NY Times sob journalism

Could you get a job just being a dealer?

 

That's what my guidance counselor suggested.

 

Neither can my Dad and he's tried four times. But they don't always base those things on work ethic and references and stuff like that.

 

Overrated-but-sometimes-good Freakonomics did a good story on the economics of being a drug dealer. Basically, there's a bunch of grunts at the bottom making almost nothing, dreaming of becoming one of the few guys on the top making tons of money.

Same as almost everything in life, I guess.

 

That's a large majority of the population that can't afford it.

The median income has barely kept up with the cost of inflation in the last 30 years, even when the economy was doing well. The only people who were doing well was the wealthiest 1-2 percent. Everyone else has had to put in longer hours for paychecks that don't buy as much.

And the times that the economy has done well has been when people have been maxing out their debt through credit cards and mortgages. Why? Because they don't make enough money.

Americans are still trying to cling to the ideal of a middle class, which has been rapidly dying for the last 30 years.

 

I'd take a post office job. My uncle seems to do okay.

 

Just a thought Baron, but it's possible inflation increased partly because people with several credit cards were buying things they didn't need and couldn't afford in the first place. Then, more and more started doing the same thing, creating a false economy of sorts. And, yes, I know the price of gas, which has nothing to do with a person's buying power and what they can afford, plays one of the biggest roles in inflation.

I'm not an expert, although IJAG would like you to think otherwise, but I think it's a bit of the chicken and egg theory. Did inflation kill the middle class and max out credit cards or did credit cards and buying on credit drive up demand and prices, etc.?

 

I'm pretty sure that people were buying on credit since we became an agrarian society.

 

True, but not at the rate we've seen of late.

 

Credit was used to buy essentials for building a business or making a living in some way.

It wasn't used to temporarily maintain a slipping lifestyle. And we had usury laws that didn't let banks go to unsecured credit at insane interest rates.

 

I can agree with that. People do need to live within their means. Problem is, depending on where you live, everyone would be living in cardboard boxes if they did.

Reading the Times story on the woman, I can see where she probably should have cut corners (buy a used car instead of a new one, for instance), but at the same time, she still needed a car.

Where I live, a car is an absolute necessity. I've always bought used, and used them until they cannot be used anymore (over 150,000 miles on each of the ones I've owned and rusting out). Yet, I've always had to go into debt to buy a used car because I don't make enough money.

Naturally, it's partly my fault, because I chose journalism as a career. And believe me, lately, I've been questioning my choice every day.

But at the same time, people are struggling to maintain just a middle class lifestyle. In the 1950s, families could afford to own a house on just one income (usually, the male's), and a family member (usually the female) could afford to stay home.

Now, you have both parents working, frequently more than one job, just to keep up with expenses. Once they pay for expenses, they want a luxury or two, hence the credit card.

 

I forget where I read it Baron, but I mentioned to my wife the second I did; did you know this generation's homes are, on average, 30 per cent bigger than the last generation's?

I have to ask: Why?

My wife was hell bent on have two bathrooms in our home. We have two. But I have no idea why we need two.