Frankly, I think the country is in a slow-motion death spiral. Nobody can afford anything anymore, because the people who provide it have to spend too much to make it available.
Legal services and medical services are expensive because lawyers and doctors rack up insane education expenses.
Food is too expensive because more and more of it is imported and/or the end product of a crazy long production-chain.
People have to demand higher salaries because of the cost of living, but aren't getting them. Look at me: I don't care about getting rich. I just want the bills paid. Unfortunately, that means I pretty much can't take a job for less than $40-50K/yr, because of the cost of childcare, insurance, etc.
This means that my chances to do what I actually want to do for living are miniscule. Nobody's going to pay me that much without years of experience. Add to that that I'd likely need to move the family to D.C., and I really couldn't take anything below $60K/yr. And we're one of the better cases...our mortgage is quite affordable, we have no car payments, and my student loan isn't that bad. But that $30K in debt I racked up getting a Master's Degree? HUGE mistake. My master's isn't worth the paper it's printed on. It's a fucking cerebral hood ornament.
Part of me just wants to say "All of this can go fuck itself", find a quiet piece of land somewhere, and just do subsistence farming and try to enjoy the years I have left.
^^^
Basically, this.
[rant]
Add to that malpractice insurance (I dunno why it's high; All the BS "malpractice" attempts to not pay me got laughed out of court), commercial office rent, marketing, Licensing fees to the state, continuing education expenses, ink, paper, etc.... It's just nuts. Then there's student loans....
There's a massive disconnect between consumers and providers of professional services, engineered by people who are so rich they don't care.
The consumers and providers are actually on the same page, but "divide and conquer...." It's odd how there are just two different mindsets. People think I'm "expensive" and "they work hard for their money," which implies that I don't.... I can't help but think they don't get it. They work only 40 hours/week. I do 60 minimum, 7 days a week. They don't pay for the desk/chair/office furniture, office rent, advertising, office supplies, insurance, office phone bill, office internet bill, office electricity, office gas, office repairs, and they have no CLUE how to go out fishing for clients. It's actually sort of a luxury to have a job where you don't have to sell yourself constantly (with the associated downtime, cause you're not getting paid while fishing for clients). At the same time, the super rich people are laughing at both of us, cause we all owe them money somehow....
I swear, I found someone who knows how to do it, I met a Jewish Family that was really more of a dynasty via a classmate in law school. Together they have 15 wage earning family members in a 45 room mansion they all own together: pool tennis court, Rather than move out, the kids just stay there and the family buys an investment property so somebody else pays them rent to live there. They have 50 such properties currently. The have accountants, lawyers, deli workers, a mechanic, factory workers, and various other professions living together under that large impressive roof while raking in rental money from other people. After some time, some of the people eventually move out, but only after years and years of not paying rent to a landlord. Let's say this saves them $800/month or roughly $9600/year, while they live in that family home. Multiply that out a few years and you can see where they get a down payment for a house of their own.
No idea why some people don't like the Jews. With two notable exceptions, I've liked all the ones I've met and think they have their act together. If my family wasn't composed entirely of crazy people who hate gays and transgendered people, I'd do this and save the whole lot of us if possible.
[rant/]
I just want to pay off this fucking loan. $800 dollars a month in student loans. Guh.
I don't even know what I want out of life anymore, though. I'm just going through the motions. Once I pay off the student loan, at least my costs will be minimal. Except the stupid bullshit healthcare law that means I have to buy insurance now, of course. So my dream of just throwing it all to the wind and going on walkabout is pretty much dead.
I was <-----> this close to finally freeing myself of these fucking shackles of monthly bills and having a bit of breathing room and now I'll never be able to. :/ So I'm going to end up working solely to pay off something the government if forcing me to buy.
Ah, well. Secondary plan is to save up enough money to get out of the country, so I guess that's what I'm doing now. But I know it's going to be too little, too late. I very much doubt I'm going to make it to the point where I get to see it.
I feel your pain, though only $800/month sounds nice from where I am.
The NHS still costs me around £125 a month... $200? How much does medical insurance in the US cost per month?
To buy a private plan? It's so expensive no one can really afford it. Thus, employers traditionally provided it. Except of course now they don't want to/don't feel like paying for it/sometimes actually can't pay for it. Self employed people have a hell of a time with this. I, for example, have no health insurance due to this.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9699479 times)