I saw a commercial on TV the other night for Hyundai I believe it was. The entire gist of the ad was that the vehicle had 6 USB ports. That’s it.
It just amazes me that there are a number of people out there who will go into hock on a depreciating asset just because of USB ports.
Some time ago when diddling with a Newton’s cradle it occurred to me that the American economy operated similarly. Those in the middle were being constantly hammered by those at one end or the other. It’s a shame that government allows the hammering to continue but those on the ends are the ones pulling the strings in D.C.
If you have kids and each has their own smart-phone and needs to be charged while you’re driving…yea it’s a good feature.
The thing is, the jobs requiring no skills are going by the wayside and being automated. So the whole level of jobs has been rising to a higher level that people need to train and prepare for. The days of a non-high school graduate getting a job at a factory and making good money are gone. Gee I remember one task I had was to cut a 1/8" notch out of a 2x2" steel plate on the band saw. All day long. Yeah those tasks are being automated, thank heavens.
And that’s where retail and service jobs come into play. 99% of them are unskilled jobs. Wallmart, Home Depot, McDonalds - the vast majority of their workers are unskilled. Sure they get some training to do their specific tasks, but that’s about it. Some will move up the chain…but not enough upper jobs for everyone to move up.
How do we keep allowing the smoke and mirrors to manipulate the charts and figures to rig the game against us? On a regular basis the financial and political pundits keep telling us that if enough ‘liquidity’ is poured into the market it will rise and lift all boats. That’s about a royal crock. Inflation occurs when people are willing to spend their money but they must have money to spend and 60%+ live pay check to pay check. On the other hand those who have substantial sums of money are spending the vast majority of their income buying more investments and it’s obvious that those have seen a great deal of inflation. Likewise gold, silver and real estate. The people in charge choose to ignore the obvious. Gasoline was ignored when calculating the Cost of Living Allowance for 20 years as it rose in leaps and bounds but when the price dropped in recent years they calculated it in to the disadvantage of the 60%. The vast majority of Americans are playing a losing game because the rules are changed day to day to advantage those who already control most of the money. Whoever it was who said “only the poor pay taxes” was correct. But we must realize that to the truly rich $250,000 a year is poor.