Feel the SQUEEZE ?

There was an interesting story in the local paper a couple of days ago. It doesn't directly relate to getting squeezed, but interesting nonetheless.
Nau's Pharmacy has been located in West Austin since at least the 50's. It's still an old time pharmacy where you can fill a prescription and get a burger and shake. Same family has been running it the entire time. Given that everyone goes to CVS and fast food places these days the family is struggling to keep it open. But it is an institution in the community.

Sidenote: Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson hit the Texas Lottery jackpot many years ago with tickets he bought there. He's hit the jackpot twice actually.
The original family home sits a few block away. It's close to 100 years old (if not over) but is in severe disrepair. The family wants to raze it and sell the lot. Lot is worth $1.5M (house appraised at $50K I think). Problem solved! But wait. Neighbors say home is historic and want it declared as such. They think it could be repaired. But in present state no one is interested in buying. Meanwhile taxes are on the order of $35K for the family.

Property taxes are just one way the government owns your home and land. Even without a mortgage you are simply renting the property for life. Why buy property?

My wife and I are considering getting an RV and selling the house once we retire and travel the country. Of course that eliminates property taxes, but I am sure the government will find some way of taxing you on the RV, depending on where you have it registered.

Franklin was right; death and taxes are the only certainties in life.

I guess I'm one of the lucky one's.....timed the housing bubble in SoCal sold near the top.
Got the hell out of THAT rat race life and moved to Utah where it's way cheaper to live,
people for the most part are WAY nicer,no traffic and some fantastic golf courses at affordable
prices.....a LOT depends on where and how you live and if you're willing to take a risk.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to leave Cali...but I'm glad I did!

Google productivity vs. wages. After WW II productivity and wages rose together. Then around 1973 while productivity kept rising, wages flat lined. It's been that way since (increasing productivity and declining wages). Why? Corporate greed IMO.

Couple that with Supply Side economics that's still with us since the early 1980's (regressive tax policy favoring the wealthy). Globalization where an American worker cannot compete with third world wages. The decline in labor unions where they're only ~ 9 % of the workforce. Transferring to a lower wage service based economy from a higher paying manufacturing based economy.

With all those economic forces against the working class and favoring the donor class it's no wonder why the middle class is in decline and has been for quite some time.

A billionaire hedge fund guy wrote a book awhile ago saying the pitch forks are coming if the greed continues. As the nations wealth continues to be redistributed to the top incomes eventually there will be a tipping point. This presidential election cycle may be a glimpse of what lies ahead.

History shows what happens when a country responds to such huge disparities in class with "let them eat cake". How long will the corporate oligarchy / plutocrats continue to have it their way at the expense of everyone else? Time will tell.
Interesting that you mention this, I was reading an article from "In These Times", that was attacking working people and unions undermining the Maduro government which is in the middle of the failure of communal economic system.
Up is down and down is up.

Umfaan A billionaire hedge fund guy wrote a book awhile ago saying the pitch forks are coming if the greed continues. As the nations wealth continues to be redistributed to the top incomes eventually there will be a tipping point. This presidential election cycle may be a glimpse of what lies ahead.

History shows what happens when a country responds to such huge disparities in class with "let them eat cake". How long will the corporate oligarchy / plutocrats continue to have it their way at the expense of everyone else? Time will tell.
Interesting that you mention this, I was reading an article from "In These Times", that was attacking working people and unions undermining the Maduro government which is in the middle of the failure of communal economic system.
Up is down and down is up.

I don't disagree with this, but I think there are several underlying factors playing a bigger role in all of this. I do think that morality comes into play on multiple levels, especially since you cited greed as an issue, which is certainly a moral issue.

I cite morality, mostly because if you lose your integrity, you lose your conscience, and you lose your fear of getting caught, and fear or the consequences of getting caught. There are a lot of different directions you can run with this, but let's just look at the nuclear family, and the disintegration of it over the span of my lifetime. I think I read somewhere recently that married folks are no longer the majority in our country anymore. Everyone is "hooking up" now. So, since the sex is "free", and you don't need to be married, people are having fewer kids. People are also waiting later and later to marry or have kids, if at all.

But back to greed - corporate greed certainly comes into play, and greed at it's core, is simply selfishness. When you think of yourself first, and screw over everyone else, you may be richer, but everyone around you is suffering. Eventually that selfishness will kill you. And sadly, I'd hate to be the rich prick living my life alone at the end, because I screwed over everyone on the way to the top. How can this define what life is about in any terms? Sure, you can buy anything you want, but who are you going to share that experience with? Go ahead, build your own golf course, just for you to play on, with no friends, and no family. You can play 54 holes a day and have no one to tell about it. But yeah, that's great for you. Sure sounds miserable to me.

Honestly, I think guns are the only thing that separates the USA now from China. The Chinese are kept in check because no one can shoot back. Go ahead and try and take over a town or city in this country outside the democratic process. I know a LOT of people who are heavily armed, and thanks to Obama, he's only made that issue more pressing, as more and more folks are arming up to the teeth in preparation for when the feds try and take over more and more stuff. Frankly, this nation was founded by a bunch of guys who owned guns. The British lost because the people had will on their side, and a lot of guns. Sure the red coats could and did go door to door, but they never knew which door would open to an armed citizen.

We live in a time when rules and law are subjective and interpreted differently all over the place. There is no national standard for anything anymore. Even murder and rape are VERY subjective, depending on the circumstances. And we've allowed a judicial oligarchy to make up the law as they go along. A select few in black robes dictating to the populace what is right and what is wrong. Honestly, even their rulings are so complex and convoluted half the time that no one can truly understand them. And I'm actually surprised there aren't more murders of judges, especially from the family courts, where fathers are stripped of their constitutional rights in favor of making them slaves to a mother who simply didn't want to be around the father anymore; using a child as a monetary weapon to bankrupt the father both physically and morally. Sure, I'm being vague and generic, but I could spend days talking about how the family courts have not only neutered men, but has easily destroyed the lives of thousands of men, all in the name of "what's best for the child." And yeah, if I'm a 20-something man, there is no way in hell I am getting married in this day and age where the courts can cut your nuts off without even your having a say so.

And some of you will disagree big time with what I am closing this with, but we've lost the fear of God in this country. God used to be our compass and our guide, and we lived by what God says was right and wrong. Now our country is basically telling God to go F himself, as we've kicked God to the curb in favor of personal social freedoms, so everyone can go screw anything and everything they feel good about, with ZERO objective standard in any of it. You may think this doesn't matter in the least, but whether or not you believe in God really has nothing to do with it. Ultimately, if you kick God out of the public square, you have to replace it with something else. And society has chosen chaos, which is the alternative. That's ultimately where we are headed, which leads us back to pitch forks and revolution. It's coming; not a matter of if, but when.

Here's a short clip from Nick Hanauer (on Bill Mahr's show this past week) who is the rich guy I referenced in my post. He rips into Trickle Down economics and exposed it for the scam it always was. As I've said Trickle Down is nothing more than redistributing wealth to the rich from the middle class and working poor.

Also, although not in this clip he says if wages were still in line with productivity the minimum wage would be $22.00 and hour.

Sneakylong all these economic theories totally miss one residing factor in all (most) successful businesses. Innovation and creativity.

Apple was sluggish in a overly saturated computer market until Steve Jobs came back and started creating the iPhone, iPod, IPad, etc. All of a sudden Apple's growth exploded and they became one of the largest corporation in the world. But now that Jobs is dead, I predict Apple will slowly over time start to deteriorate and eventually disappear. Without those new products Apple will have no where to go and eventually go bankrupt.

Google took the search engine and made is fashionable and became a verb. They figured out how to make money from it too - LOTS of money. But it took two geniuses to create the product and the model that most other internet brands are copying to some extent. As long as Larry Page and Sergey Brin remain motivated and continue to create new ways of expanding their business Google will continue to be a beast.

Athletes and entertainers make millions of dollars a year, based on nothing more than their talents. But there's only one LeBron James, or Tom Brady. They do something very few others can do. Supply and demand basically. So little supply, so the demand dictates what they generate in revenue. It works the same in golf. While sports are the most competitive things out there, when you become an elite athlete you are essentially creating a product no one else can. Tiger Woods did things no other golfer ever has, and the purses on the PGA Tour tripled during is tenure as the world's most dominant golfer. We have some new young talent out there, but it remains to be seen if Tiger's start power can be duplicated by others. Same thing with movie stars. There's only one Tom Hanks, or Matt Damon. You can't just throw someone else into a movie in their roles and expect the same magic or results. They have extreme talent that no one else has.

Economics in America, as long as we remain a (relatively) free capitalistic society will dictate that anyone who wants to can create their own wealth. Come up with the next big thing, and BOOM, you are instantly rich. That wealth wasn't stolen from poor people, or people less fortunate. Apple didn't steal your money; you bought their product. Corporations only exist so long as they offer something that millions of people want.

Proctor and Gamble continues to offer a wide variety of household items that millions of Americans need and want. They didn't steal people's money to become huge, they sold a product that people wanted and bought.

WalMart didn't become this large over night. They spent decades selling products people wanted and needed, at a cost cheaper than their competitors could provide it at. They didn't steal people's money. People willingly and voluntarily patronize WalMart. Now, if enough people get pissed off at WalMart they can choose to shop somewhere else. No one puts a gun to your head to make you shop there though.

Believe it or not, this works the same with oil companies, albeit in a much more restricted way. You buy a car, and choose to drive it. You need gas to fill up your tank. So you buy gasoline, that seemingly has a fixed price that you don't have any control over. But actually you do. If gas becomes so expensive as to be unaffordable, I can go down to WalMart and buy myself a 10 speed bicycle and ride it to and from work every day. I can sell my car and tell the oil companies to take their product and shove it up their ass. Realistic? You tell me. When I went through divorce I got rid of my cars, because I had to choose between paying for day care, and a car payment. I put my daughter on the back of a 10 speed and rode my bike to and from work every day.

Corporations are nothing more than groups of people deciding how and where to sell products. If the corporation because "greedy", and enough people see the greed, then you can stop buying that corporation's product. This works in pretty much all industries. So this argument about greedy corporations is pure garbage in my humble opinion. YOU choose to support corporations by buying their products. Don't like how they do business? Then guess what, stop supporting the corporation. One person won't make a difference you say? Fine, get a group of 100, 1,000 or 10,000 people to organize against said corporation and boycott it. It's honestly not a magic formula, and we still have the opportunities and choices to affect change in our society, especially economic ones.

But you choose to blame these same companies that supply you with all the products that you run your life around. Again, no one told you to support these corporations. And yes, if you don't like your electric bill, go off the grid and tell the electric company to go screw themselves. No one is forcing you to turn the lights on at your house. There ARE other ways to live if you aren't happy with your current circumstances.

YOU made the choice, YOU bought the product, and YOU accepted the job making whatever wage you are making. NO ONE is putting a gun to your head forcing you to stay in your job at whatever wage you are bitching about. Don't like the way your company does things? Go out there and start your own business and compete against them. People do this every day. It's called entrepreneurship.

And you even mentioned unions. I laugh at this argument. Unions are killing themselves by their own greed. I've lost count of the number of unions who bargained for better wages for their members from a corporation, but eventually forced the corporation into bankruptcy. I grew up with my Dad working in the airline industry. Remember Eastern, Pan Am, and National Airlines? Yeah? Why aren't they around anymore? Labor unions that got greedy and felt that the $120,000 that pilots were making for working 10 hours a month wasn't enough. Flight attendants weren't happy making $20 an hour, and wanted $25, all for doing nothing more than smiling and serving coffee and peanuts to customers stuck on an airplane at 35,000 feet for a couple of hours.

Just one industry, and one example, but it works everywhere. While you bitch about corporations being greedy I've just shown you several examples of where employees and unions have become beyond greedy. Go look up the salaries of the leaders of the Teamsters and ask yourself if those guys are worth what they are making just to run a Union. Go look and see what the leaders of some of the Teachers Unions are making. Now if you want to talk about greed, let's start there. Simply absurd how you can twist any argument to suit your worldview. Yours and mine are definitely 180 degrees different.

Many of the points all of you make are valid.

The bottom line is greed on many levels.

I do believe there are groups of billionaires that are controlling much of the economy, after all, it is capitalism.

There will always be opportunities, but as been said, wage workers, the disparity between profit and wages took a big split in the early 70's and has continued. The junk bond era of the 80's, the recession of the 90's, the mortgage backed securities debacle of the mid 2000's. Add 9/11 and the subsequent war and terrorist hunts and that China holds our debt and is our biggest consumer and the USA gets just deeper and deeper and the gap between the rich and poor grows with an eroding middle class,

No one thing will fix all of this. My first start would be tariffs of goods entering the US and penalties of US companies that leave the US and import goods from foreign countries to be used in their finished product by businesses the own or have a stake in on foreign soil. I am not speaking isolationism, but there has to be production in the US that gives the middle class a livable paycheck.

Having everyone go to college and receive a degree isn't the answer. My dad used to tell me of how many guys he worked with having masters degrees that worked at John Deere with my dad because they couldn't make the wages in their field that they could working in a union shop. Unions are good and bad, but when Reagan fired all the PATCO workers, it was the beginning of the downturn of the strength of unions. Unions served their place, but they need to policed by their membership.

I could babble on for hours, but our legislators, leaders, and laws are greatly more beneficial to those with money and influence than the poor.

If we can't resolve this, there will be revolution, and the rich fear that more than anything. Don't think it can happen?

I have one word for you, Cuba.

brsmith If we can't resolve this, there will be revolution, and the rich fear that more than anything. Don't think it can happen?

I have one word for you, Cuba.

Cubans didn't have guns in every home. Same thing with China, or most other countries in the world. Our 2nd Amendment is the most IMPORTANT amendment we have, because it keeps those with thoughts of revolution in check.

"Cubans didn't have guns in every home. Same thing with China, or most other countries in the world. Our 2nd Amendment is the most IMPORTANT amendment we have, because it keeps those with thoughts of revolution in check."

You do realize the second amendment was only to keep the the government from repressing the citizens, right???

It was put in place to enable the citizens to bear arms if needed and to not be herded by it's military. The US military could never control 325 million people, there are only 200K active soldiers if that.

brsmith It was put in place to enable the citizens to bear arms if needed and to not be herded by it's military. The US military could never control 325 million people, there are only 200K active soldiers if that.

brsmith Most revolutions start as a military coup; so you are essentially saying the same thing I did, granted, my wording was misleading, for which I apologize.