I have now spent about a year seriously studying. I am mainly focused on economics, psychology and sociology. The main reason I chose those three subjects is because they are all related the current economic downturn. The only conclusion I can draw from my studies is that America will stay on a major decline unless we make some major changes in our society. We, as a people,are going to have to accept the fact that we can no longer continue to consume such a large percentage of the worlds resources. China and India are going to continue to supply the world with cheap, well-educated labor. To compete in the global economy, the United States will have to be producing something that the rest of the world needs, and at a lower price than they can do it for themselves!! At this point in time, agribusiness is the only section of our economy that can consistently do this. I read an article that just amazed me because it pointed out just how oblivious many Americans are becoming. ( You can read it here.) A woman in the article was grateful because the free food she was given did not have any Pinto beans. Someone who is supposedly destitute, but has a computer and uses it to apply for jobs, lamented the fact she had 10 bags of those beans but no idea how to cook them. A Google search for “cook pinto beans” yielded over 200,000 results!! This couple could not survive on the disability check of over 1500 a month that her husband receives. Well over half the world lives on 20% of that ANNUALLY! What does this say about America when we have citizens who can NOT live on 50 times as much money as half the world survives on? I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some of them. Over the course of this next year, I hope to share ways to make it easier for people to live on less. I will also have some occasional suggestions on ways we can improve.
February 16, 2010
Categories: Info.
November 22, 2009
I received a phone call at 5:30 this morning. It was my daughter telling me she had come down to surprise me and needing directions for the last few miles of the journey. My roommate, and my sister, both tell me it was incredibly rude of her to just drop in without calling first. What they fail to understand is that we are both comfortable calling each other at any time, day or night. And any time that we spend together we consider a blessing and treasure!! She knows I rent a room and that she wouldn’t be able to stay here, so she brought camping gear with her. I was able to get her an inexpensive room in the hotel so that she didn’t have to camp out. Like most parents, I take it personally when my kid is insulted. This prompted some deep thought and I’ve come to some conclusions:
First off, my daughter has incredible survival skills, especially for someone her age. Second, we have the best parent-child relationship of anybody I know! There is not a single subject that is taboo. We’ve discussed our sex lives, the mistakes we’ve made and personal problems. My daughter is a happy, healthy adult who is able to take care of herself, mainly because I taught her those skills. This meant I passed on knowledge acquired the hard, so that she did not have to experience a lot of the discomfort that I endured. As far as I’m concerned, that makes me a very successful parent!!!
This year I spent way too much time thinking about what I “should” do. My income has been cut, so I should figure out someway to supplement it. I have very little money put back towards retirement, so I should start a retirement account. I should also quit smoking, lose weight and develop a social life. Back in March I tried to tackle all of those things at once. I made a little progress on a variety of them but it eventually fell apart. I am tackling them one at a time now and I’m seeing progress. I’ve almost got the smoking beat. That almost offsets my cut in work/pay. I have even taken a few small steps towards developing a social life. Next I’ll be tackling the weight loss. I’m slowly but surely becoming a better me.
Today turned out to be a great day to reflect on my life. I realized that I have all the money needed to supply my needs and most of my wants. Over the years I’ve developed a mindset which allows me to be happy, even when I was incarcerated. I’m honest, compassionate, kind, a great parent, often generous AND make an effort to spread laughter. I have everything I need, and almost everything I want. I have the skills to survive no matter what life throws at me. In short, I am already a success by my definition. Isn’t that truly the only one that matters?
What is your definition of success? How are you working towards fulfilling that definition? And last, but not least, what can I do to help you?
Categories: Info, improve lives.
September 28, 2009
I turned 49 this week. For my birthday, I bought a voice recognition software program. while this is many times faster than my typing, the time spent editing my post is sure to increase. I spent the last six months trying to learn more about using the Internet to my advantage. There has been some progress. There has also been many hours of massive frustration. Training this VRS program is adding to that somewhat. But I still love it. As a four fingered typist, you can imagine how slow posting articles has been up to this point.
Over the course of the last three months, I’ve been attempting to buy a house. Between having a car note of over four dollars a month, and the fact my annual income is around 24,000 a year, I was only able to get the preapproval letter in the amount of 55,000. And that was three months ago when my income year to date had been 16,000. In the last three months I’ve earned less than another thousand dollars. This leads me to believe that if I do actually find a house for less than 55,000, the bank will probably not approve a loan of over 45,000. Have any of you looked at houses priced under 55,000? The few I have been able to find will not qualify for VA financing. To be honest, this has been a very frustrating process. I’ve recently discovered that I do have one friend who may be in a position to help. That will be a topic for a future post, providing I actually managed to pull that off.
The good news is that this situation has forced me to reevaluate my life. My health is good. My living expenses are relatively low. And for the most part, I’m leading a life I would choose if income were not a factor. I have plenty of time to indulge my overactive curiosity. On an average day, I surf the web reading about things that interest me for 4 to 12 hours. I occasionally leave comments on other blogs. I pursue the links provided by the trusted few on Twitter. Intellectually, I realized that it’s in my best interest to generate followers and follow interesting people. There’s only one small problem with that; I refuse to blindly follow just anyone and am very particular about who I will let follow me. Anyone who knows me, can vouch for the fact that I am not an elitist in any way, shape or form. I take the time to research anyone who follows me on Twitter. These are the things that will get you blocked: linking to your own site more than once every four hours, fronting for any site that requires you spend money to be a member, Tweeting 30 or 40 times a day, (NO ONE can discover that many interesting things a day!) or constantly sending the most trivial aspects of your entire day. I DO make exceptions if the aforementioned “Blocking Actions” are rare instead of habitual.
Just like everyone else on the planet, I could really use more money. Over the course of the last six months, I’ve seen a lot of ways to make money on the Internet. Unfortunately, too many of them require that you do things that go against my ethics. For instance, I refuse to become an affiliate for anything that I cannot personally vouch for and have purchased in the past. I will not lie for any reason. If you’re familiar with my past, you will see that it’s not because of any extreme morals, but simply because I have too many other vices to add lying or stealing to the list!! Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration. I still have plenty of vices, but the reality is I have reduced them greatly over the last decade. Not very many people find their way to this website, but those that do can only have one thing in common, serious curiosity!! I thought I had a point when I started this, now I’m not so sure. If there IS a point it must be this: If I am going to advocate total transparency, then it is a must that I practice what I preach.
Categories: Info.
August 24, 2009
Too many Americans have no clue how much more the poor pay than the middle class. A Washington Post article, The High Cost of Poverty, tells it much better than I can. The best example I can give is that Chase Bank recently raised it’s rates on credit cards. If you were paying 9.99% or 10.99% they raised it by adding the Prime rate to those figures. (3.25% at that time.) But if you were poor and already paying 13.99%, it was raised by an additional 3% PLUS the Prime rate. Just another example of banks using the fact that people with the least money are much less likely to pay off the balance and quit using their credit cards. How many extra bankruptcys are policies like this going to cause?
Those are bad enough, but what I really hate paying is “The Ignorance Tax”. Instead of shopping around when I bought my car, I accepted a loan at 14.75% because I knew my credit was a bit weak. I probably could have done better though. My buddy was going to make a drug deal. I rode along because the meet was at a Loew’s Hardware store and I needed a tape measure. When the bust went down, I ended up with “Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine” charges. Not my drugs, money or deal. But because I did something ignorant by not staying away from those things, I spent 5 years in prison. I got out with 10 years on parole and 475k in fines and other charges. The state of Georgia actually charges you 27,000 a year RENT for being in prison!!
The Ignorance Tax is whatever you pay for doing something stupid…. whether you knew better or not. And more often than not, you knew better. We can’t help paying the poverty tax until we’ve managed to lift ourselves out of poverty. It can be done but the road is more uphill the poorer you start out. The ignorance tax is one we can and should quit paying. There’s too much free information in this world for us to use the excuse,”I didn’t know any better”. If you want, or need, something then compare prices, read some reviews or even ask someone who knows more than you.
Leave examples of both types of taxes you’ve paid and any advice you have so others can avoid the same mistake. As for me, we all know that when you lie down with dogs you can expect to get up with fleas. Pick your friends wisely; they can be your greatest asset or biggest drawback…. but YOU are responsible for choosing them.
Categories: Info.