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Can I have my Allowance Now?
February 6, 2009
900 Billion Dollars! Say that with me, "Nine Hundred B-I-L-L-I-O-N Dollars." An amount of money so large that it boggles the mind and causes gold-diggers to drool and at this very minute probably trying to find endeavors that will bring them a piece of this substantially large pie. I have only two questions and they are,
"What is the money for?" and "Who's getting some of this action?"
Although I'm not a politician and certainly have no vested interest in the industries of banking, mortgage or finance an explanation for this whole schema of the why's and how's elude me. I am as the others who write here, one of the citizen's, Joe Average. I live from check to check and make ends meet by maintaining a sense of frugality. From my observations in the last three or four months that this "crisis" has been top of the headlines nothing has changed so dramatically that I see the need for this "incentive" formally "bailout." What I have seen is the only real evidence of what's happening that I wanted to be aware of, gas prices have fallen after taking off on an unprecedented rise after Hurricane Katrina arrived and the loss of the platforms that metered out the substance that fuels our modes of transportation. I have no empathy to those who bought homes without reading the fine print in the terms and conditions of a ballooned mortgage payment. Shame on you if you purchased before reading with a magnifying glass the fine print in your contracts and have even less empathy for the government agencies of Salle Mae and Freddie Mac who assisted in the fall of the dream of home ownership. I do not care that the car makers are losing money and may have to curtail production. Will normal American Auto workers get hit by downsizing? It's a certain probability that they would. I do not want to sound callous and in no way do I want to chastise the American public and its workforce but gee give me a break. So the automakers have to shutdown for a month or two. Schoolteachers have to shut down for a couple of months each summer and make far less than the unionized auto workers. I figure it this way, if I and others like myself can learn to adjust, so can they.
I live on about 800.00 per month after the necessary mandatory payments for my kids and the educational institution that I obtained loans from and for the record even with a substantial payment each month I cannot keep up with the interest which thereby increases the penalities which thereby constantly increases my amount due. At this point unless I get me a slice of that pie I will probably be paying back my student loans into my eighties and would not at all be surprised if I still owe them when I no longer have the means to do so. Think they accept ashes? Now from the money left, that initial 800.00 I have the rent and food and other costs to maintain the basic necessities of life. I am not complaining as I've had to learn how to be frugal out of necessity and one day when the cards again give me a flush hand I will make more discriminating purchases.
In a short version of what I'm trying to say, as with an article prior on the noble lie one has to wonder about the government's allegations of what is and what is not going on in terms of economy. The current new Federal minimum wage for non-exempt covered employees is $6.55 per hour. This became effective July 24, 2008. These wage provisions are contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Quite a few states have additional minimum wage laws. Where these laws conflict (i.e. the employee is subject to both the state and federal minimum wage laws) the employee is entitled to the higher of the two.
Surely this amount is not an amount that this incentive is going to cure. The vast majority of those in the "middle" or "lower" classes really do not have the same options in housing, food and the necessities of life with a great consideration to health care. From what I've listened to this population has not been addressed. An incentive of 300.00 to 1500.00 is not going to enable this population to buy a home, a new car, or allow for quality of life in health care.
So tell me, why should this be an issue? That our country will fall into a recession and the dark days akin to the "great depression" will surly follow? Rob had written an article about a cure to these and other personal problems in relating to the economy. Honestly, at first I thought he was out of his mind. In the movie Working Girl the actor playing one of the giants of industry tells a story, a truck had gotten stuck while entering the Mid-town tunnel (N.Y. City) and over time city workers, engineers and other public officials all wondered how they were going to get the truck out of the tunnel. No matter what they'd tried nothing seemed to have enough power to remove the truck from the entrance. A little girl passing by wondered aloud why all these officials and engineers and workers didn't just let the air out of the tires which would lower the truck to be eradicated from its predicament. A small solution for such a big problem! Of course this worked and the truck was removed. Nine-hundred billion dollars is an amount of money most cannot fathom beyond the number. In his article Rob mentions giving each citizen of this country what I can only call government bank accounts. One million on deposit for education, one million on deposit for health care. With 300 million citizens old and young alike the cost would amount to 600 million give or take. This would be money that can only be utilized for the aforementioned needs dispersed by our government.
I've not been affected by this economic crisis in fact so far I have benefited with the lowering of gas prices. Another item of note, all the players in the election process spoke of bi-partisan support prior to the election and now the fence has been thrown back up quickly while one side argues with another over the amount, how it should be dispersed, et Al. Surely the founders of whatever plan makes it into our history will be remembered throughout time, they will get their fifteen plus minutes of fame. I now agree with what he'd written. He took a bit of air out of the government's truck and allowed other options to shine. I believe that we get far to hung up in creating a problem which ultimately makes us far too rigid to find a compromising solution. But this is all conjecture and opinion. Regardless of the chain of events nothing in my life will change dramatically. I will still have my student loan, still have to be careful what I shop for, still have to watch my food bill which is not such a bad thing as I find that the foods that my diet requires do not come in cans of soda, beer, chips and dozens of other preprocessed "foods" that we buy. As individuals, politicians and people we've given ourselves the belief that we're entitled! We must have all the flashy new things that we see on the television, read about in advertisements or hear about in other forms of media. None of us are entitled. We can find a way to survive in the most horrid of circumstances as long as we stick together as a nation.
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For too long I've messed with the wiring in my head. Now it shorts out more oft than not. But at my age I just sit and enjoy the sparks. RJM '07
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