Economy

I was listening to an economist talking about China’s emerging middle class of 300 million and how they are running China’s economy while 50% of their nation lives in dire poverty, and I realized this is the same ratio we have here in America.

China has 1.3 billion people, 10% of which are the wealthy, 15% who are above the upper middle class, but below the wealthy, and 25% who are this upper middle class. The other 50% are in poverty.

In U.S. terms
10% are earning over a million a year
10% are between the 100K and million mark
30% are in this so called “middle class” that earns above 30K

The rest of us are on the bottom and really don’t matter much.

When I hear news stories about the economy here and how bad it is because of high gas prices and how people are feeling the pinch, I don’t see it translated out in the world, and I think I know why.

The “middle class” and above are not effected by this rise in cost, not really effected.
A good example of this is the lines at the gas station. More gas is being sold now then ever before. There are more gas tankers then I have ever seen. Demand is way up. Stores are jammed. You can rarely find a parking spot anywhere near the stores.

Now people may be buying generic on some items, but they are not shopping less. This middle class that has both people working, they both have cars, some even have 2 cars and a third or fourth vehicle, and the 3 kids all have cars.

In most suburban neighborhoods parking is a real problem. I see many homes with 2 car garages with 3 or 4 cars parked in the driveway. These people have the money to spend for gas, at any cost.

Speaking of cost, I noticed the price per gallon has not gone up even though the price per barrel has risen 10.00. So I’m not sure what to make of that.

Now I know the Dow has gone down, but looking over the long term it’s not really down. Now if it were to drop another 5000 points, then I would say we have a problem, but this only affects the upper class that have stock. The guy making 8 bucks an hour is not affected. Sure they could fire him, but since they are down to only 1 person running most places, that would not be possible.

I went out tonight at midnight to do my grocery shopping, figuring that there would not be anyone on the roads or in the store. I was wrong. On a Sunday night, at midnight, the stores should be empty, the roads should be empty. There not. It makes no sense. Obviously, some people have money to spend.

The night clubs & bars that 3 years ago were closed on Sunday night’s for lack of business are packed. I just don’t understand. And I swear to you that the traffic lights, that a few months ago were green at night unless there was traffic from the side streets, they are on fast red / green cycles, even with no traffic.

Every one of those lights I have to stop for. And the police are out with the radar like never before. I don’t want to sound like a nut, but it seems like they want the poor off the streets and out of the way.

It's All So Overwhelming

I was looking at some old photos and they really depressed me. Every photo I look at I notice something about myself that I hate. I hate who I was then, and I hate who I am now.

I try to be better, but I fail and it makes me angry and it makes everyone around me angry.

This week I heard several stories while talking with people about my inability to make a change.

I explained how I see myself as being a bad person through my thoughts and my actions, even though I try hard not to be.

I see these same bad traits in most everyone, and the fact that others see them in everyone surprised me.

One person thought that people are just dumb, and I agreed that some are dumb, but there is a much darker motive to their actions.

I don't know if it is the human condition that makes us this way, or if we are just animals doing what animals do, or if it is society that causes this behavior, but it worries me.

Always having to second guess motives and always having to look over your shoulder is not a good feeling.

A perfect example was today in the elevator one of the drug users / dealers that lives on my floor, he asked if I lived on this floor. Now he knows who I am and I know who he is and he knows I live on this floor, so what was his motivation for asking.

What was he really saying, and thinking. He is up to something. I hate living in fear. I hate living here, but I have nowhere else to go.

I was talking with one of the neighbors and they said be grateful you are not living under the bridge. When I asked what they meant, and if there were people actually living there, I was told there was.

I remember when I was a kid going to the Troy Public Library and seeing photos from the 1930's showing shanty towns down by this bridge. I saw what it looks like today, and aside from the clothing, if you took a black and white photo today and put it next to the the one from the 1930's you would have a tough time telling which photo was taken when.

This is not how America, or anywhere in the world, should be. We should be better then this. The lack of compassion, the total disregard for human life actually makes me nauseous.

I always think I am a bad person because I don't care about a lot of things, and I don't feel compassion for others. I'm not sure if other people don't feel it either, or if they just don't care, but on the scale of zero to ten, if I'm a 2, then those with the power, who could fix the problem, that don't must be a zero.

I saw a story on PBS about homeless people in NYC and how this non-profit group said that the opion of the city was wrong and that people don't want to live on the street. To that end, they started getting homeless drug addicts apartments, paying the rent, utilities, etc..

The city said this was bad and tried to put a stop to it. They said they would use the apartments as drug dens. It turned out that all the people that they gave apartments to got clean and sober, some for the first time in their lives. Some got jobs. The Cities response, We don't have 3 grand a month to give to these people for apartments and utilities, etc..

So basically what they said was, yes we know they don't want to be on the street, your program works, but we want to put a stop to it anyway because ( I don't know why ) . They brought up the fact that once these people wind up in prison it costs 30K a year and they have the money then. So what is the real agenda ?

It seems pretty clear to me. This is just one example, there are thousands, and how anyone can go through the day and ignore these issues, I just don't understand.

HOT & MUGGY

It's amazing how, each year, I forget how hot it is during the summer.

This year is no exception. It's going to be close to 90 again today. We already have thunderstorms forming from the heat.

I bought another 8000 BTU A/C and had it put in. The worst part of the day, amazingly enough, is after the sun goes down. From 9am on the temp just keeps rising. Even with both A/C's on max, is was still 75 by 10PM in the apartment.

On the bright side, sometime after midnight the temp began to fall and by morning it was nice and cool, around 68, in the apartment.

I tried turning the A/C down when I got up, but the temp climbed pretty fast, and after just an hour the temp was up to 75. My electric bill went up 40 dollars with the one A/C running for a week. If that holds true, the bill will be over 300 dollars next month.

I'm really saddened by the fact that most of the people from the top floors stay outside all day and night just to keep cool, or cooler. With temps in the 80's outside and in the 110's inside, they are taking the lesser of 2 evils, but it's no fun. I tried spending an hour outside last night, around 9pm and the mosquitoes were eating me, and everyone else, alive.

I have bites all over my body. Being poor is terrible. I try to keep looking at the good things. I have TV and Internet, at least for now. I may have to have them turned off if the electric bill is too much. I am looking at the disconnect and reconnect costs. I would need to have the phone off for at least 3 months to offset the cost of having it disconnected, otherwise it would cost more then leaving it on.

The Internet is 50 and the cable is 60 and the connection charge 50 for each, I don't know what the disconnect charge is, but I'm guessing 3 months would make sense on those as well.

I have thought about working, but for every dollar I earn they would take away a dollar, so I would lose money. The disability system is not good. I need to spend more time talking to my therapist about this and see if we can come up with any legal solutions, since working under the table is not an option.

The price and quality of food is really terrible. Basically everything has almost doubled in price,
and that is not an exaggeration. A can of mushrooms was 1.29 and is now 1.99, same can.
Hamburger was 3.99 a pound, now 5.99 a pound. O.J is up, but not by that much.

And so much of the food has MSG in it now, chicken, pork, they all say self basting, which is code for MSG. you have to read the fine print to find it. I've been buying the day old pork since it's got the 1.00 off sticker. Even seltzer jumped from .99 to 1.39 a 2-liter.

Something has to give. The poor people, like me, can't afford to keep paying these prices. I tried to get the meals on wheels that the seniors get, but I don't qualify. They bring a bag lunch and a hot dinner for 2.00. That's a really good deal, but you have to be 62 or older to get it.

They should have a program here for the non-seniors. Maybe I could suggest that.

The school taxes here are some of the highest in the country, I think about 4K per 100K and they a having a vote to request another 26 mil to find improvements. This is a poor town with little downtown. Lots of vacant stores. I think that added tax would drive out more business.

I stopped ordering pizza, which was a big treat, because it went from 8.00 to now it's 15.00 for a medium pizza. They tried switching suppliers and the quality was awful and everyone complained and they went back to the good supplier, but the price went way up. I don't know how they are going to survive. I went down a few times and had slices at the restaurant, but even then it was 8.00 for 3 slices. They asked why I was coming down and I didn't have the heart to tell them it was the price.

It's a family shop and they try real hard. I just don't think they are going to make it. There are several other pizza shops in downtown and there isn't enough business to support them all.

Well, that's my update for today. Keep cool.

Bill

Customer Service sucks

Still no word from RCA on the TV.

My Panasonic Replay DVR stopped accepting time updates from the server.
The date was stuck on 11/12/1999.

I called Replay, which is now owned by DTV and they said called Panasonic.

So I called Panasonic and they said this was serious. I asked if this was the reason I was not getting any guide data, because it was looking for data for November 1999, they said maybe, but they were not sure.

The tech was really surprised that the unit was even still working. He said " We stopped making those units in 2000. That unit is over 8 years old. There's no way it should still be working."

Nothing like confidence in your companies merchandise.

I explained that I did have to replace the hard drive, and asked if there was any way to manually set the time, since I figured that would solve my problem.

He had no clue.

So I loaded a hacked image onto the unit that restored the option to input a manual date and time. ( The unit had this feature when it was built, but software updates removed this feature )

I set the date and time, and bingo, the guide data downloaded.

The attitude and the quality of the products being made really sucks.

Cars are made to not last much past the last loan payment, sometimes even less.

It seems like 3 years is the magic number for most electronics. 90 days is all they give on warranties, without buying an add on warranty that's roughly 20% of the purchase price for 1 year.

It also seems like the RMA depts delay processing the claims in an effort to get to that 90 day mark. This may not be the case, it may just be that they are short handed, or incompetent.

I know when I've worked in companies there has always been a good portion of the workforce that was faking it most of the time and a few of us that knew what we were doing. But, with downsizing and outsourcing it is very hard to provide good customer service with only a few knowledgeable people.

In my opinion, not that it means anything since most people don't want it, companies are looking for the wrong qualities in certain positions.

Take for example this company that called me out of the blue and wanted to interview me. They made DVD players that held 100 DVD's at a time. They had the ability to hook up remote units to the main unit, but you could only watch one DVD at any given time.

The units had hard drives, but because of copyright concerns they did not load the DVD's to the hard drives, which would have made sense, and you could play any movie on any TV simultaneously.

They needed someone to do tech support on the phone. they had already looked over my resume and they wanted a face to face interview. I went in and I saw what they were selling, and these units were very expensive. They stressed the point that even though the position was tech support, what they really wanted was a good salesman that could sell a new unit verses repairing the old one, even though these units were only a few years old. At 10K a pop.

I spent about 45 minutes talking with them and I told them I understood what they were looking for. I let them know that I thought it was crucial that they have someone who was tech savvy, even though they were trying to sell, more then repair.

I guess I missed the cue, because what they really meant, I believe, is "We don't want to repair any of these units, even if they are under warranty, even if they are only a few months old. We don't have the setup to do the repairs, we don't have the people to do the repairs, we don't want the hassle. We want you to sell new units to these people. These people are rich and stupid and that's why they buy from us instead of going with a more complex, cheaper, system that is far superior to anything we have to offer."

A few months go by and they call me again. They had hired a woman to fill the job right after they interviewed me. They thought that the female voice would work well because most of the clients were men. It turned out she had no tech experience, none. She had sales experience, but the people calling were not looking to buy new, they wanted help with the units they just purchased, in other words, tech support.

The woman that called me for another interview told me this. I explained to her that, at the first interview, I felt that tech support was key to this position. Selling units to replace older units was possible, but most people were calling for tech support, and repair. I again told her I would be perfect for the position of tech support, having dealt with so many companies tech support depts.

She e-mailed me a few days later to say they had gone with another woman for the job and that they were sticking to their original game plan.

I've got hundreds of stories like this, and depending on who listens, I get different responses. If someone in a management position listens they always see the negative, how I was wrong, said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, did not give them what they wanted.

But, when I talk with people on my level, the workers, they see my point and they often agree with my assessments. Not all the time, but enough of the time that I know I'm not the only one seeing the situation in that way.

Now management will tell you how this is a bad thing, and in order to succeed you need to think like management, conform, " Be a team player" . However, management is hardly ever a team player. They say jump and you jump, no questions, no explanations. Having the money and the power makes their decisions right and yours wrong. It is that simple.

When you look at failures, major failures, in companies, it is rarely the fault of the workers. Management has put people in place that are not equipped to do the job. They have stripped away all the safeguards, they have set up situations that can only end in disaster for the customers and the employees.

The airlines are a good example of this. Enron is another good example. And the best part is they take absolutely no responsibility for anything that happens. The people at the top with all the power are clueless, or so they want you to think. If you believe them they have no idea about anything that has ever happened in the companies that they run.

The saddest part is some people actually believe them.