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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (246680)	8/19/2005 8:57:09 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1571398

JF, "But that's life" is just a cop out. You're right. I'm just "copping out" because I'm a "self-centered Korean ingrate who is so caught up in class that I'd abuse or neglect my fellow citizens." Message 20364687 Still expecting me to thank you for Korea? Message 21617972 Tenchusatsu

To: Road Walker who wrote (246680)	8/20/2005 1:48:59 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1571398

John, regarding this post to Tenchusatsu: Message 20364687 "you whine about a few dollars off your $200K income. Makes me sick" I think you had a strong emotional reaction to Tenchusatsu's post because you live in an area where homes are a lot cheaper than California, so $200k sounds like a lot of money. In Cupertino, CA (which is an engineering town) the average cost of a home is $1,100,000.00. This is not a fancy area, the homes generally are 3 bedroom with one bathroom and are older. If a person's salary is $200,000/year, their netpay (in Calif, where the tax rate is higher) is $8,810 per month. paycheckcity.com Monthly mortgage payment for this average home in Cupertino is: $6,245 tinyurl.com That leaves $2565/month to live on in your $200k scenario, which leaves $30k annually. If your typical health insurance premium is $500/month, that would leave $24k/year to live on. It's amazing how $200k could quickly turn into $24k in California. ( And that doesn't include auto insurance, home insurance, earthquake insurance, umbrella policy, life insurance, housing maintenance, etc. etc. ) It's easy to have insurance and maintenance bills run around $16k/year. That would leave $8k/year to live on - isn't that below the poverty level? : ) Regards, Amy J

To: Road Walker who wrote (246680)	8/20/2005 1:02:59 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1571398

re: Sure, the payscale is lopsided, but that's life. No, it's a distinct, measurable change. The pay scale used to be much flatter. "But that's life" is just a cop out. And if you don't object, the change will just get worse. "That's life", you have to stand up for what you believe in. Its very true. A friend called me yesterday. Last fall, she was kicked off a Northwest flight involuntarily. They gave her a free voucher to fly anywhere in the US round trip. Since then, she has tried to use the voucher several times but only once did NW come up with an available flight but it was only one way. Finally, she wrote them. In response, they sent her a three page form that did not address the issue. She was furious but had decided to give up. [By way of history, NW had once been a great airline based in MN but about ten years ago, it got bought up by a group in LA and service has declined considerably]. In addition to this incident, she just got bumped overnite from another NW flight because of mechanical problems [she flies the MPLS-Portland route a lot and NW is the only one that flies non stop]. I told her to write the president and send a copy to the FAA. I told her it was her responsibility as a consumer; that Americans had gotten lazy and are forgetting that its they who have to keep corporations and elected officials accountable. I don't know if she will do it........I hope she does. ted

To: Road Walker who wrote (246680)	8/20/2005 1:32:27 PM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571398

"The pay scale used to be much flatter." Which, apparently, was the result of what is called "The Great Compression" that occurred during the 1940s. With the rise of American manufacturing that started in the mid-1800's, wage disparity started to rise. The rise of the labor movement, the Great Depression, World War II and the economic controls that were put into place and the demand for unskilled labor in the wake of WWII changed all that. But, apparently, there are those who missed the social dislocation, petty crime and general lack of security for most people of those days prior to WWII. After all, it is awful if most people aren't scrabbling for what little they can get.