OK, didn’t mean to pry. My stepmother was taking handfuls of prescription drugs the last few years of her life. Looking at the walls of drugs at the pharmacy, I just wonder, “How can all this be necessary?”
no problem. my mom is on like a hundred prescriptions. can t be good for her. i was taking methadone for pain. the cheapest pain med i think.
the problem was that i was forced to take it everyday by the program. if you were tested and it was not in your system you were kicked out.
i think i ll try to grow some opium poppies and just use it when i feel its necessary. 
Don't you mean for those who refuse to save for their own retirement?
There’s a millions of hard working people in the US who don’t have enough money left over after essentials to save even a dime. Then there are thousands and thousands of people who did save, only to be hit by some disaster (usually medical) that wipes their savings out.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm
exactly correct mike in new Hampshire. after my lung surgery i was 5-7000 grand in debt, tho my deductible was 1500 (figure that out!). i was able to pay it off during the couple years i was able to work afterwards, but we lived week to week scared to death. if my landlord hadn t let go in debt to him for the three months i was not working after surgery we would have been destitute and homeless. i think i m debt free now, but saving is not happening.
Hi - could you please bring this one back on topic? Thanks.
Some big oil producing countries depend on oil revenue to run their government functions. Russia and Mexico come to mind,They think $100 oil is wonderful. They hoped countries like Saudi would keep cutting production to maintain this high price…Well that bubble broke and oil prices collapsed and continue to collapse…This leaves a few countries and many oil companies in a very tight jam…Money they were counting on (from $100 barrel oil) is simply not there and the books turn red real quick…So enjoy it while you can but in the oil patch it’s a disaster…
Well as far as math goes I know that Pie are ROUND… And our economy has 4 bald tires and one is in the ditch but a great many Americans are buying far more car than they can truly afford because the Fed is giving the banks money plucked out of thin air to allow financing at zero interest. It’s the same scenario experienced with real estate from the late 90s until the 2008 debacle. Can we expect a repeat of that grand flop? What will a 3 year old Escalade be worth if it is financed at 12% for 2 yewars?
“There’s a millions of hard working people in the US who don’t have enough money left over after essentials to save even a dime.”
A common misconception. I’m talking about the money workers and employers contribute to SS. If you let the workers have it, it would be spent and not saved. (As Carolyn’s cursor hovers over the “CLOSED” flag… )
The working poor are hording all the surplus monies in this world.The money is misspent by this vast number of the working poor hoarders that is not then invested in the stock market or in paying their fair share of taxes for the infrastructure. Shame on them. They could instead easily change the course of financial history. I pity the “poor” rich who are forced to drive their luxury cars over potholes that could easily be fixed by taking better care that these poor don’t buy Cigarettes with their food stamps. The amount waisted by the poor is staggering. They are unpatriotic picking heating oil over investing in a stock portfolio.
While it’s true that some spend more no vehicles than they can afford, as I sit here looking out my windows I cannot see one. All the cars on my block have been bought with an eye toward affordability and economy. I cannot think of one neighbor or friend who spent more on their car than they can afford… or bought more car than they needed.
I can also testify that many of us, myself included, are on very tight budgets due to being on fixed pensions and unable to work due to medical issues. And we’re the LUCKY ones.
"There’s a millions of hard working people in the US who don’t have enough money left over after essentials to save even a dime."
IMHO that is not a misconception… it’s an understatement.
I think that the similarity occurs when gas prices are high over an extended period, which they have been. We have entered into a period of low energy costs and if it continues on long enough, car choices, like they had before, along with the bigger gas using models will start to sprinkle into the middles class more, at least short time. It has around here. People are using their trucks more then they did.
The other thing to consider is, though you see a lot of small cars passing by, slowly, the luxury vehicals are encroaching into the small car world, much more then with just sporty cars. Small sedans and even compact SUVs are now found in luxury lines. Little cars with $40 k price tags that get 40mpg in hybrid form and 30 plus in gasoline. Get used to it. GM is now making a competitive small truck in the mid size line, sprucing it up and EXPECTING it to eat sales from the full size models. It does seem to make sense. They will cost almost the same. America is automotivly becoming Eropeanized.
"There’s a millions of hard working people in the US who don’t have enough money left over after essentials to save even a dime."
Bullfeathers.
Show me a poor neighborhood where the bars are all closed due to “nobody having money to drink,” one where the convenience stores sell no cigarettes or lottery tickets, and I might believe you. Realistically, poor folks, as a whole, aren’t investors, do not come from homes where investing was valued…which is one BIG reason why they are poor.
A poor man, with a pack-a-day habit, could (after some difficulty) quit, and set aside $2,000/year for a Roth IRA. Similarly, a poor person could take the $1/gallon discount we’ve been getting lately and fund such an account, too: how much do you want to bet they won’t?
Joe, judging the financial behaviors of others by your own yardsticks and writing “bullfeathers” to those who disagree does not make your conclusions valid.
It’s been decades since I and anyone in my social circle has been in a bar. I don’t even know of one within a seven mile radius. Make that ten miles. And I doubt if the overwhelming majority of the patrons there are the financially strapped that we’re referring to. Urban areas that I’m familiar with are very different, but I’d bet that most of the country is much closer in this regard to my town than it is to the cities,.
You may choose to deny it, but there are in fact millions of people in this country need all of their money to pay bills, and even focus routinely on concessions to do so, like stretching a pound of hamburger as far as they can rather than picking up a T-bone or going out to eat. I very rarely go out to eat, and when I do it’s the “sunshine special” at I-Hop rather than the stuffed lobster pie at the Back Room.
Well, I’ve lived in “distressed” communities for five years, did their taxes…and I can assure you, people here are on 100% “YOLO” mode.
The shame is that there are good incentives to save. I'm getting $400 of my fed taxes off for saving $800! (Yet I NEVER see any other taxpayers doing this...BOGO savings is enough for me to blow off a bill or two, if necessary.)
yolo? bogo?
SMB, do you Live in Lake Woebegone? Oh, wait a minute, that’s in Minnesota…
you know, I looked down, for many years, on the guys who were sitting on the porch, half drunk already, as I came home on Fridays. I was in screaming pain and I still went to work everyday, I thought to myself. sometimes I said it aloud to people.
then I got to the point where I was literally working myself to death. besides the illness and injuries, I had a bleeding ulcer from the stress and was down to 105 lbs. I just walked out one day, about 2 1/2 yrs ago. it was that or die.
then the shame of not working almost did me in. I was a leech on society and my family I thought. and it was hammered home by the pundits railing about disability frauds sucking us dry.
those guys all had their own problems, I realized. whether it was Vietnam caused brain damage, health issues, or addictions. It was not my place to judge I finally saw.
every man has his limits joe, and you have no idea what another man has dealt with. I was known as the toughest son of a bitch in the steel shop. I reveled in it. back out? no problem, I worked bent over. big toe crushed? so what, I set and splinted it myself and worked 8 more hours before going to the doc. I spent many years hiding my weaknesses. I would never ask another man to do the same again.
I thank god for social security and for seeing the error of my ways. I was a nasty son of a bitch for a long time. no more. thank god.
Too bad the stock market is dropping along with gas prices.
“Too bad the stock market is dropping along with gas prices”
The nature of the market is to fluctuate, and those who buy when prices decline–rather than panicking–will do well when, inevitably, share prices later increase. According to almost all of the market gurus, conditions at this point favor a market increase of 11%-13% in 2015.