05/30/2014

This has become one of the most difficult sections to keep up to date. You would think it’s easy because it’s about politics and what not. For a guy who really doesn’t like to talk about the topic and really doesn’t have much to say about what is going on I have some how managed to look around me and say nothing. In some aspects it says something about me as a writer. It says that either I AM NOT observant enough about how people are changing or it says that I have become numb to how people are changing.

Now don’t get me wrong I want to greet people and say have hope that this will all work out. I want to say we will survive past the politics and the bullshit but if and or how I say that statement it becomes and feels very much like a lie! I think back to something like thirty years ago to the point that I was born. Now of course at that time you didn’t need much to get a good job. You needed will power and practice. If you wanted to become a carpenter, a programmer, a cook or really just about anything all you needed was practice in the field. They had entry points and low level jobs that you worked up the field to get.  Now of course you had a point that you couldn’t get past but it was progressive. You could just walk up to a site and say I want to do this how do I get in? Someone could point the way and poof you went off running.

Today that point becomes college and while I would love to say that it’s still fair and it still works I know from experience that it doesn’t. College cost lots of money and right from the second you finish the required grades 1 – 12 you instantly have to sign papers and agree to contracts that put you in debt to if you are a lucky from 5 – 40 years after you sign them. Now of course you can right from school get a job. You can go to a million agencies and get taught about topics like security, Medical care and so on but if you aren’t particular about how you do it you don’t get anything from it.  Plus nine times out of ten those jobs require you pay for the class with money you don’t have so you lean towards again.. having debt.. those jobs also don’t pay very well either but that’s another topic entirely.

See I have never had a direction for any of it but with my past being the way it is you would think a guy like me would be in a better spot. I am a hard working guy who has never called out of work a day in his life. If I was set up to a time I WAS at the job at that time. I did the best I could with what I had and I never really complained about any of it because in my eyes fate is funny. Sure drama comes from life but really I have always been good at pushing it away and saying I do my job, I am here, what more can I really ask for? Now if we come to that position that I am currently in “the spot that I am making less now than when I started” it’s not progress and it does feel like someone is pulling me down rather than up.

Of course people will look at my job and say well it’s a shitty job you should get something better.. YOU DESERVE IT!.. but what most people don’t put into account is that the motion of high school started the day after I finished. I made mistakes that put me in debt and that debt will forever be held under the pride that it was a learning experience. It’s not a great deal of debt but enough for me to force myself to say “O.K. Well if I miss a payment I am screwed and my inner demons will never allow that!”

No one speaks for a guy like me but me. I work, enjoy my time when I can,  and try very hard to adjust for everything. Politics “getting back on topic” is hard to write about because in a time that presents so much to people who work who really has the time to sit around and ask?

05/02/2014

Reformatting: I will now be posting 2 times a week… anyway.. on to what I have to say..

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I recently did an experiment to figure out exactly how much it would cost the average person without travel expenses to eat breakfast for an entire week. I started this as a answer to the question of how bad the economy has gotten? Did it really effect me? What else could be done?

So the experiment started with some basic needs. First I need to figure out the distance from home to the store. Easy enough as the closest store to me was 10 minutes away. So not really a big deal and it didn’t cost me anything to get to and from. When the average cost of gas is between 3.30 – 450.. Walking helped more then it hurt.

When I arrived at the shop I purchased the following..

Bacon – 6.49$ for 18 Slices

Eggs – 2.99$ for 12 Eggs

Milk – 3.99$ for 1 Gallon – 16 cups

Butter – 3.99$ for 4 sticks

Cheese .99$ for 3 sticks

Now people say the most important meal of the day is breakfast so let’s figure this out..

what you need on average is…

*1/4 butter

*2 Eggs

*1/4 cup of milk(To cook) + 1 cup of milk (to drink)

*1 stick cheese

*4 slices of bacon

This adds up for one serving of breakfast for one Single Person.. which in conclusion comes to

6 meals with Eggs, milk, butter

3 meals have cheese

41/2 have bacon

In the end you have left…

2 1/2 sticks butter and 7 1/2 cups of milk…

and this all cost you 18.45$ + tax so around about 20 bucks..maybe even 21$

So this doesn’t even last a week in most homes. If the bases for minimum wage is 7.75 an hour and you work a 40 hour week you only make BEFORE TAX 310$ dollars. With four weeks in a month with the occasional fifth week every 4 or 3 months. On average you will make 1240 dollars a month. Of which you will spend 84$ on just breakfast..this doesn’t count dinner, lunch, snacks or anything outside of just breakfast..

This becomes a problem because in the end your left with a round about cost for just food to about 400 dollars a month! Leaving you with 840$ dollars…and this is just minimum wage! Food…not counting bills, Rent, travel, and so on..

I don’t know it must be me.. maybe I am just over thinking it..

07/23/2013 Work is work and play is play

So for the past few weeks I have been going from store to store working. I am not use to traveling for work more then the Five minute walks it takes me almost every night to and from the store that is currently being rebuilt. Yesterday it took an hour to get to work and an hour to get back home. I left at 1130am didn’t get home till about 9pm. Not really an issue but when you work for three years on nothing but the over night it can be a bit tiring. However yesterday I got to see what the future of my job will look like and honestly I will say it’s exciting!

While I have my own opinions of the job and all the cool stuff that I will be doing my only concern right now is that I will be left to do more work then I want or to better state it. I will be left to do work that isn’t my own. Truthfully this is how it has always been in the past and I don’t want it to be in my present.  This job is going to be 99% harder then it was before. Down time “which was unacceptable before but will be REALLY UNACCEPTABLE NOW” is going to be at a all time low and I know some people will not accept it.  The job while it is a clerks job will consist of lots of cleaning, cooking, and lots of timing on top of dealing with customers and keeping up with everything.

Now why would I even bring any of this up? What does it really have to do with politics at all? Well when it comes to Economics, and how we as people run are lives I feel a big problem we have is comfort. Comfort at work seems to be a big highlight with what people focus on today when really it shouldn’t be. I think back now to the process of getting music some 15 years ago “not that long ago”. I remember having to get up. Put on my Saturdays best! Eat something, drink something, go downstairs, get on my bike and ride about a mile and half distance on my bike to a record store that “MIGHT” have the CD or Tape I wanted to buy. If they didn’t have it I could always ride to another store which most of the time it took 3 trips to get from one record store, to a blockbuster video, then to a no body beats the wiz store. This was entire day of looking for music I wanted to listen to and that was IF my parents had the money to give me to find the CD or Tape I wanted. Really I was very happy to do it and honestly I miss doing it.

Riding about 3 to 6 miles a day was nice to me and sometimes I didn’t even ride my bike I would walk more often then that and hopefully with friends at times. I miss all the work that went into it. Now let’s jump to today. A person today simply need turn on the computer, and look up on either amazon, Itunes, or whatever for the music they want. HELL you need not even get DRESSED for this crap. I while I can say it’s easier and way less work find that it’s sort of sad that I don’t have to put in any effort into having FUN!

Now this was FUN! Not work… Work required that you got up moved your ass, followed orders, kept up with times and so on. WE LIVE IN A LAZY STRUCTURE OF A PLACE! My children and the children after that will never have to ever go to any of the places I have. Hell most of those places are GONE! One my other favorite hobbies also “Video Games” is going down this road also. They NEED NOT step away from the screen to get A VIDEO GAME NOW..!

I am not saying this is all bad but I am saying it does take away from all physical work we do. Now here is how I circle the conversation here. Work is a place that while we can’t download food to our stomachs just yet we can and do have to understand that IT IS WORK. You are Required to MOVE! AND FOLLOW ORDERS..  You don’t have an app to do and if you can’t keep up with what you NEED TO BE DOING.. you will not survive.

Which is what this all comes down to. Survival! I don’t think children will ever understand how easy they have it. I don’t think many of the younger people no more then 5 to 10 years younger then me will ever understand how much work HAS TO BE DONE. What I do believe is that the people my age and older are going to really need to wake up and stop making things so easy for them. If something as easy as pushing a mop bucket around becomes WORK… we are in for a serious …serious….seriously!! bad time ahead of us.

07/10/2013

I haven’t had much to say because not much can be said with what is going on in my life at this moment. Corporate America is what seems to be on my mind and I get it for the most part. You have a person one up one gas station and it turns into two then two becomes ninety and you are a corporation run on just profits, stock, and just jealous gain.

So here is the position I was put in. My job is currently in the processes of “Gaining a level” (Yes that’s a final fantasy term). It’s being upgraded from selling some crap to selling MORE crap which is fine. That’s the American dream to sell more stuff for a profit so that you can have more stuff you want! However I work for this corporation which means I am not a part of it. If I was a part of it I would gain from this big change and I already know and have accepted that is not going to be the case. The worker ant doesn’t gain anything but the worker ants WILL gain from my work.

The big issue I am coming to with all this is why the hell am I putting myself into all this work for someone else rather then myself? If I take all this effort in putting up shelves, stocking candy, cleaning floors, removing items, and so on why not do it for myself? Fact is I don’t own a corporation and it’s because I don’t already have five million dollars to invest in all the crap I AM WORKING ON! To me it makes sense but it doesn’t and I have come to terms with the reality of the situation. Just because you can put the shit together doesn’t mean you own it or gain anything from being able to build it.

Now here comes the interesting part about my life and the situation. Apparently after the last 3 years of doing 38 hour weeks at part time work.. it might actually become 38 hours of FULL time work which really I find it sort of sad that really the company doesn’t want it to be full time but it would cost them more money if they don’t JUST CHANGE THE FUC@ING TITLE…

Either way I find this entire situation very interesting because it makes me wonder if I really pull all of this off maybe this should really say something about what I SHOULD BE DOING. Perhaps I can put all this effort and willpower and work and so on.. I NEED TO DO MORE!

05/20/2013 Economics and Ethics

Ok Now I know for a fact that this country is screwed and nothing anyone does will set it off this path. In the recent weeks we have had people pool from all states to the Lottery game known as the “PowerBall”..590.5 Million dollars. This is over Half a billion dollars and ONE person from the state of Florida won it.  Which means that one person in this country right now is going to get at least half that amount while the other half goes towards taxes and who knows what else.

Don’t get me wrong here I think it’s very American that we can pool this sort of money from pocket change and some from actual paychecks in hopes of getting a little bit richer but you have got to be joking with me to tell me NOW of all time’s that we as Americans can’t get are economic system back in track in just a matter of weeks because of some moral ground we stand on. People are losing  Jobs left and right, Food stamps have gone up in support of those in need, are medical programs are a joke and your telling me we as Americans can’t find an answer to this. Let me be one of the first to write it right now but I am calling bullshit on this problem. If this economical problem isn’t being staged I don’t know how else anyone can prove it, or even for that fact explain it better.

Now here is the interesting part to the problem. No one …noticed… No one thought it was strange that as a country we can pool together half a billion dollars for a Lottery game of all things in just a few weeks but we have spent the last 19 years slowly falling from grace. Now don’t get me wrong I love America more then any place in the world and I am so great full to be here. Yet I can’t help but think is the greed in this country really THAT BAD? I suppose if I think about it I can come up with plenty of worse scenarios for why this wasn’t noticed or why no one said anything about it. I suppose in some respect I learned something new from this…or perhaps just something I never really thought about and that is the truth to this matter that we are in the situation we are right now because we want to be and because we made the decision to do it.

The Economy is bad and we have no one to blame but ourselves.. not corporations, or any higher power… it was us that made it this way..and I can only hope something good will come of this in the coming weeks..but chances are this will just be another lost Entry…

05/06/2013 Prices

I don’t make much money with the job I have. It’s not really a complaint at all. The work I do can probably be done by anyone with a little sense and logic in mind. I am not really going to talk about the job this time..no..no no.. Today I am going to talk about Prices. The prices of gas, Food, Housing and maybe Borderline Economics.

See I know I live in a state with HIGH taxes.  Everything is high here because we build everything big and to be consumed in massive quantity’s. So to keep with the amount of up keep everything is run by we need those taxes to keep everything safe and secure. We need the money to run the schools, Pay the Police, and generally run everything we have. Lots of people never consider what amount of work has to been done to run a city. Now because the city is located in only a small part of the state lots of people make the same question “Why should I pay for those taxes when I don’t live in that part of the state?” Fact is you don’t pay for it. What you are actually paying for are the resources that come out of the city that you use. Thing’s like the Electric “depending on location” Internet service, really all things that come out of it. Now the further away from it you get the further your dependence goes. So eventually smaller stations are used and can be up kept without having to pay so much because they are smaller.

Logical reason for it. Now the problem that I see coming with just about everything is not in the taxes. Its in the actual price of the product that they claim is taxes. Best example of this would be spending an extra .60 cents on something that cost the store let’s say .40 cents to buy.  Where does that extra .60 cents go? Some of it does go to the manufacturers of said product. Packaging, manufacturing, and so on but most of the time it goes to a profit. Profit is what most companies consider the Owner of the company. The highest of the High ups are never lacking on wealth because of this. What they do with that wealth is generally up to them. They can use that money for pretty much anything. Some times it goes back into the store, sometimes it goes else where.

As a matter of fact from what I have learned most companies can lower the price of whatever they are making by at least 25% and still gain profit from it. Now I am not saying greed has any part of this but generally it does. Really its a question of Ethics I suppose.

04/28/0213 Economics

Economics is based on the flow of money and how we spend it. How we earn it is pretty straight forward I think.  You sign up for a job and you agree to do the job for a amount of pay per hour or in some cases salary. Easy part to understand yes? Now the more complex part comes in how that “lets call it a placement” Placement produces said job or product. So lets say you have a product “in this case we will use Shoes as an example” you need to figure out a price point for that shoes to be sold, at how much, and how many are going to be shipped in order to build, maintain and properly produce said product.

Now the first thing you need to do is understand that in order to produce any product you have to have a place to do it. So from the get go you are paying either rent on a location or your paying a mortgage and Taxes. So even before you start to produce the product you already have to spend money to Create it.  With that being out of the way you now have to buy the proper equipment to produce said product. Meaning in this case you probably have to have machines or Laborers to create you product. Either way your paying for the cost of electric or the cost of man power.  If it’s American made you have to spend at least 7.15 an hour for minimum wage workers and that has to be timed by how many hours said people are working. So at least 57.20 is what your spending to create said product for eight hours. This price is also taxed so the worker is actually making give or take depending on your state… 49 – 51 dollars an hour..  Now if you want to really attract good workers you will raise that cost by at least a dollar maybe two so lets just say said worker will cost you 8.00 dollars an hour at a rate of eight hours costing you now 64 dollars BEFORE tax.  Which means that person has to pay tax so over all they are making at most  between 55- 56 dollars an hour.. fair enough right

Now if you go with a machine on this topic it cost you all of the price to buy the machine, plus maintenance and up keep.  Now again the starting price is what is going to kill you. Cause again your paying for the cost of the location, the cost of the machine, and now the cost of the electric it cost to run the machine. With it you need someone to run the machine as well so really it will not cost you as much to have several people working for you but it will cost a pretty penny to maintain the machine.

So already without even bringing in any money at all your in debt and your paying taxes. This is also followed by business licenses, Fire codes, Police codes, so on and etc.

Now if your product sells well you will have no problem playing catch up all to quickly. You will easily come into some sort of profit without any problems but it will still cost you to make said money. Most people in Economics see this as the foundation of whatever company or producer will set.

Now the problem I see happening around the world and probably the biggest problem the USA has is lots of foundations being made and lots of corner cutting being done. It’s not so much greed as it’s knowing what it will cost to produce something of good quality and keeping it at that level.  So let’s say you build a shoes..and then someone else cuts corners and builds a better shoe. You lose money from that and then are forced to cut the same corners.  The product gets better but the value goes down. Cause here you are with this product but with no one around to say STOP CUTTING CORNERS.

Personally I think are Government should be the ones to set this path in order. See I see nothing wrong with building a business in this manor. What I do see wrong is how billions of dollars are spent Over Seas producing products that are labeled ALL American. I see nothing wrong with buying outsourced products so long as they are titled correctly.

Now I don’t know what the policy is on how products are produced but I know that most of them do have labels that say made in…_Blank_. Which is fine and I think that works for what it is. However some products will claim they are created in _Blank_ and are only half produced there or more then half produced there. This I believe should be a focus of any government and should even become a focus on how to fix the problems we currently have. Knowledge of how something is made will help to produce more products here.