Do the Math...

This is from a year ago, it's worse today...

The other night at a town hall in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Elizabeth Warren was talking about making the economy work for all Americans. A lot has changed for the majority of us since the '70s.

After watching the town hall, I did some math using an inflation calculator. The results are interesting. 

Actually, they are amazing.

In 1971, I was making 20,800 a year, today that 20 grand is the equivalent of $138,994 a year. There is no way in hell my old job pays that in 2019.

My rent in 1971 was $175, a month for a two-bedroom apartment in a new complex with a pool, there was a large storage room with hookups for a washer and a dryer and had covered parking for two cars. Today the rent would be $1,152 a month and you couldn't find a comparable place for less than 2,000.

In 1974, I was making $28,000 a year in base salary, adjusted for inflation that's $184,000. I was moving up in the world, right?

In 1974, I bought a new 3 bedroom house with 2.5 baths for $39,900. 10% down, 30-year mortgage. The payment was $333 a month PITI. Today my first house would sell for $262,000. The payment would be $1,300 The problem is you can't find a house in my old neighborhood for under 650,000. My old house sold for 710,000, 5 years ago. The house is in Ashland, Massachusetts, 20 odd miles west of Boston. The payment on a 710,000 home? $2,900, not counting taxes or insurance and that's putting 142 thousand dollars down.

I got recruited for a new job in 1979, at the time with bonuses I was making 45k. My new job paid 76,000 a year, the equivalent of $268,000 today. If that job pays $150,000 today it would be a miracle.

We bought a new house for $110,000. The payment was less than $900 a month, we had two new cars, my wife didn't work, we skied most weekends in the winter, traveling to New Hampshire and Vermont and we flew to Colorado for a week of Rocky Mountain skiing. I belonged to a sailing club that filled our summers with fun on the water. I forgot, something, I was doing consulting on the side, it paid a thousand a month or in today's money, $3,500. I'd just hand my wife the check and forget about it. The consulting gig today would be worth $42,000. a year.

Our beautiful, historic house in Norwell sold for almost a million dollars a few years ago. By the way, the company I worked for, John Blair, paid all of our health insurance, gave me an expense account (I never paid for lunch), and paid my membership to the University Club. It wouldn't happen today, not even close.

What happened to that American Dream?

Inflation-adjusted pay is down for the majority of Americans, Housing costs are through the roof, transportation costs are staggering, car payments, insurance are all up. American productivity is up, but pay hasn't kept up. Families need two incomes today and childcare costs are over the moon.

Corporate profit is stratospheric, Wall Street is booming, taxes are down for the rich and have stayed about the same for the rest of us. Americans are now working for the mythical "Economy" and that "Economy" isn't working for us.

One last thing, I wanted to buy a three-story Brownstone on Marlborough Street in the Back Bay of Boston in 79, it was $10,000 more than the old 1749 house in Norwell. It had two apartments and a studio to rent, We would have had the entire 3rd floor and the roof deck. The apartments paid the mortgage and put a couple of hundred a month in our pocket. We could have gotten rid of one car and I would have walked 10 blocks to work. The girls could have gone to Brown and Nichols, a top-flight private school. Today those brownstone houses are worth between 8 and $900 a square foot. We opted for the suburban Boston house. I thought I was a smart guy, right?

One more thing, 90% of Americans make less than the Social Security cap of $128,000 a year. That top 10% thing is real, isn't it?

Three Pilots...

June 7th, 75 years and a day after D Day...

My father was a WWII pilot, he went through the cadet program at Jamestown College, he was sworn in at Fort Snelling, traveled to Texas, where he earned his wings and his commission in 1943, he was trained to fly fighters, then the Army Air Corps decided they needed bomber pilots, he trained as a bomber pilot. Then the Army Air Corps decided they had enough bomber pilots and told his class of  fresh new pilots they could be Radio Operators, Navigators or bombardiers. Dad said no thanks and in the summer of 1944 he volunteered to fly gliders. The Army Air Corps sent him to Laurenberg Maxon in North Carolina to train. Dad arrived in England on the Queen Mary in late September of 1944. Dad was handy for the Air Corps, he was qualified in everything that had wings. That winter he flew supply missions, delivered gasoline to Patton's Army and dropped supplies for the Battle of the Bulge. His big show was flying the 2nd glider across the Rhine in Operation Varsity, the invasion of Germany in the spring of 45. After he landed his glider, the pilots formed up as an Infantry Company and fought the Nazis on their own soil.

My neighbor in Florida was a P51 Ace, he enlisted at 17 one day after he graduated from high school in 1942. Not long after his 18th birthday he was flaying bomber escorts over Getrmany. He was a 20 year old Captain when he came back in 1945, he started school on the GI Bill and couldn't buy a drink in a bar. I took him to a big Air Show, the final fly over was done by three planes, an F16, a F18A and a P51 Mustang. They  flew low over the crowd wing to wing, went into a vertical climb, still side by side, the two jets peeled off and the P51 continued the climb alone. I looked over at my neighbor, he had tears in his eyes.

I had the opportunity to introduce my neighbor to a Tuskegee Airman, another P51 pilot. This Red Tail escorted bombers on the other side of the European Theater of War. Their stories were similiar, they were the same age and they flew the same plane. They both went to college on the GI Bill,they both retired as Colonels in the Air National Guard. One thing was different, when the Tuskegee Airman wanted to take his prospective bride for an airplane ride in a Piper Cub while they were in school, he was told, "N****rs Can't Fly!" He had 1100 hours in high performance military aircraft.

All three pilots are gone, but never forgotten.

A Note to Drew...

I read Drew Magary's "Funbag" every week on the Deadspin website. Magary is a brilliant writer, he's funny, he's a little profane, doesn't take himself seriously and he makes me laugh.

I had a question for him, here's what I sent.

Drew,

We're both dog people and you've mentioned dog shit a time or two. Here's my problem with my loyal. loveable German Shepherd, Anze. (he's named after Anze Kopitar of the Kings)

After a god damn lifetime of work, we finally bought a house in a canyon north of LA. It's nice up in the canyon and the house is beautiful, in the right light it looks like a painting by a French impressionist. We have an acre of land, 90 percent of  the acreage is "natural" which means I don't have to fuck with it and that brings me to my Anze the Dog problem.

Our property is fenced, Anze the Dog can't get out, so he can run around as he pleases. He goes out in the morning, does his recon mission, barks at a squirrel or two comes back and shits on the sidewalk.
He does it again in the evening. Just to piss me off he sometimes shits on the deck by the spa. This means I have to pick up his shit in a plastic bag and toss it in the garbage bin. I spent decades living in Boston's Back Bay and picked up dog shit at least twice a day for years. When we moved to the canyon, I thought, "I'll never pick up dog shit again." I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

On Friday mornings I haul our trash bins 100 yards down the driveway for pickup. Anze the (fucking) Dog comes along on the trash run, every Friday he takes a shit on the way down and another on the way back. One Friday he took three and he doesn't even bother to move off to the side, he let's loose in the middle of the road.

I love him but, he's just fucking with me, right?

Of course,my wife won't pick up dog shit, but she's more than happy to point it out.

I said, "What if I have a heart attack and end up in the hospital, you'll have to pick it up then!"

She laughed, "I'll just wait until you get out, you'll need the exercise anyway."

I cannot win.

Robert

P.S. Sometime I'll tell you about wearing my Patriots jacket to Costco during Super Bowl Week. That was an experience. It was even better a week later.