It's not just gas

[www.nytimes.com]

One way that food goes up is in smaller packaging, while keeping the price the same. But that's a whole other article.

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The article makes sense but he's forgetting food prices are on a big rise due to gas prices. Milk for instance.  Was 3.59 now is at 4.99 (which happens to be more than a gallon of gas)And he's ignored the bigger issue of gas prices.  For instance:  Man commutes 50 miles to work every day.  Several months ago he was spending maybe $40/tank every three days.  Now it's $100+ per tank every three days.  See how that eats into a pocket book?Then the massive increase in groceries.  We run on a grocery budget and we've had to nearly double our budget.  What about folks who can't double their budget for groceries? And trucking companies have gone out of business due to fuel cost.  So what does that mean to the consumer?  It means there are fewer trucks hauling goods and their cost has gone up to the stores.  Or they are driving their trucks to be picked up and hauled by train. It's a trickle down effect.  People have and are out of  their jobs.  Retail stores aren't making a profit so more are taking bankruptcy and going out of business. Banks are crashing.  Loss of mortgage revenue and so many foreclosures several of the larger banks are closing.  It's estimated this year alone 130 banks are going to be closing. According to the business news.  These are big banks with small banks under their umbrella. The FDIC has already paid in excess of 8billion dollars for individuals with checking and savings accounts at some banks. We are heading into perilous times.
billienicolosi Wrote:
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> The article makes sense but he's forgetting food
> prices are on a big rise due to gas prices.

It's an Op-Ed, not a news report. He just talking about our perception.

The smaller packaging-same price issue started way before gas prices skyrocketed. They been doing that for years.
Yes they have been packaging smaller amounts.

And my perception is much different that than his perception. I see people every day who are not going to be able to make the month with groceries, meds and rent.
They make just slightly over the allowance for "food stamps" It's sad with a person works all their lives and gets to the "retirement age" then has to completely change their life style cause their pay doesn't increase to compensate for the "increase in cost" There is no mid year "Cost of Living" increase in retirement.
Or, as in my husband's case, he was forced out of his job four years ago because of age. He left with partial retirement because his boss was making him physically ill. He is much better, but he still has the condition and can't afford the prescription.

He applies for many jobs, but he thinks he is a victim of age discrimination there, too.

He is working at a piddling little job where he'll never get a raise or a promotion. He is applying tomorrow for a better job closer to home and closer to the kind of work he did. Please pray for him.

When my husband did electronic tax filing out of our home, he attracted customers getting Earned Income Credit. Essentially, they were poor people getting a payment out of our taxes. He said he never begrudged them the amount because he saw how hard they were trying. Some had three jobs and couldn't make it. Many were illiterate. With a home-based secretarial service, I often typed contracts for illiterate people. They knew what was in them, but they couldn't read them. Sometimes there was a language barrier in reading. Gasper would hear unrelated customers sitting in the living room saying, "If I get my money first, I'll loan you this. If you get yours first, you loan me that." Unrelated families even shared houses on occasion.
I know Sandra Sue. I don't begrude people anything who are trying to make honest living. What I begrude is people who have never worked a day in their lives and draw more than people who have worked their life time. And automatically qualify for medicaid and food stamps.

I'm talking about people who could have worked and never worked. I'm not talking about those born with handicaps or became disabled as a child or young adult. I'm talking about those who have just Never worked. Never paid a dime of tax and then get all this free stuff.

I do a lot of Section 8s. Hear them barganing with one another all the time. But they seem to manage to a degree with the help of a friend.

I worry about people living on the streets and working jobs that don't pay enough for them to be able to rent a decent place to live.
You're misinterpreting the editorial. Areily says:

"While we concentrate our anger on gas prices, we are ignoring increases in electricity, food and health insurance — expenses that might actually have a greater effect on our budgets."

He's saying we're misplacing our concern by just concentrating on gas. You're all just agreeing with him.
I didn't read the editorial, so none of my responses have been an interpretation to it.

In answer to billienicolosi, I sometimes think of the bumper sticker (paraphrased), "Another member of the middle class proudly supporting welfare cheats and illegal aliens."

At least one hospital at the border went broke because it was required to give assistance to illegal immigrants who didn't pay it back. Immigration is a big issue in the border states.
People were homeless and living on the streets long before the gas prices went up sneakers. And if they are living on the streets they aren't paying for utilities. But they do have to eat.

But the writer of the article never mentioned foreclosures. Foreclosures have nothing to do with gas prices. People just bit off more than they could chew with the increase in home prices.

And in recent days gas prices have dropped. Just filled up a couple days ago and there was about a 30c difference in price from the week before.

Yep Sandra Sue we have a lot of illegals here in my state. And they are slowly but surely "weeding" them out by setting fines on businesses who hire them and owners of housing that rent to them. So if they can't find a job and they can't find a place to live they have to go somewhere else or back where they came from.

I know it's a hugh problem in the South Western states.
One of the big issues is why we have put them in a position for free schooling, free indigent care, free health care, etc., when some of our own citizens who have had very good jobs can't get those services. When I first heard of immigration as a child, each was assigned a "buddy" who helped that person get a job, a home, etc., and it wasn't government money but the milk of human kindness to help that legal entrant to become a sustaining part of society. One email I got on the subject said, "Shame on us."
I agree "Shame on us".

And it's gotten to the place were 90% of crime in the major cities in the South is from gangs immigrating to the US from South and Central America.

I think most of the Southern states have started doing the same as TN. If they don't have a place to live and a place to work they are gone.

All this started in a little towns in Pa and Texas. They decided and came up with a plan to get rid of illegals.

Unemployed illegals are a drain on any states funded programs as you said Sandra Sue.
billienicolosi Wrote:
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> People were homeless and living on the streets
> long before the gas prices went up sneakers. And
> if they are living on the streets they aren't
> paying for utilities. But they do have to eat.
>
> But the writer of the article never mentioned
> foreclosures.

An Op-Ed is an editorial from one of the NYTimes editors, not a hard news article. I will let you two continue on your own topic.
bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it lovingly with seed. It was indeed a beautiful bird feeder. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.


Then came the bird sh*t. It was everywhere; on the patio tile, the chairs, the table .. everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.

And other birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be ... quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.



Now let’s see ....

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the millions. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 or more families; you have to w wait 6 hours to be seen by a doctor in an emergency room because it is filled with illegals; your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English.

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to ’press one’ to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than ‘The Union Jack’ are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Its just my opinion but: maybe, just maybe, it’s time for the government to take down the damn bird feeder.



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