Money Matters - Part 15

...and the Presidential Jobs Council was dissolved. Great job! They had not even met in over a year.

'Broader U-6 measure remains constant at 14.4%.' That is the 'underemployment rate.'

...but, of course, the market is up!

Note in utility bill, delivery fee charge is increasing $6 a year

Never goes down.

Its the cost of all the labor, guys pushing the electrons into the wires...

And these days electrons are much fatter...

Pffftttt!!!!!

And that's precisely the sound they make as they are being squeezed...

Budget submitted to Congress late once again - four times in five years. Priorities.

Wanna bet they ain't late to lunch at the most $$$ places in DC??

I'll be snorting randomly today with the visual of smushed electrons going pffffttt ...I think they look kinda like little Teletubbies

I see them as more like the Michelin Man.

Went to Disney on Ice with my daughter yesterday, they brought the Disney prices with them...$12 for cotton candy, I laughed at the guy and said "I don't think so!"

Last year, S&P was the first ratings agency to downgrade US debt. Today, the DOJ announced they are suing them - supposedly for their rating of mortgage debt during the housing crisis. Sounds fishy to me.

Get used to this. Coming to a hospital near you...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2274151/NHS-scandal-Hospital-box-tick-culture-cost-hundreds-lives.html#axzz2K7oiawtn

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/postal-service-plans-to-end-saturday-delivery.html?_r=0

Should have done that long ago.

agreed on postal service. So un-proactive.

My glaucoma doc said his colleagues are dropping like flies due to upcoming changes with health care . And he says doctors are becoming "hospitalized"- coming out of school with debt $500K signing long contracts with hospitals.

There must be good money in health care- local hospitals are expanding, and making fancy rooms, nice decor...

Yes, for the mega-groups that own them. Not for docs.

all we ever got on saturday was junk mail

still don't understand how that saves them $ unless they were allowing the employees to work 6 days and paying overtime...but you would think if you work Saturday you get a day off during the week, just like any other job

You have to figure that reducing the days mail is actually delivered from 6 to 5 will decrease the cost of mail carriers by 16.6%. They should have a similar decrease in fuel costs and vehicle maintenance too.

They work five days. Subs take the sixth day of five different routes. But now they will have to deliver six days of mail in five days, resulting in more OT. To boot, branches will still be open on Saturday. The huge loss figure you hear thrown around is BS. The PO, unlike everyone else, has to pre-fund the pension. They have been behind on those payments. That makes up a large % of this multi-billion figure used.

As I always say, engineering and tech is the way to go, if you can hack it.

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-college-majors-20130204,0,3140035.story

all the mail delivery vehicles are made of aluminium. They will NEVER rust.

Here's the problem, in simple math:

"Typical married couple has paid $88,000 in Medicare taxes by retirement. They get $387,000 in benefits."

geeeeeez

WOW!!

But Victor - you didn't take into account the future value of a series of payments! Say that working period is 35 years and a person gets paid twice a month (840 payments into medicare) and their medicare tax is $50 a pay period and the interest rate on their payments is 2 percent - that comes out to a whole lot more than you would think! Enough to cover the actual costs, in fact. Actually to come up with 88,000 paid in, the amount paid each paycheck would be more like $ 105.

Aren't you sorry I am snowed in?

Interest payments?!! HAHAHAHA!!! It is NOT kept anywhere. It pays for the people on Medicare at that point. Same as SS. That is the number one misconception out there.

The other main problem is that there is no responsibility/accountability/penalty for people who choose to do unhealthy things like smoking and being overweight. That ads SO much to the cost of healthcare in the Medicare years. It's just not fair. And medical advances make it worse. I'll just take a pill. I'll just get a gastric bypass, etc. People in those groups need to pay way more than people who do the right thing.

Should have added in the previous post that any excess after payments to current Medicare needs was/is spent somewhere else. There was never a 'lockbox' or dedicated account to hold reserves. That is why the pyramid scheme analogy is not so crazy. New people in the system pay for the older ones.

Well - in their defense - those youngsters wouldn't be here without the elders!

No argument there! They just should have planned these things much better and paid more into them.

YankeeCat, I read this article yesterday even though I,m not snowed in, because Victor gave no source for his simple math quote.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/feb/01/medicare-and-social-security-what-you-paid-what-yo/

It used to be that 16 workers put in to support the outgo to each retiree. Now it is down to two or three. Base of pyramid getting wobbly. Sure hope those three paying for me stay healthy and keep their jobs!

Yes, should have said I was quoting a tweet. But same net result. Coincidentally, I started working in '87, the first year of the higher SS taxes so until I stopped working, I, like everyone after me, paid the most. Unfortunately, the ones who paid in the most will likely collect the least.

This is why I take issue with the whole 'greatest generation' crap. Yes, they won the war and established the US as an economic power, but they left their kids and grand kids this bloody mess. Completely irresponsible.

And yet, a top congressional leader can, without blinking an eye, proclaim that there is no spending problem. It's criminal.

greatest generation prospered in a period when US had started reaping the benefits of huge investments in highway infrastructure and cheap gas and oil. But they did have to endure growing up in the shadow of WWI, Great Depression, WWII...all good training for working hard and not taking things for granted, including life.

Does not COngress enjoy excellent health benefits?

Yes, lessons they apparently did NOT learn. From a presumably fiscally prudent depression era generation came all these unpaid-for, feel-good social programs.