Posted on 01/07/2014 9:55:32 AM PST by NYer
Not to be overlooked is that the SS system was designed for working Americans to fund retired Americans. Maybe at 10 to 1. Today 10 are still needed only 7 are in Asia and neither they nor their employers are paying into SS. Maybe if they put a SS tariff on all incoming goods, they young won't think about euthanasia. Off shoring jobs has a price and part of that price is destroying the SS system.
Ditto! My kitchen is still the original AND It is a working kitchen!! I enjoy cooking and have adjusted to cleaning up as I prepare a dish. The women with the expensive kitchens use a can opener and a microwave but they have cabinets that reach the ceiling to store the dishes and fancy appliances they rarely, if ever, use. They also need a stool to climb up there ... there's no coming back from a broken hip if they slip and fall.
The designs and layout are just miserable if you actually stop an imagine preparing a mean.
Planned by designers who don't cook : - ) Each time I see kitchen cabinets with open shelving or glass doors, I laugh. Grease catchers!
We’re very efficient in how we spend money on our kids, believe me on that one. It’s also only true that it takes as much as you say without insurance. Might as well milk the healthcare for what it’s worth right?
They’ve forgotten how to do that? In Italy?
“Might as well milk the healthcare for what it’s worth right?”
Use it while you’ve got it. A month before I got laid off I had surgery on both feet. I’d put it off for a decade. I’m so glad I did as I haven’t had insurance since.
I’d happily pay cash, but the prices are set assuming everybody has insurance, which drives the prices through the roof. Two areas of health care have gotten steadily cheaper and better; cosmetic surgery and Lasik surgery. That’s because there is no third party payer. So the prices are set supply and demand.
Good grief! You're asking Arkfreepdom about seven bedrooms for kids? /s
Having individual bedrooms is not a requirement for having kids. I'm one of five, and I started out living in the living room on an army cot and a curtain separating my sleeping space, eventually moving up to an attic space after my Dad built a room in the basement for my older sisters. My parents started with a two-bedroom home after moving with the existing three oldest kids from a single-room apartment. My wife, one of six kids, shared a room in the garage with two sisters.
One of my daughters and her husband are content at the moment with one child and another on the way in a one-room apartment. You do what you gotta do, but lack of bedrooms should not hold you back if you love kids.
Epidurals not included.
delivery 30k
c-section 50k
check-ups $$$$ money, money, money
ultrasounds big $$$
testing big $$$$$
insurance doesn’t pay in America. women must get all sorts of special insurance just for being female. women aren’t going to pay. It’s still astronomical even with insurance.
If things don’t go well, then you’re really going to pay. Many bad things happen as a result of pregnancy/birth. A woman may be going to doctors for years to try to fix the problems. Then if your kid has medical problems you will pay big.
Then the cost of raising a kid is like 200K, so you had better start saving for years, just for the delivery.
Women are remaining single because the woman has to pay everything and take care of the men on top of that. The women know child support is a joke and impossible to collect. The women know they will be footing the bill and doing most of the work, and possible medical consequences. some scraps from government don’t come close. Government schemes are not going to fool anybody, especially women. People are not going be breeding to fix big government schemes. They will breed a kid or two for themselves and that’s it. People know the facts.
Agree wholeheartedly. Read my comments upthread. I was at a disadvantage when I started college. I’d never shared a room with anyone. Roomies just existing in the same room bugged me. Not to mention the sink/toothpaste/laundry squabbles. I was way short on conflict resolution strategies. Never had to worry about that stuff before. Everything in MY room was MINE. Not the healthiest environment for a kid.
One of my kin built a house and spent as much as my whole house costs on just the kitchen (granite, marble, viking, sub zero, some sort of copper sink that IMHO should be in a museum, etc). They’d lived in it for over 5 years when they hosted a large family get together. The caterer was absolutely shocked to be the FIRST person to use the stove, cooktop and prep area since the appliance installer. It’s my dream kitchen. And woefully neglected LOL.
Drive thru, Schwanns, restaurants and microwave pizza. That’s it. Not even a crock pot or scrambled eggs.
Just sad.
The wife is about 15 years younger than I am though and the under 35 crowd is woefully inadequate in the kitchen. For the most part.
Oh, and they had 2 kids. On the way in for the 2nd scheduled c section she took a large black sharpie marker and wrote ‘tie my tubes’ on her distended belly.
What I want to know is how many great-grand-children do your parents have?
And you know what? They did it. Friend Helen said: "That's the key: train 'em early."
Those kids were prepared for LIFE!
Thanks for the link to the video “Demographic Winter”. Between the 40 minute mark and the 50 minute mark, it is amusing to watch the progressive (academic data-based mindset) twist and contort and finally in apparent exasperation admit their theories are rapidly failing and a dark demographic winter is on the horizon. . .admitting that a moral framework for healthy societies based on traditional family life should prevail.
I see this all the time; it makes me sad.
We made the decision to live in a "nicer" neighborhood for three reasons.... 1) It's safer for the kids. 2) The schools are excellent for the kids. 3) My nextdoor neighbor is less likely (not impossible, but less likely) to rent out his house to 14 Mexican illegals.
However, to afford the nicer place, we don't eat out. Vacations are low-key, or "stay-cations". I brown-bag my lunch at work. Until I traded it last year (because it was getting more expensive to fix than payments) my 14 year old Ford had 160+K miles on it. And so on.
So we traded "the lifestyle" for a good place to live. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, one of the smarter things that I've done.
Docs aren't willing to negotiate?
“Docs aren’t willing to negotiate? “
I tried to negotiate with an allergist. They used to give you one or two shots and you’d be cured. (These are shots of allergens you’re allergic to.) But this was his retirement job and it was geared to insurance. They divided the shots up to last for years because insurance would pay for every shot. Since I was paying cash I wanted the shots all at once. He told me that was “illegal.” I asked for a price break as I was paying the same as the insurance and he told me that he couldn’t give a cheaper price to one party and charge the insurance more.
It was a huge rip-off. Then, after three years of shots we discovered that they had been giving me the wrong formulary and I hadn’t been getting the stuff I was allergic too. I really kicked up a fuss, so he gave me the whole regimen in just three shots. (Hey, I thought that was illegal.)
I have had doctors charge me less for cash. But I suspect they aren’t putting down codes for what I have so the insurance probably can’t track it back in a lawsuit. (Who knows?)
A doctor’s primary concern is not getting sued. I can’t really blame them for that.
Oh, I agree with you; there’s definitely a deep divide that keeps getting more pronounced. And I don’t have much use for the TV either, except we do like sports, and we have some good movies recorded, and every once in a while SNL has a good skit, however, not too often..... Ahhh, the good ol’ days; I pray for their quick return.
My dream kitchen too .. bet the wife also watches the cooking shows before picking up the phone to call for take out. I cook everything from scratch and would love a professional oven that can reach hi enough temp to get a hard crust on bread and crispy crust on pizza.
My husband is native born Italian. Years ago when I first traveled to Italy, my inlaws lived in an attached house that dated back to the middle ages. The "kitchen" was equipped with an ancient stove whose exhaust pipe also served to heat the home. The stove had rings for burners and there was a hooked metal rod, used to separate and lift them. Wood was placed inside and set aflame. The rings were replaced and that woman, dressed head to toe in black, cooked some of the most amazing meals on it. Once lit, the stove heated the house, dried laundry (from rods that extended outwards from the pipe), boiled water for the pasta and kept the sauce bubbling while lamb roasted in the oven. Oh ... did I mention there was no hot water heater? The kitchen "sink" was also ancient, with a spigot to supply water.
With all of the neat gadgets, utensils, and state of the art appliances we have today, there is absolutely no excuse to go out to eat .. none! Even in the supermarkets, you can follow the evolution of American 'wussification' with pre chopped vegetable and bagged salads. C'mon ... how difficult is it to cut up a carrot?!
“C’mon ... how difficult is it to cut up a carrot?!”
Considering the time involved and what this chick spends on manicures that’s an open question.
Oh, and the wife doesn’t even watch the cooking shows. She’s far too busy outside the home for that. Doesn’t ‘work’ per se, but far too busy. I’m sure you know the type. Shopping, country clubbing, having her hair and nails done, etc.
The wife would be hard pressed to make scrambled eggs.
SNL disappoints me, they’re so much recycled material nowadays, I do agree that they have a good one once in a blue moon now, but I kinda miss the good ol’ fire marshall bill, that was some random hillarious chaos!
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