Musings of a Dumb Ass

There is generational confusion in number values. This is a phenonema that grows everyday and has conditioned us to accept change in our daily lives that rearranges what it takes to make us feel secure. The best example of this at the moment is our reaction to gasoline pump prices. Not so long ago the price of gasoline at the pump was stable at the $1.50/1.60 range. Then we had the spiking that took it to three bucks a gallon. Now, celebrating our good fortune, we call it 'down' at $2.29 a gallon and say that should give us confidence and rejuvenate the economy. What? Our money has went up and down in value since we came into being. The old timers called it 'buying power'. As long as wages travel at the same speed as inflation nobody gets hurt, right? Not exactly. Income taxes are on a progressive schedule established way back when and simply says on the schedule of deductions your employer uses when deductions are made from your paycheck, 'if you make at least ****, but not more than *****, your taxes are *****, which means in simple terms, the higher the wage, the higher the percentage deducted. Most all other taxes are predicated at a certain percentage which keeps all of us from having to consider a new amount, it just grows along with inflation automatically, but fast inflation will cure last years budget deficits magically, and the politicians pat themselves on the back for good management when in reality they've done nothing commendable and we're just too dilbert to figure it out. The real decriptive way is to return to buying power translated to real money. Example: Last night I stopped in at my local supermarket to get veggies for a salad and came face to face with $2.99 a pound tomatoes. The way to look at that is to have something to compare to make a judgement of where we are in value/buying power. I remember a time when average wages were $1.25 an hour and tomatoes were $2.00 a fifty five pound bushel. Presently in my neck of the woods average pay is about six hundred bucks a week. Minus an approximate 30% in payroll deduction, more or less, depending, that leaves a whopping $420. in take home pay, or enough to buy not quite three bushels of tomatoes that could be bought with five hours labor at a buck and a quarter an hour from yesteryear. Housing is beyond descriptive comparison. In San Francisco a two bedroom apartment now goes for about three thousand bucks a month. But that's a world to its own isn't it? Maybe. But what if you grew up there? What if your family was there? What if that area was simply home for you and you didn't want to live anywhere else? And what if you were about to retire on social security and figured out your social security stipend would only cover half of your rent? What a hellish situation we've created. Have balls..... vote third party....... you can't make it any worse than it's going to be as it is............