Not sure how this is going to be received.....Follow

deleted

Edited, Aug 6th 2008 5:49am by NinjaThiefAllTheWay

I'm disable and getting SSI disability. It's better then having to live on Temp. Cash Assistance from the State, but not by much.

My rent is below market for the area. The subdivided rowhouse is old and need alot of work the landord can't afford, but it's far better then what I could afford to rent in most of Baltimore.

I do know alot of people who are even less well off then I am. All of us are seeing cuts in State and Federal programs we depend on and worry constantly about budget cuts.

You can stop reading here as the rest of my post is a rant.

Insurance companies are not know to cover alot of the treatments that could help me try to hold a job. So I live in pain and struggle with getting just basic care under Medicaid.

Only reason I have internet access right now is I got my landlord addicted to EQ and he pays most of the bill. He also allows me to use his phone and does alot of the housework for me. I have close my EQ account when he could no longer afford it, so I can help pay for broadband.

Both of us would love to change our relationship, but we couldn't then afford even basic living expenses on just his income and still pay my medicial bills. Under his health insurance I've calucated my medicial bills would be over what I currently get with SSI each month. That's excluding the weekly therapy that my couselor is trying to have get the state to still cover. After spending so much time and effort in getting medicine that makes life bearable for me, losing my health care coverage under Medicaid is a constant worry for me.

you all can eat me. ;p

120ish thousand a year. was more when my mom also worked up until about 4 years ago (220ish or so).

I would think that car dealers in Mississippi would want to sell cars, right? A $20k price tag on a car doesn't help if you don't find a buyer.

I have no idea if prices for things like cars vary by state, but I don't see any reason why they couldn't. Alot of what determins the cost of a good is the general "cost of doing business" in a state, into which may of the factors that cause salary differences by state would be a factor. State taxes, tarrifs, property costs (how much less can you sell a car for if it's sitting on a space that costs $5 a day instead of $50 a day?). Um. And the salaries of the employees at the dealership matter as well. If a car salesman makes 80k year in California and 50K a year in Mississippi, you've reduced the wage overhead of your dealership by 37%. That's got to have some effect all by itself on the final price you can sell the car for. I'd expect all other costs of business to be that same percentage lower as well.


I don't know if it would be an exact correlation to property values, but I'd expect the trend would be that costs for goods like cars would dip or raise based on those same relative values. That's just an eyeball look at it though. I can't see any reason why they *wouldn't* vary by state.

heh in the bay area alone you can see a marked difference in price between the peninsula (san mateo, millbrea, san bruno) and the outskirts... like Dublin, Sacramento, Wallnut Creek and the like. so prices DO fluctuate. not just between states but between cities and counties....

I graduated out of a tech-writing program right after the crash. I couln't find any work, anything, in technical writing for the longest time. It was hell. So I became an insurance underwriter (no writing involved, don't ask), and then got a tech writing job within that same company. All's peachy now.

Our combined income is about 90k. This figure will hopefully improve as I gain more experience.

I would think that car dealers in Mississippi would want to sell cars, right? A $20k price tag on a car doesn't help if you don't find a buyer.

I have no idea if prices for things like cars vary by state, but I don't see any reason why they couldn't. Alot of what determins the cost of a good is the general "cost of doing business" in a state, into which may of the factors that cause salary differences by state would be a factor. State taxes, tarrifs, property costs (how much less can you sell a car for if it's sitting on a space that costs $5 a day instead of $50 a day?). Um. And the salaries of the employees at the dealership matter as well. If a car salesman makes 80k year in California and 50K a year in Mississippi, you've reduced the wage overhead of your dealership by 37%. That's got to have some effect all by itself on the final price you can sell the car for. I'd expect all other costs of business to be that same percentage lower as well.


I don't know if it would be an exact correlation to property values, but I'd expect the trend would be that costs for goods like cars would dip or raise based on those same relative values. That's just an eyeball look at it though. I can't see any reason why they *wouldn't* vary by state.


Here's a reason, you dumb motherfuc[b][/b]ker, because people can go out of state to buy a car.

Shocking, isn't it. If I can get a $20,000 car in Missippi for $15,000 and drive it home and then sell it for $19,000 with a thousand miles on it does that strike you as a wise buisness model?



Edited, Mon Jul 19 04:42:03 2004 by Smasharoo

Edited, Mon Jul 19 04:42:44 2004 by Smasharoo

Any of you ever bought a used car? Your discussing the "lower class" paying 10k or 20k for a car, if they are only making 30k< a year, they shouldnt be spending that much on a car, when they can find good deals on used cars. Most I ever paid for an automoblie was 4800, I drove it for 11 yrs. Put 130k miles on it, had 65k on it when I bought it(1990)... which isnt bad. It was an '87 Pontiac Grand Am SE V6 automatic, power all. Was still running when I sold it. Made the mistake and bought a Ford. Ah well .. live n learn.
Many people need to learn to live within thier means.. but way to seldom you got folks that want to try to live "high on the hog" or keep up with the Jones' .. and then come out bankrupt or in debt up the DDY. It's also all too common to see afdc recipients(welfare) getting groceries with food stamps .. just to walk out side and get into a 50-70k SUV. Lightbulb !! --> Yeah thats it .. lets live in a **** hole, have a small army of snot rockets(wearing $100-200 shoes that they will outgrow in a few months), by 3 different men , work part time somewhere just to have enough to pay for that $650.00 car payment a month (but not too much .. might get the check/freebies cut off) and ride around like we rich #$#%$%.
Meanwhile not too far from them is a struggling family , who are working hard and doing thier best to keep thier head above water, not getting any assistance from the govn't. Kids look like they came out of the lost hills of W.V. in '49.

Wow didnt plan on ranting, Maybe this should have went to another board.

/shrug

LOL!!!

So, Totem, out of idle curiousity... would you support getting rid of the HMO/Private health model in favor of (yep I'll use the word) socialized medicine at a STATEWIDE level?

Grady

Other than the fact that's mostly a fallacy Totem, it's a well thought out argument. Access wouldn't be a problem, if sufficient investment were made to make sure that there continued to be a strong infrastructure on hand to treat people. Right now we pay 50% more for less care than most other industrialized countries.

There are a lot of things we can do (barring advertising of prescription drugs, artifically capping profits --- as it stands the average pharmaceutical company makes roughly 3X the profit of the average Fortune 500 company --- for drug companies (in essense that's what negotiating a bulk purchase would be), and limiting lawsuit rewards for malpractice) but truthfully, medicine is simply not meant to be a free market practice in the modern world. It doesn't work. It won't work. Totally socializing it might not be the best answer either, but in the end, at least everyone is covered.

Grady