a plane (just one), to ghost write their book on how to become a billionaire and to represent their book and the movie rights, someone to see them “professionally” to deal with the psychological trauma of saying no to so many people who will be asking for money, and finally, the private security firms to keep people away so they can’t ask them for money. After all those expenses they will have at least a quarter billion left and will complain that everybody has a piece of their good fortune except them!

Since those earliest hours of Saturday morning when the announcement went out that there was a winner, pundits, professional and thems like me, have been churning out “ah, but the real wealth isn’t in dollars and diamonds, it is deep within you” articles. And you know what? They’re right! Oh I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and believe me poor is a lot better. No, that’s not original. That line has been attributed to almost every rich person to walk down Hollywood Blvd. but it’s true. I have been both and on balance, I slept better richer. But I don’t know that I would say I was happier. I likely wasn’t although I was never billion dollar rich versus living in a cardboard box poor. I’m sure there it is difficult to convince someone they have all they need as long as they have love in their hearts when their bodies are living on the street. But on balance, you shouldn’t need a billion dollars, or even 250 million to be happy.

So for the several billion ticket buyers who did not win, please join me in saying, I have my health, clean water, food, clothes, and a roof over my head and I’m rich beyond my dreams. But boy, once I’d like to know what really rich rich feels like. Hmm, I understand the Power Ball is up around $170 million. That would work too!

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I’m older and have better insurance

Michael 3 Comments

I’m sorry I’m so late today. I don’t imagine there were many of you heartbroken over not being able to share your morning coffee and reading time with me but apologize I will anyway. As much as it may seem these meanderings appear to be quite spur of the moment in composition, grammar, and spelling, I give a lot of thought to them. Sometimes minutes! Often they are ready to post the day before you read them which for today would have been yesterday. Now that I think about it, you could say that about any day that happens to be today. But as luck would have it, and lucky for me that luck was there to have it, yesterday I was busy buying a car.

To buy a car is an event for me. Like the cicadas, there is a long time between my appearances at a car dealership. My last purchase was 7 years ago. Things have changed in seven years! Particularly for confirmed used car buyers like me.  I think perhaps it’s the influence of outfits like Carvana, Car Shop, and CarMax, that for what they lack in company name originality they make up with simplified car shopping. One no longer has to travel from car lot to car lot to explore options. If a local dealer leaves their website incomplete of all offerings thinking the few advertised selections will entice the buyer to visit them personally to see their complete inventory as would they had done in the days of print ads in the Sunday newspaper want ads section, that dealer probably closed up or was absorbed into a mega-dealership shortly after Sunday newspapers joined the endangered species list. No, today, if it’s for sale, it’s online. The only walking necessary while narrowing down the choices is back and forth to the kitchen to refill the ice tea glass and the bridge mix dish. 

thumbnail_IMG_0101 (Just out of curiosity, am I the only person left in the world who keeps a dish of bridge mix on the coffee table?) (Am I the only person who still keeps bridge mix?) (Am I breaking etiquette having bridge mix yet never having played bridge?)  So I did my research, narrowed my choices, and what usually would have taken me 3 to 5 weeks of intense searching took me 3 days.

Now believe it or not, car buying is not the focus of this post. (Meanderings, remember?) It did provide the impetus for it. Naturally when you change vehicles you have to update your insurance. I don’t think of insurance very often. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I had to use my insurance other than to prove I have it so I can register the cars and keep them on the road. And so I can put the new to me one on the road, I had to dig up my insurance information for the transfer. The person handling the paperwork for the registration asked me if I was happy with my current provider and I said they seemed to be fine, they take a little of my money every month and give me a little peace of mind in return, mission accomplished. And she got me wondering if they are taking more than just a little of my money.

It’s been years since I ever considered a different insurance provider. Those of you with the longest memories will remember six years ago plus a couple of months, I wrote a post on how to make money by switching insurance companies. What with all the “rates as low as” and the “save as much as” claims back then, if you were shrewd in your choices and diligent in your switching, you stood to save up to $4000. And that was in 2015 money, who knows what it could be today! (No, don’t try it! It’s satire. But then again…)  Well, they are at it again, and bigger this time! Insurance companies are making claims that make those of a certain recently ousted lying President sound reasonable.

The company with the commercial that features the car with the singing hood ornament opens with a shot of the driver’s phone ostensibly opened to their app proclaiming he saved over $700. I don’t know what he is insuring but I don’t pay that much for a full year and I have as full as coverage can be, right down to rental car reimbursement. All I can take away from that commercial is that if you have a car with a singing hood ornament, the replacement cost must be astronomical! Either that or I’m older and can get better rates.

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So that’s my long winded story to get to a rather trivial point. Now aren’t you glad you didn’t hold breakfast for me.

By the way, I’m continuing my experiment on this WordPress/Anchor partnership. They’ve managed to get Don’t Believe Everything You Think on several platforms. With links to the menu page they are:

Spotify BreakerLogo PocketcastsLogo RadioPublicLogo

And of course, at Anchor:

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Please let me know what you think. So far I’m still mostly just recording the blog posts but eventually there will be more than that. We might even get into a discussion about how we all got into blogging. 

Found Money

Michael 4 Comments
Oh you dear people. Everybody wondering “how much be,” then complaining “it’s not enough,” and now wondering “will there be more?” Well not me. I hit the jackpot! Yes I hit it big! I broke the bank! Citibank that is. I got me me a check from them. Me! A big ole check to start the new year. Yes, me! Do you want to know why? An error was made in my favor and they admitted it. In writing. And sent it to me. In a check. They sent me a check for (are you sitting down?) (you should be sitting down) for thirty-five dollars and no cents. Yep, 35 bucks.
 
Schmucks. Thirty-five freaking dollars. That would be 44.55 Canadian. Or if you’d rather — 28.58 Euros, 45.40 Australian Dollars, 26.50 Pound Sterling, 349 Venezuelan Bolivar, 2,588.23 Indian Rupees or 2,600.40 Russian Rubles  Thirty-five freaking dollars. Wanna know more of why? They charged me a late fee on a Home Depot credit card account they should not have. In 2014!!!!!!
 
In July of 2014 they charged me a late fee even though they had credited the payment to my account 3 days before its due date. No explanation why they charged me a late fee when the payment wasn’t late. I saw when it happened six and a half years ago. Actually I saw roughly 30 days after it happened 6-1/2 years ago when I recieved the following month’s statement showing the activity. I brought it to their attention but they couldn’t take my word for it. I referred them to their statement but they wouldn’t take their word for it. I was told they would need the date, amount, and drawing institution of the payment, the confirmation numbers of my on line payment, a copy of the acknowledgement screen or email of that payment, and proof that the payment was actually debited from my bank account and recieved by them. Upon receipt of all that they sent a very nice letter saying they would begin their investigation. And that was the last I heard from them. 
 
That was that was the last I heard from them until January 2, 2021 when slipped into my mailbox was a letter and an attached check for $35.00. A letter that said there was an error. No explanation. No apology. No word that was even the incident provoking this action. Maybe the whole world is getting 35 bucks and I’m not special at all. No mention they would be notifying the credit bureaus they misinformed them of a late payment 6-1/2 years ago and no freaking interest on my $35.00 that you know darn well they would have charged me had I owed them $35 for 79 months. Just $35.00. 
 
Hmm. Well, it’s found money. I should splurge with it. $35.00. I’ll get dinner! Take out dinner. Wait. $35.00. Better make that lunch.
 
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Who’s Calling Please

Michael 2 Comments
Happy Veterans Day. I would have come on sooner with that but there is no death of greetings for veterans in early November. Everybody wants to thank somebody for his or her service. Personally as a veteran myself I’d rather we also be remembered in February or June or whenever I’m struggling across the supermarket parking lot with a cartful than everybody figuring they’ve done their duty for those who did their duty by offering an extra 11% off (with valid ID) on the second Monday of November.
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What I really want to write about today is a new twist on an old scam that is making its way around the globe thanks to our reluctance as a society you to reconsider using real money now and then. But before we get to that I want to mention two other things I read in the past week that tie these pieces together like a granny knot that’s been caught in the rain over a 3 day weekend.
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In a recent “letter to the editor” in a national magazine in response to an article on phone scams, the writer seemed quite proud that he never answers his phone without knowing who is on the other end. If it’s important they’ll leave a message. On land line phones this is aided by the use of real Caller ID assuming the caller and the ID actually match (stay tuned). Anybody with a cell phone, which is just about the same as saying everybody in the the known world and probably most of the unknown other worlds  know there is no such thing as real Caller ID on a cell phone. Rather we only “know” who is calling if the caller is in our personal contacts list. Why on a system where you can send text and data, transfer money, and even make video calls can no one figure out how to identify who is on the other end of that signal? Well for whatever reason, the writer does not answer a call unless he can identify the caller and encourages everybody else to do the same.
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In another issue of that same magazine there appeared an article on how to avoid fraudulent phone calls. It was actually subtitled “How to detect and defeat the latest phone fraud.” In my opinion that was a little fraudulent. The article explained how with currently available low priced and even free apps anybody can alter their phone number to make it appear to the reciever as any number the caller chooses, even the receiver’s number. This is called “spoofing.” Their recommendation for “defeating” this fraudulent practice is to assume no number you see on your screen is the actual number of the caller. I’m not sure who just got defeated but yeah, sure, that will show them a thing or two!
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Now, let’s put those two thoughts together. The user says to not answer any call from any number you don’t recognize. If it is important they will leave a message. The expert says to assume every call is from an unidentified source and a potential scam, even if you recognize the number. Ergo, nobody answer any call! Instead, check your voicemail each time the phone rings. If it was important, there will be a message. If it is a voice you recognize and can identify, you can call him or her back but knowing that person will likewise screen all calls, expect to leave a message which may or may not be listened to. It is very possible this can instigate a world record attempt at the longest game of phone tag but nobody will ever know because nobody will take the call from the Guiness people because nobody knows their number nor for sure if they are them.
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imagesSo where was all this going? Oh yes, the new scam. But first, a question. Do you have a Zelle account? A more pertinent question, do you know if you have a Zelle account? Zelle is a money transfer system used by almost every bank in the U.S. Interestingly, if you have installed your bank’s mobile app on your phone you almost certainly have a Zelle account whether or not you know it or want it. It’s just waiting to be activated. And there is the next biggest scam we’ll not hear about until some Senator’s son is duped into losing his allowance.
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The scammer using an already available low priced or even free app calls you after having spoofed your bank’s phone number. You answer because you recognize that number and you are told it is the bank fraud department calling because they noticed unusual activity on your account. Don’t, they say, give them your account login or password, just confirm if these were your charges and rattle off a couple obvious non-purchases. Of course they aren’t yours and you say so. Good, they say, they can take care of this. You are told to open the bank app, again reminded to not give them your login or password. Once you have the app open they will text you a verification code to enter on the login page. At that point they begin to change your user ID and password, open the Zelle account and transfer your balance to a disposable phone which is then discarded as soon as they re-transfer your money to their account. Because you entered the code on your own device, the bank does not act on it as being potential fraud. They will email or text you a notice that your user ID and/or password had been changed. You may not even get that notice if the scammers took the extra time to change your contact information. Even if they did not, Zelle transfers happen so quickly, by the time you would contact your back to inform them that you did not change your user ID and/or password it will be too late.
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Moral of the story. Check your accounts and even if you never asked for it, see if you were enrolled in Zelle, and anything else, “automatically for your convenience.” If you are planning to use it, set it up yourself then lock it.  If you aren’t going to be using it, ask if it can be removed from your service package or at least locked from being activated.
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And maybe make a note of the Guiness record people’s phone number and start screening your calls. Just in case.
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Money for Nothing

Michael 1 Comment

This has been an odd week money wise and it’s only Thursday. I think it really came to mind this afternoon when I was trying to buy something on line and could not find an option to check out on the site. More on that later.

NoMoreMooneyOdd Week Exhibit A. If you were anywhere in the “48 states, Washington DC , and Puerto Rico” (more on that later too!) or even close by (and maybe even in one of those other two states) and you were seduced by “Black Friday in July” (oddly held on Monday and Tuesday) like I was, you might have purchased an all the rage, newest and hottest, must have, can’t live without item of the year, or an air fryer. In my case it was the air fryer. A week earlier I hadn’t even considered an air fryer but coincidentally Big Lots held its quarterly 20% off weekend immediately before Black Monday/Tuesday. If you don’t have a Big Lots in your state or country think of your favorite discount/buyout store. I saw an air fryer in the ad that came out in advance of the sale and thought “at that price I’ll try one” that price being almost half what it was in a department store plus an extra 20% off. Short story long, by the time I got there they were out. I’d not have given it a second thought except on Monday afternoon I was busy deleting emails when I came across a Macy’s ad featuring that very air fryer at exactly the same price I missed, extra 20% and all, at Big Lots. To make a shorter story longer, when the package came this week it included instructions to submit for a rebate for an additional $10. Just fill out the on line form and they’ll send me a VISA card with $10 loaded on it. The on line form included several fields, all required, including a space for “rebate code.” The instructions noted 6 or 7 countertop appliances each with its own rebate code. Except for my air fryer. Of course.

Odd Week Exhibit B: You remember a couple years ago Equifax, one of the big three credit bureaus who continually tell us how important it is to protect our credit, suffered a security breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 150 million people. They announced a settlement this week. The $700 million settlement includes $100 million in fines and $425 million in money set aside to reimburse associated recovery and corrective action costs for the affected people. Right away you can see some things wrong with these numbers. The fines and restitution amounts total $525 million leaving $175 million unaccounted for. Or more correctly unspecified. Well I guess those lawyers deserve something. They worked out a pretty good deal. The settlement specifies reimbursements of up to $125 per person for money spent on credit monitoring or identity theft protection after the breach as well as the cost of freezing or unfreezing credit reports at any consumer reporting bureau. Payments of as much as $20,000 also will be made for time spent remedying fraud, identity theft or other misuse of personal information caused by the data breach. The payment also covers up to 20 hours spent purchasing credit monitoring services or freezing credit reports at a rate of $25 an hour. So far that comes to $20,625 per claimant but there’s more. The settlement also cover out-of-pocket losses caused by the breach and as much as 25% of the amount consumers paid to buy credit or identity monitoring services in the year prior to the breach. That could raise each persons allowable recovery to $21,000 or more. Except the total specified in the settlement ($425 million) divided by the number of people whose data was compromised (147 million) comes to only $2.89 per person. The article didn’t suggest where the extra $20,997 per claim might come from. (And you thought you’d never use algebra in the real world.) It’s a good thing those lawyers got their couple million up front.

Odd Week Exhibit B-2: It was in the article about the Equifax settlement that I read the following:

“The settlement was reached between Equifax and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission. It covers all 48 states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.”

What do you think – writer, editor, proofreader, or modern version of type setter? Or practical joke to see if anybody notices? Yes, I know it’s not exactly money related but it’s just too good to not mention!

Odd Week Exhibit C: That website way back in the opening paragraph. I even had my daughter check on her computer thinking the mobile site I had opened on my tablet was truncated. Indeed, no “cart” and no “check out” button or icon was on the desk top site either. We did find a “continue” button the opens a pop up window with a brief order summary that included “back” and “continue” options. Sure enough, “continue” was the choice to get the order finalized.

You wouldn’t think it should be that hard to give money away .

What Faux Fall Flora Wrought

Michael 6 Comments

We are almost half way through September which means if you haven’t yet, you soon are going to be too late to buy any of the good Halloween decorations. I was thinking about this last weekend when I was taking stock of my meager faux fall flora for my coffee table and front door. I like fall. I like the colors. I like the calmness that seems to fall upon fall mornings. But except for fun size candy bars, I’m not so much into Halloween.

Apparently I didn’t get the memo. Last year Americans spent over $9 million on Halloween decorations. Right around 9,100,000 dollars according to The Balance e-zine. They went on to say that is because it’s an economical holiday and people “are willing to spend money on something if it provides a lot of value. Halloween does that.” I guess they didn’t see the $14 hairy spider at Big Lots. Or maybe they did and their idea of value is different from mine.

FauxFallFloraIf you crunch some numbers and divide this into that, that being how many people claim to celebrate Halloween with more than spiked cider and this being that 9 million figure, you come up with a spend of about $86 per person. I’ve spent that much on a nativity set and I have well over 50 of them. (Really. Some people are into hairy spiders, I’m into nativities. I have them, many complete with wise men, made of clothes pins, cheesecloth, corn husks, ceramic, glass, plastic, straw, bronze, wood (carved, sculpted, machine cut and assembled, hinged, and nested), bronze, stone, steel, marble, paper, wool and rubber, sawn from barn board, and cut out of paper.) It’s what I do for Christmas so I can’t say if you want to eighty-some bucks on Halloween you’re nuts. But if you’re planning on spending eighty-some bucks on Halloween, you’re nuts! Except for the little candy bars. Those are cool.

Anyway…just yesterday I was going through my email and I came across a headline “Ugly Halloween Sweaters Were Made For People Who Are Too Lazy to Dress Up.” Well, I couldn’t pass up that piece of bait and I clicked away. What I discovered is, like ugly Christmas sweaters, the ugly Halloween sweaters really aren’t. This is just my opinion but that opinion is that they are kind of cute. The other thing I discovered is that somebody’s going to have to revise that $86 per person spending estimate. Those sweaters go for about $40 per.

For myself, I’m sticking with the faux fall flora. Maybe I’ll spend my $86 on another manger scene this Christmas.

 

One of Seven

Michael 4 Comments

I’m doing something today I don’t usually. I’m complaining. Yes, you’re right, I have expressed displeasure from time to time but this is different. This is head shaking, head scratching, “what did you expect” vent-age.

You can tell by how late it is that I wasn’t even certain about posting this, but clearly I have. If you don’t want to think of me as a complainer stop here and I’ll see you again on Thursday.

Yesterday’s paper featured an article, “Why aren’t wages rising?” It stated that although some of the brightest economists in the country can’t agree on the reason, they do agree that wages are not increasing any faster than the rate of inflation. Today’s paper had a headline that a local company’s employees are “set for raises” for the next three years after the company and a local union agreed to a new contract.

So salaries are going up, nobody is losing spending power, yet nobody, or at least not one headline writer, is happy.

Was I the only one to see this 60 years ago? There used to be a time wages were commensurate with results. Now they are time released. Ever year everybody gets more money for doing the same work they did the year before. The widget maker doesn’t make more widgets for the widget company to sell yet the widget maker makes more money from the widget company. The widget company can’t report to the widget investors they are turning a smaller profit because they are spending more money paying the widget makers so they raise the price on widgets. Now that the price of widgets is up, everybody who buys a widget, including the widget makers, go to their respective companies and say next year they will need bigger raises, inflation isn’t making their dollar go as far. The next year the companies, including the widget company, increase workers’ salaries, sometimes by predetermined, contracted amounts. Again there are no more widgets to sell to offset the increased expense so again the price of widgets goes up. And the snowball continues its run downhill.

I never have and never will understand how people believe it is their right to get more for doing no more. I also never have understood and never will understand how the same people upon receiving this windfall instead of voluntarily sharing their increase with their church or synagogue or charity or charities of their choices complain about it being not enough while simultaneously complaining about others getting increases for not doing anything to deserve them. The price of everything keeps getting more and more expensive they say.

NoMoreMooneySo wages aren’t going up but are going up just not enough because they only go up as much as necessary to keep with inflation but that’s not enough because everybody else gets more too.  It won’t end. It can’t end. For it to end everybody has to simultaneously say they want no more increases, even minimal cost of living increases. You can’t do it piece meal because somebody will (with a capital WILL) break the chain and not give back. And you can’t just rely on people. You need industry, large and small companies, profit based and non for profits to agree to no increase fees or prices except for bona fide improvements. Wages will go up in response to increases in output and profits will go up when true efficiencies result in lower expenses. Won’t happen. Can happen but won’t. Too many people have to make the right choice. The right choice never made anybody anything for nothing.

Greed is one of the seven deadlies, isn’t it?

You have the right. . .

Michael Leave a comment

I don’t listen to satellite radio often, but when I do I prefer the commercial free channels. The funny thing about satellite radio is that on the channels that are not commercial free, a great many of the ads are for credit repair, an unusual sponsor for a service that charges hundreds of dollars a year in subscription fees. Or maybe not. One in particular caught my ear lately.

It began, “You have the right to reduce your debt.” My first thought was, no you have an obligation to reduce your debt and it’s called bill paying. Actually, my first thought was to switch channels but I fought that off, not because I need to reduce my debt but that once upon a time I was so heavily in debt that your average homeless person had a higher credit score than I. I reduced my debt by stopping indiscriminate buying, selling off assets, paying off creditors, and closing credit cards. I was pretty sure the fellow espousing my rights to un-indebtedness didn’t have those notions in mind.

I’m sure there are many reasonable ways to reduce debt. Just because most governments haven’t figured out a way to do it doesn’t mean that we have lower ourselves to their levels. Especially on this weekend – Labor Day weekend. Huh? The thing is, you don’t want to reduce debt that’s going to cost people their jobs. Huh?

It doesn’t matter if a business is a 12 seat diner owned by the guy down the street or a multi-national banking business run by a bazillionaire. If you take money away from them they will work out a way of making it up. Either that means raising prices or lowering expenses – and the biggest expense of any business is its human resource.

Yes, you have a right to reduce your debt. It’s not right up there with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But then again, maybe it is. If it makes you happy, you should reduce. You also have a responsibility to reduce honorably. When you sign an agreement to accept the terms of credit it includes the expectation of repayment. It’s what the people who lend you money deserve.  And it’s what the people who are paid their salary based on the money you pay them deserve.

Back to that ad – while most of it was playing I was mentally drifting thinking about most of what you just read. But I came back to earth in time to hear the tag line – “Don’t let the credit card companies trick you into thinking that you have to pay them what you owe.” Huh?

Happy Labor Day.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?