Merry Christmas America, put this in your Stocking

I was making $68,000 a year in base salary in 1979. Using the CPI Index from the US Bureau of Labor my old job would pay $242,581.86. It doesn't, not even close.

My first radio job paid $200 a week in 1969, the same job today would pay $40,187. It doesn't

I paid $39,900 for my first house in 1974. That same house sold 4 years ago for just over $700,000. Nothing has been done to it except paint, new appliances and floor coverings. It now has a yard and the trees are bigger too.

Cakes made about $60,000 in the 80's flying International flights. That same job today would pay $133,000. It doesn't

Toyota pays $17.50 an hour after 3 years at their US factories, a Toyota worker makes around $35,000. yearly with minimum benefits.30 years ago Union Auto workers made twice that and more. Today US Union Auto workers average $33 an hour, Germany Auto Workers make $67 average

A minimum wage worker in the US making 7.50 an hour makes $15,000 a year, only IF they work 40 hours a week. Most employers hold them to under 40 so they aren't classified as full time. The minimum wage in Germany is $14.81. Norway? $16 to 21 an hour depending the job and time on the job. Every other developed nation has higher minimum wages than the US.

The question is, who is getting the money? It isn't the poor or the working poor and it sure as hell isn't the middle or upper middle class.

1% of the US population has 40% of the money, The top 20% have 90% of the money.To squeak on the very bottom of that top 20% list you have to have a minimum net worth of $740,000, that's total asserts less debt.

The new tax bill the republicans passed slashed taxes on the people who don't need a break, it throws a few of us some crumbs short term.

Interesting thing hidden in the tax bill, I haven't heard anyone talking about. If you are a married couple with an income of $150,000 a year, your standard deduction is $10,000. Nice. Better if you're you're a couple just living together (in sin?) making the same $150,000. you can deduct $20,000. Why get married?

You don't even want to think about the details of the Inheritance tax slash, you've just made the life of this guy even better than it's always been...he's Wyatt Koch, perpetual rich kid. He just sued his fiancee to get his $250,000 engagement ring back.

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Merry Christmas,USA, USA, USA!

Don't Get Fooled Again.

The other night when Chris Matthews pushed Trump on Choice, The Donald got lost. The other two Republicans waffled, Ted Cruz said of course a woman wouldn't be punished, so did John Kasich. Never the less they both want to ban abortion, using the word "ban" is a softer way of saying illegal.

If abortion is illegal, there would have to be a law against it. How would you write a law that has no penalties? None of the Republican candidates have an answer for that question, because the issue, until the other night, hasn't come up. The Pro-Life people have been used as a useful voting bloc. Republicans get them all riled up with promises about getting rid of Roe v Wade and the Pro Life people vote for them. Useful tools.

If abortion is against the law, every pregnancy would have to be monitored from conception to birth. Who would do the monitoring of every pregnant woman in America? The cops? Would there be a Federal department created to do the monitoring or would it be left to the states?

In 2015 there were 3,999,386 children born in the US. Think about that number because it's obvious the Republican Presidential candidates haven't.

All three talk about education, of the three only Kasich, as the governor of Ohio,  has had to deal with education directly. When Kasich took office Ohio had the 5th best schools in America, He initiated his "reforms" and now Ohio schools are ranked 23rd. Good job. Kasich wants to get rid of the US Department of Education, probably to duck the monitoring and ranking of student success. Trump and Cruz agree, the Department of Education has to go along with those nasty, unhappy, overpaid teachers..

Ted Cruz wants to abolish the IRS, make the tax codes simpler and easy to use, of course he also wants to lower rates on the highest incomes. Somebody needs to ask the "Tailgunner Ted" who is going to collect the new, lower, simpler and easier taxes if we have no IRS. Is he going to create a new department? From scratch?

The pundits all say Trump is a "New Kind" of candidate, he is not. All three are peddling the same old Republican orthodoxy the party has been selling since Reagan.

If you want to know what the US would look like and be like with Republicans controlling all three branches of government take a peek at Kansas and Louisiana... .

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/02/kansas_state_budget_situation.html

Those two states aren't alone.

These fcking people drive me crazy!