[Tfug] Down Memory Lane II

Mon Jan 24 02:01:50 MST 2011

I just retired from the UofA, I had to give up the thought of having medical
insurance, the price given to me through the Arizona Retirement System was
upwards of $900.00 per month. Since I didn't like the idea of giving most of
my retirement check to some overpriced insurance company I had to let it go.
Bummer, but we can't always live large.

I think the cost of insurance, and almost everything these days is just a
little more complicated then more government, although I do not disagree
with that being a major factor. And in fact some of the other points below
were allowed to happen by government so what the heck.

In 1973 I could go to Der Wienerschnitze and purchase a Chili dog for .35, I
think the price of a cheeseburger at McDonalds was .25 -.30 cents. The house
that I lived in cost about $40,000 for a 4 bedroom 2 car garage and my water
bill was $15.00 per month. (can't remember all the other bills but they were
much smaller).

Then there was the real estate explosion, the house that I lived in went
from $40,00 to $100,000 over a period of 6-8 months. At that time the
environmental groups were starting out their (weather/earth god) save the
planet worship and started preventing industry from being able to function. 

Then with the pushing of environmental groups and generous tax payer funded
incentives industry started moving off-shores. When is the last time you
ever heard the motto: "Look for the union label" it is gone, it was the
dying song of the "legal" American garment industry. Then it was one
industry after another was forced to go offshore or be put out of business.

The unions were pushing hard for the 10% raise per year. And the government
unions were getting obscene benefits (note I mentioned that I couldn't even
purchase health insurance!!) these many of these government unions get
health insurance INCLUDED in their retirement!

In the early 1970s we were taken off the gold standard! Why? So we could
have more money to spend. The hell of it is the money was always the same
value, it just took more of it to maintain a living.

Then one day, sometime in the (I think) it was the early 1980s that I saw my
first Jacoby and Meyers, up till then lawyers never advertised, at least not
on TV, I was not a newspaper reader so I wouldn't know. This was the
beginning of America turning into a litigant society, now people were suing
over everything and winning BIG. This, of course hit the medical industry
big time along with the other expenses.

I will not even add to all of this the burden of (let's just say uninvited
residents) that are draining resources from our already staggering support
systems.

Then the environmentalists finally managed to get the American oil companies
to stop drilling here! How crazy is that, and we have to purchase our oil
from people overseas that hate us and probably wish we would kill ourselves
so they can move it.

Add to that spend hungry, locust of government that just can't hand out fast
enough tax payer money to anyone that won't work and increase taxes and
worse yet BORROW so they can give this cash away to people that should be
working.. It is an ugly mess and there will be no simple solution to it, IF
it can even be fixed at all. 

*	Get rid of healthcare.
*	Get rid of frivolous lawsuits .
*	Stop loaning outrageous sums of money to purchase real estate.
*	Stop giving tax payer money to healthy people that just stay home
and do nothing.
*	Stop borrowing money to send off shores as foreign aid.
*	Let the various states renegotiate crippling union contracts to
something that the private sector receives.
*	Get back into drilling our own oil and natural gas.
*	Place tariffs on cheap imported goods to give American business and
workers a chance.
*	Stop the school system from degrading United States history and
start teaching the truth about our country, constitution, and founders.
*	Stop rewarding failure.

I do not care where the cuts come from but I fully support the across the
board 10% cut in ALL government spending (to start with), and we need to
keep an eye on what our jokingly called representatives are doing before we
lose our country and become a socialist nation.

Sorry, I got worked up, 

Ed

  _____  

From: tfug-bounces at tfug.org [mailto:tfug-bounces at tfug.org] On Behalf Of
keith smith
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 9:20 PM
To: johng at as.arizona.edu; Tucson Free Unix Group
Subject: Re: [Tfug] Down Memory Lane II

John,  

I'm self-employed and have no insurance because it is prohibitively
expensive.  Catastrophic insurance for just my wife and I is a minimum of
$500 a month.  HMO would be about $1200 a month.

I choose to not have insurance.  I pay out of my pocket as I go.  It cost
less and requires some negotiations.

In 1979 I needed 3 stitches and the ER charge was $35.00.  At the time that
is what I paid for utilities each month.  Why?  Several reasons.  1) Less
government which is the opposite of ObamaCare, 2) A certain class of people
were not using the ER as their PCP.  

Can anyone tell me what is in the 2700 page ObamaCare bill that Pelosi said
we must pass so we can know what is in it?

Back on topic, in 1979 I think Apple was made in a garage and the case of
wood.  

------------------------
Keith Smith

--- On Sun, 1/23/11, John Gruenenfelder <johng at as.arizona.edu> wrote:

From: John Gruenenfelder <johng at as.arizona.edu>
Subject: Re: [Tfug] Down Memory Lane II
To: "Tucson Free Unix Group" <tfug at tfug.org>
Date: Sunday, January 23, 2011, 8:26 PM

On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 02:26:07PM -0700, Ed Wilson wrote:
>And not have to pay for insurance for those that might have a good excuse
>for not being able to buy insurance!
>

Did somebody say uninsurable?

Me: *raises hand*  Oh, oh!  Here!

Teacher-crat: Put your hand down.  It's okay if you're uninsurable.  As long
as we pray for you on Sunday, our collective conscience will be clear.

Me: Uhh, okay?

And, to back on/off topic:

My first "real" PC was a TI-99/4A with a stack of good cartridges, and the
voice synthesizer modules.  Later we added, via a massive add-on container,
a
5.25" floppy drive and a 300 baud modem.  At last, we no longer had to store
data on stupid cassettes.

-- 
--John Gruenenfelder    Systems Manager, MKS Imaging Technology, LLC.
Try Weasel Reader for PalmOS (soon for Android) --  http://weaselreader.org
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood
of my enemies!"
        --Sam of Sam & Max

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