Alexa vs Alexa

[yogi]

Riding on the City of New Orleans
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail
All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields
Passin' trains that have no name
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles

That's just part of the lyrics to the song on YouTube. I only have vague memories of that railroad car and those only tell me it existed at one time or another. Apparently there was a whole passenger train by that name as well. I assume one of its terminals was in the city of New Orleans. Aside from the commuter train to visit my aunt, my experiences riding on trains is very limited.

Back in my dating days more than one girlfriend and I spent part of the night roaming O'Hare International airport. We didn't take any plane trips, but one night while we were walking through an empty United Airlines terminal one of the clean up crews offered us a tour of the cockpit in a parked plane. Both of us were amazed. Of course those were the days when they allowed the general public to roam about freely in the terminal areas. Now they don't even let you enter the building unless you have a boarding pass, much less give you a tour of an airplane.

Believe me that I can appreciate your concern about blatant government overreach. There is a lot of data out in the wilds and there will be more as collection methods get better. There seems to be a paranoia of sort aimed at people who collect data for purely innocuous reasons, such as Facebook, Microsoft and Google, not to mention the federal government. If our current democratic republic descends into an authoritarian theocracy, as is the current dread of many, then I can see how all that data might be used maliciously. If, on the other hand, our freedoms more or less stay in place then the voluminous data could actually be used for beneficial purposes. Personally I think it's insane to assume the masses will be controlled against their wills via high tech. It's an unwarranted fear with origins embedded deep in the catacombs of conspiracy theorists. There is such a thing as mind control and it is in fact in place and functioning in places such as Russia. But, then again, their form of government lends itself to that kind of living. We in America aren't there yet.

[Kellemora]

Illinois Central was a popular train service when I was younger.
Some of their train lines also had names, such as "Land of Strawberries" and "Land of Corn" and "Panama Limited."
But the passenger cars, most of them, also had names.
The ones called "City of" had New Orleans, Miami, and Memphis.
Others were named like Green Diamond, Daylight, Louisiane, The Illini, Southern Express, and Northern Express.
The latter two were commuter trains and each car carried those names.
The price in later years to ride in THE CAR named The City of New Orleans, was double of any other car, and it was not the nicest of the cars either. But it was a Must Ride in That Car for many folks. So they kept upping the price due to demand.

After I was of driving age, besides making our rounds of the popular food places, we went to Lambert Field (St. Louis International Airport) because the main TWA terminal had hundreds of pinballs and video games to play, at about half the price of the ones located at other places. Needless to say, the game rooms were always packed with locals. Then they upped the prices there too, and also started charging for parking, hi hi. Killed that fun area for us. But some large amusement places opened up that were just as much fun to go to.

The only thing I'm going to say is the poly-TICK-ians are DESTROYING this Country as FAST as they possibly can.
And Biden is leading the country back into Poverty. He's more like a Dictator than a President!

[yogi]

The concessions at the airport today are out of touch with reality. The operators of those concessions use an interesting business model. Whatever the average retail price is for an item they double it, or something close to double. A can of Coke will cost you $3.00 minimum, for example. I think what happened is that the airlines stopped providing full meals on many if not all their flights. Thus the concessionaires took advantage of that situation to sell carry on snacks and foods. I can only imagine why they are so high priced. It has something to do with catering to a captured audience. There are no alternatives unless you bring your own food and drinks. Then you have to get it all past TSA.

Back in my dating days at the airport I don't recall there being many, if any at all, gaming machines. There were, however, hundreds of public telephones. We discovered an interesting phenomena regarding those phones. If we put in our dime to start a call but hang up before we complete it, we get our dime back plus whatever had been sitting in there from previous users. I'd guess about 10% of the phones did that. It was like playing the slot machines. There were times when we got back a couple dollars for the dime we invested. I'm not sure how legitimate our activity was and we did it all as discretely as possible so that we would not attract any attention. But, that telephone siphoning sometimes paid for the pizza we had after the airport visit. LOL

I think I have a clear understanding of how you feel about poly-TICK-ians and how you came to the conclusions you have. You have no reason to trust me, but I'll go out on a limb and tell you it isn't nearly as bad as you surmise. In some cases it's worse.

[Kellemora]

Now don't go blaming the vendors for the high prices.
Every hear of the AIRPORT TAXES?
In some cities, such as here, they have a DISTRICT WIDE AIRPORT TAX that all businesses and restaurants in the DISTRICT must pay, and it is high.
My brother had a small game room in an airport for a short time, but he was working with another vendor who had other things in the same area.
In a normal vending operation, each location normally gets 50% of the box for providing the space and electric for the machines.
Machines that vend a product, the cost of the product is deducted from the box, and then the location gets 50% of what's left.
Now bring in the AIRPORT TAXES. The airport tax gets 24% of the gross, here it is 28% of the gross sales, and this includes products sold too. So, where a vendor may sell a candy bar for a buck elsewhere, and gets to deduct the cost of that candy bar before splitting the box. At an Airport, they have to get 3 bucks to cover the airport tax and product cost, before splitting the box 50/50. In most cases, the vendors at airports are actually making LESS than if they had their machines elsewhere.
I just thought you would like to know this!

Oh heck, it was a popular practice to make a call and get your dime back.
The reason it worked is because you never completed the call. Meaning you never heard a phone ring or not picked up.
Everyone I knew used this trick. MOM, now don't forget to call so we know you made it there OK.
And the Key to that was. If Mom's phone rang only once, she knew you made it to your destination.
And sometimes when we did this, not only would you get your dime back, but sometimes another dime that was still on the internal tray and not yet dumped into the return coin slot.
It's also a good practice to simply check the return coin slot, because sometimes someone makes a call, and has to run to their ride and just hang up and run, and forget about getting their dime back.
Or in later years, their quarter back.

Train stations and airports were always great for getting money out of phones, but never bus stops, or anyplace kids hang out after skewl.

I've never seen inflation like this in my entire lifetime! And we know WHEN and WHY it all started too!

[yogi]

I knew there was such a thing as airport tax. O'Hare was the cash cow that brought all the perks to the Chicago political hierarchy. I don't know what the rate is or was nor did I have any idea who must pay the tax. But, using the example you provide for a candy bar being sold at $1.00 in most places and $3.00 at the airport concession eloquently illustrates the point I'm trying to make. If the air port tax is say 30% (because Chicago can do that) increasing the price of the candy bar by 200% seems to cover a little more than that airport tax. I got to wonder why that is necessary.

The pay phones were very simple to understand especially in the days when an operator would interrupt your call and tell you to put in more coins if you want to keep talking. We all knew that you would get your dime/quarter back if the call did not complete. No brainer there. But, to get back that extra cash that the previous caller had to put into the slot was a complete surprise. It's possible that it was a well known flaw and perhaps us kids were not the only ones milking public phones.

I've never seen inflation like this in my entire lifetime! And we know WHEN and WHY it all started too!

If I didn't know better and only looked at your statement here I could easily come to the conclusion that you have been lying to me about your age. Then, too, I know you have memory problems so that I can't fault you for not remembering a lot of trivial details. So ... let me remind you of something with this chart:

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/U ... n-rate-cpi

That spike in the rate of inflation in year 1980 capped out at 13.55% which is close to double the current rate of inflation. Plus, just in case you can't recall, Ronald Regan was president at that time - a string of Republican presidents preceded him while that peak was building. Frankly, I know your memory isn't that bad. I also know you get your news from questionable sources. Those folks bitching about inflation today seem to forget who holds the record, and are remaining silent about it all. No need to wonder why that is happening.

[Kellemora]

Don't forget, the airport taxes on the GROSS Sale Amount.
Look at a normal vendor. He buys a candy bar for a quarter, and sells it for a dollar.
He splits the 75 cents with the location. He gives the location 38 cents and keeps 37 cents for himself.
He has to pay for the cost of the machine out of that 37 cents and other sales from that machine. Plus repairs.
Now at the airport, at a 3 dollar sale price. The tax is around 90 cents.
3 bucks, minus 90 cents tax, minus 25 cents for the candy bar seems to leave 1.85 to split 50/50. But it doesn't.
You must SPLIT the Box at an airport. So, 3 bucks split is 1.50 to the location, and
from the 1.50 the vendor gets, 90 cents goes to pay the tax, and 25 cents for the candy bar.
So the Vendor ends up with only 35 cents, which is 2 cents less than at a normal location.
Does it make sense that way now? 3 times the normal price but the vendor actually makes less!
And I didn't even mention a vendor has to have an airport vendors license as well, another cost.

No, I agree with you about the 1970's to 1990's era's and high inflation rates a few times during those years, and yes this happened while the republicans were in office. No argument there!
However, the highest inflation rate EVER in our Country was under Jimmy Carter, a Democrat.
And Ronald Reagan, a Republican, brought it back down to 1960's levels.
And it has stayed fairly close to this ever since, a few minor ups and downs, but nothing drastic.

As far as the record high inflation, Jimmy Carter, as mentioned above, hold that record!

[yogi]

Airport Concession

Costs.JPG (21.76 KiB) Viewed 800 times

So ... let me see if I understand this correctly.

• Candy bar sells for $1.00
• Candy bar costs vendor $0.25
• That leaves him with a gross profit of $0.75
• Half of the gross is split with the airport, in this case $0.38
• The airport tax is 28% of the Gross Sale, in this case $0.28
• Adding all the costs: $0.25 + $0.38 + $0.28 = $0.91
• The Net Profit for the vendor in this case is $0.09

Do the same calculations for a selling price of $3.00 and the Net Profit is $0.54

To put it another way, the Net Profit at $3.00 a bar is 600% more than the Net Profit at $1.00 a bar

I don't fly very often and buy food from airport vendors even less. No doubt most of those vendors are honest people just trying to eek out a living as best they can. My heart bleeds for them, but the end result is they are charging me three times the price of a local shop for the exact same item. I don't blame them nor do I fault the IRS/Treasury Department for being the greedy bastards that they are. The consumers are the people who keep those concessions in business. As long as they are willing to pay hyper inflated prices, the concessionaires are more than happy to accommodate them.

My point with the inflation graph is that J Biden is being falsely blamed for the highest inflation rate in your lifetime. That simply is not true. I can only speculate why you came to that conclusion, but I can say with certainty that you are not alone. The propaganda machines, commonly known as news networks, are deliberately telling lies. Too many people don't question it.

[Kellemora]

At the airport, GROSS is before you deduct the cost of the candy bar. I didn't say Gross Profit, I said Gross Period.
Which is the total amount of money in the cash box in the machine.

If the candy bar was a buck at the airport, the tax on the candy bar sale would be 28 cents.
So, one dollar, minus 25 cents product cost, minus 28 cents tax = 47 cents profit to the vendor, who then spits it.
But it don't work that way at airports.
One dollar split 50/50 leaves leaves 50 cents, from which you pay the 25 cent product cost, plus 28 cent tax.
You just lost money! You are minus 3 cents. So you have no money to pay for the machine, or repairs, or route man.

If a candy bar sold at the airport is set at 3 bucks it looks like this.
Three dollars split 50/50 with the location, leaves $1.50
Tax is on $3.00 at 28% or 84 cents. Which comes out of your $1.50, so you have 66 cents.
Product cost was 25 cents, so 66 - 25 = 41 cents net income.

At a normal location with a candy bar sold at one buck.
Normally, the vendor is not allowed to deduct the product cost, before splitting the box.
And if not, the location gets 50 cents, and the vendor ends up with only a quarter net income.
But if they can deduct the product cost, which is what they strive for,
then they only split the 75 cents, 38 cents to the location 37 cents as net income.
And with a whole lot less hassle than dealing with the airports.

At a normal location, they can normally pull up outside the place, run in fill the machine.
But at an airport, you have to get in, pay for parking, tote your stuff from the parking lot through the concourse to the vending rooms. It's not really worth that 4 extra cents.

And of course, the vendor still has to pay income taxes on his net income after expenses, regardless of the location served.

I do remember a very short spurt in time when gasoline hit 5 bucks a gallon.
But when I started driving, it was like 33 cents a gallon. Now the taxes alone on gas is right at 60 cents a gallon.
Higher in some locations, like Californicatorville.
But this runaway inflation we have right now is definitely on Biden's shoulders.
And I don't think even Trump will be able to reverse it when he gets back in. Too much damage to our country has been done.

[yogi]

I definitely did not understand the terms you used in your explanation of how airport concessions operate. I'm not sure I'm any more enlightened at this point, but you did make it abundantly clear that there is no rational reason to be operating a concession at the airport. Oddly enough people fight to get space there. Go figure.

When we talk general economics it's obvious there too our understanding of the terminology is different. The cost of goods and services today is without doubt increasing, and Joe Biden happens to be president. I think we can agree on that much, but the rest is esoteric mythology mixed in with classic economics. You and I are on fixed incomes and thus we would be the least able to cope with increasing costs. Our standard of living is being driven in a negative direction, unfortunately. When you live from check to check it's hard, if not impossible, to see how it is possible for inflation to be a normal economic phenomena related to extraordinary growth. When you can't buy food and medication through no fault of your own, the fact that inflation is a normal economic activity becomes meaningless. I truly do understand your dilemma and fear the day when I may reach that precipice.

[Kellemora]

The reason vendors want in an airport has to do with the sheer volume of traffic that goes through the place.
Quite often folks are stuck at an airport waiting for an adjoining flight. So the game rooms and snack rooms fill up fast.
It's just a shame the airport tax is so high that the prices for everything there needs to be high.
But then, they knew they had a cash cow when they added those high taxes.

Do you know how many Seniors LOSE their HOME due to taxes doubling every few years?
I think once you are retired, real estate taxes should either end, or be cut back drastically.
Mainly because Seniors normally do not use most of the services those taxes pay for.
Or put another way, they have long since paid their dues to society.
And the cost to move into an apartment is usually much more than most Seniors have to spare.
I know I don't have enough income to afford an apartment!

The things that matter the most us older folks, regarding inflation, is the things we do need seem to be inflated ten fold over other things. We need a car to get to the doctors offices and to the stores, and we rarely make those trips anyhow.
But the price of cars has gone crazy wild. A car like I could buy for 3 to 5 grand is now 35 to 50 grand.
Yes I know they make garbage cars for lower prices, but I wouldn't ride in one, much less own one.

Do you remember me talking about my 600 and 1200 dollar medications, that used to cost me 60 and 120 after insurance, and after I met my annual deductible? Both of those medications now cost me 85, and 155 bucks. I only have 89 bucks a month to buy them with. Thank goodness my brother has been helping me out on drug costs by paying a few of them for me.
If he wasn't doing that, I wouldn't be taking those much needed medications.
And now that I don't have any sources of income, it is getting really hard for me.

[yogi]

I'm reminded of a comment I made earlier in this thread. The airport concessions have a captive audience, and they are taking advantage of that situation. The taxing people and the landlords are doing the same thing. After all, the people stranded waiting for connected flights have no other options. So they get screwed.

Perhaps you forgot that I am your senior in terms of biological age. You and I are in the same boat. The only difference is my oars are slightly longer than yours. Otherwise the system is set up for both our boats to sink should we live long enough.

My real estate tax in Illinois was approximately $10,000 when I left town. That was due to a doubling of the bill one year during a recession. I have a retirement fund but it would be depleted by the tax burden before I expected to die of old age. Moving to Missouri where the real estate taxes are less still assures that fund will be depleted. As it stands today, however, I will outlive the assets in the fund. That is assuming the tax rate of increase in Missouri stays at it's historical rate.

As was the case in Illinois, support of the public school system is the largest tax item on most real estate bills. Neither you nor I have much personal need for using those schools so that it appears to be quite unfair that we must still pay for their operation. No argument there. However, you and I are both residents of a state, MO here and TN there. Both those states are required to operate a public school system. Thus there is no way to eliminate that particular cost. We are part of the whole state in which we live and under the law we as individuals are treated equally. The public must support the schools and everyone in that public sector must pay a fair share under the law.

But you knew that already, I'm sure.

The financial dilemma you face today didn't just happen over night. People with fixed or no income get screwed by the ruling class. Here in America that class is the governments of the states and in DC. There are countries on this earth where the senior population is held in esteem and revered. We are not one of them. That came about, in my humble opinion, as a result of elitism. In other words those who run the government feel they are the only ones who know what is good for the country. Since they get to make the rules, things tend to go as elitists would have them. As it so happens there are only two major philosophies underlying the ruling classes. To put it in terms you would easily identify with, I'm talking about Democrats vs Republicans. It may be a stereotype, but the old adage of Democrats favoring the working class and Republicans favoring the Business class has played out to our disadvantage as seniors. Lobbyists have created a system where the business class has the most influence. I sense from some of your comments that your inclinations are to also favor business interests. I suspect that is why you also favor the Republican philosophy of governance. Unfortunately, in the real world you are no longer in business nor have any of the benefits given to that class of people. You personally would not have it this way, I'm sure. But the politics you favor thrives on it.

The help you receive from family and friends is invaluable. I personally am glad to learn that you are receiving some assistance. I know also from past discussions that you feel there are no public assistance programs available to you. I seem to recall that you have inquired with no success. The only recourse I can think of is in the offices of your government representatives. Contact them directly and inquire about any possible programs you are not currently aware of. It is in fact their job to help you out in that regard, or give you good reasons why it's not possible. I fully appreciate how humbling that might be, but when the situation is drastic, drastic measures may be needed to face it.

[Kellemora]

Government and Poly-TICK-ians take advantage of anything and everything they can.

I think you mentioned not to long ago that you were 76 years old? You still have your pension, and perhaps a little nest egg.
My pension is only 41 bucks a month, and my nest egg and assets were consumed to take care of Ruth, mostly after her insurance capped out. Not that I wish this on her of course, but had she died on the table during her 5 bypass surgery, or within 2 years from that date. My nest egg would have been over 1/2 million dollars, and I could have added to it by continuing working, plus my pension would have been around 250 bucks a month.
And just about the time I was getting back on my feet after she did pass away, 9/11 hit and pulled the slats out from under me again. I ended up giving away 6 rental properties, with tenants in place, as well as 4 properties slated for renovation. I kept two to work on, finished one and sold it, but then the guy defaulted on his primary loan and the bank foreclosed on the property. The other one I sold for a couple of grand, since nothing was moving in home sales after 9/11. B-Paper dried up.

I never had a problem with the part of our RE taxes that went to schools. After all, we went to school, and our kids went to school, so we are reaping the benefits of same, even though we no longer have kids in school. Besides, I went to parochial schools as did my kids their first several years in school.

I think I mentioned in the past that the majority of my family and relatives were all Democrats. I normally voted Democrat as well for many years. So, what made me change parties? It was simple for me really. From the age 18 forward, when the Republicans were in office, I was able to add more to my savings. And when the Democrats were in office, I couldn't add to savings and often had to take from my savings just to keep up with the bills. And even then, I still didn't vote Republican or Democrat, I voted third party a few times, until I realized, doing so was only taking votes away from the Republicans, so we would end up with yet another Democrat in office. You may think Biden is doing great, but the rest of the world thinks otherwise, and it is showing at the polls too.

At the time I did my thesis on the social security system, not only was it solvent, but it was so far ahead as far as funds go.
They hit the break even point 4 years before they expected to, and had more than double the funds rolling in than they would ever have to pay out. It was in the works to increase the amount of social security paid out to seniors. But before that could happen, the government stepped in and messed things up royally, they actually cheated social security a few times, by making loans at a fixed interest rate, then refusing to pay the interest, and then cutting it down to nothing, until they basically took over all of social securities funds for themselves.

Yes, it is a blessing my brother is helping to buy my much needed medications. But he's old now too and trying to work every day rebuilding boat transmissions. He gets good money for it too. The sad thing is, he wasted more money over the years with his gambling and drinking than either of us ever earned in our lifetimes. He only started putting money away and cooling his expenditures down when he found he had a daughter to take care of. So he was a good fellow then for about 12 years or so. Then she died and he has no one to leave what money he makes to.
I'm not for certain about this, heard it through the grapevine so to speak.
But he has taken steps that when he dies, the club he belongs to is supposed to sell his yacht, and close down his small warehouse he still has where he works on the transmissions. He want's the proceeds of the sale, after taxes, to go me and my sister, with a trust set up for my kids and her kids, of 25% of the proceeds, so we don't get all of what he has left.
On that note, I will probably die before him, unless some freak accident happens. He's in good health, which is amazing.

You would not believe how many channels we have gone through to try and get assistance. Debi was able to get one of her more expensive drugs for a lesser price for 6 months, and if she keeps that up, she gets the rest of the year for free, but only on that one drug. And to get it, she has to fill out this long form and send it in every month. It takes her about 5 minutes a day to keep the records, and then about 2 hours a month to fill out the form. But she does it!
My doctor will give me a free 30 day sample once every six months if he happens to have one. But lately, he has not given me anything except his bill, hi hi.

[yogi]

I understand you switched political affiliations due to economic reasons. That's a perfect justification and many people choose parties for the exact same reason. While finances are very important to survival in this country, there is more to living here than what money could buy. When I first became interested in current events and the politics behind them Dwight D Eisenhower was president. To be honest I didn't know much about him then and have not learned a lot since. However, he did in fact represent the conservative theme underlying the Republican party of his day. While Chicago was Democratic to its core I didn't learn much about them either until I moved out of the city. Those were the days when checks and balances in our system of government actually had some effect. I don't believe the Democratic platform has changed a whole lot over the years. Maybe they are more progressive than they were in the 50's, but basically they were the counterbalance to conservatism. Over the last decade or two traditional conservatism was displaced by something a bit more radical. The critics of today would go so far as to call it a cult. Well, I don't know if name calling accomplishes anything constructive, but I do know today's Republican party is not what i grew up to know.

You did a fantastic job researching the Social Security system and you deserved all the recognition you got for your efforts. The system today is not what it was when it was introduced. Society is not what it used to be back then either. The underlying needs for some kind of safety net such as SSA have intensified over the years, but the ability of the system to keep up has not materialized. The reason for the failure is that support for guys like you and me have taken a back seat to political and financial gain for those in power. Until the focus returns back to helping out the people, social security and Medicare are doomed to extinction.

There are a lot of public assistance programs out there and our state/federal government representatives are the best interface to those programs. Say what you will about corruption, but it is very possible that funding exists today that did not exist even ten years ago. You are one of the more thorough persons I know and I have no doubt you looked into everything possible. It just seems that with all the unspent billions floating around the federal treasury, there must be a few hundred thousand to which you are entitled. Maybe not.

Your brother is a good man. His intentions certainly are in the right place. I think you are fortunate to have siblings who care about each other. That doesn't happen in a lot of families.

[Kellemora]

The sad thing is, both parties are cut from the same very expensive cloth, and they are only looking out for themselves.
They no longer work for us anymore, they all work only for themselves, under the guise of working for us.
This is why nothing ever gets done for the benefit of the people, unless it benefits them exponentially more.

Social Security was actually a Ponzi Scheme when it started, but it had a goal to become self-sufficient by a certain date.
They beat that date by 4 years if I recall correctly. And then on another date which I forget which, they no longer paid out anything to anyone who didn't pay into it. And a decade after that date, they reached the point where nobody was getting back more than they paid in if interest calculations were included. The percentage of people who got SS could grow and grow and never use up what funds they had. Not even if the population dropped and the boomers all went on SS early. That's how solvent they were until the government started stealing their money.

My wife's son is an attorney, he works for the state handling welfare cases and the like.
He has also looked into what it would take for us to get some assistance, and we just don't qualify for anything he could find out, and that is his job. Albeit to normally keep people from getting more, hi hi. But for his own family, he was unable to find anything that we could glean even a few bucks from.
However, in the private sector, he found a few things we can get, like food pantry, which is not usually the best of foods.

I had worked for my brother for five years and helped in build one of his businesses up so it was more profitable than any of his competitors. But I was just on an hourly wage, with some minor benefits, like on the clock for my lunch break, etc. But I was not paid anymore than any other person who worked there.

[yogi]

I was thinking out of the box after I wrote my previous post. That's often dangerous for me because I have no sense of direction if there are no walls to use as reference. We got our house insurance bill yesterday and I was shocked beyond belief. The premium was well over $1000, but that isn't what jolted my brain. The insurance company placed a value on this house at $390K. Seven years ago we bought this house for about $130K less than today's insurance value. That means over the last seven years the (market) value of this house has increase by 50% of the purchase price. The county assessor isn't quite as generous as State Farm is, but there too the assessed value has increased about $100K over the seven years I've been here.

O'Fallon is not Knoxville, but the real estate market in general has gone totally bonkers over the past couple years. Houses for sale became rare which is what pushed the prices up. Now that the Federal Reserve is jacking up interest rates fewer people will be looking and the inventory of homes for sale should increase. It could bring down prices, but historically that doesn't happen. That brings me to the outside of my boxed in brain. I was wondering if such a thing as a reverse mortgage would benefit you. The equity in your house must have increased just as did the equity in everybody else's house did. If you get a reverse mortgage, you can supplement your monthly income. Exactly to what extent depends on the terms of the mortgage, of course.

The downside of a reverse mortgage is that when you sell your house the amount of the equity you withdrew is deducted from the value - the reverse mortgage must be paid back at that point. If you were buying a new house, that could hurt you in that the proceeds from the sale of your house would normally be used to purchase a new one. But, if you think you will be long gone before the equity is used up, then it doesn't matter. Plus, you will have supplemental income when you need it the most, i.e., while you are still above ground.

You probably have already thought through that idea and have good reason not to pursue it. Just in case it didn't occur to you previously, you now have food for thought.


As far as my political thinking goes, I am often reminded of your urge to correct me when I claim we live in a democracy. We live in a democratic republic is what you remind me of. Democracy by definition is government rule directly by the people. A republic runs the government with representatives of the people. We can claim the people elect the representatives, and thus take the label democratic republic when describing our method of governance. My concern here in the year 2022 is that those folks insisting on maintaining the structure of a republic are the same people trying to dismantle the democracy element. No, I don't expect you to agree with my characterization, but that is the reason I appear to be more of an ass than an elephant.

[Kellemora]

My house also, the assessment anyhow more than doubled since last year, which in turn made my insurance double as well.

Reverse mortgages are dangerous instruments. Best not to use one.
Doesn't matter in our case, because we recently transferred the ownership of the house over to her son.
I still pay the insurance, but he picked up the taxes for this year.
I guess he figured he owed us, since after his car was stolen, we gave him Debi's and I got Debi a different car.
I'm also the one who had the trailer and moved him from here to Murphysboro for school and paid for much of his expenses at school, and then moved him to Memphis to finish out law school, then moved him back to Nashville where he is working as an attorney for the State of TN.
He knows about how much I paid out for him, so figures he should help us out as best he can.
But if you knew him, it will always be the least that he can too.

In a Democracy, if the people vote to take away your bicycle, they can do so.
In a Republic, it is not even an option, if you own your bicycle, it is yours, and cannot be taken away by a majority vote.
In a Democratic Republic, it is possible to take your bicycle if it is good for all people to do so, but also requires a 2/3 majority vote, plus compensation for your bicycle. But still requires eminent domain to be considered first.

Personally, I really don't think it matters who is in office, or who holds the majority in there either.
They are all working for themselves and for their interests, never in the interest of the people.

It's a shame you never had the chance to live in a Home Rule town or city.
The difference between political ruled towns and cities and home ruled towns and cities is like the difference between night and day.

I read an article yesterday comparing the way things worked with big businesses, aka coal mines, etc. and what it will be like here in the not to distant future. What government does isn't going to matter very much for much longer. The big businesses will begin to take care of their employees and their families, almost like in the coal mining days. They will provide housing and a company owned shopping center. Or you could buy your own house in town if you could afford it, but still do your shopping at the company stores.
In order to manufacture things and sell them, they need buyers, or go broke and shut down.
And what better way to get buyers is for businesses to sell to other businesses who also have company owned shopping centers for their employees.
And with the huge influx of illegal aliens, folks do not want to pay to take care of them, so by joining a company owned employee/shopping group, instead of a salary, they will be working for purchasing credits and a smaller salary. Plus purchasing credits can be exchanged for cash as well if need be.
The article did get into all the details of how this could work and gave different options on the way it may come about.
Right now, we already have more free-loaders in this country than producers, and it is getting worse by the day!
And you know what this means. Crime is going to escalate exponentially as money and food dries up.

[yogi]

It is interesting that you comment reverse mortgages are dangerous. A reverse mortgage is a loan which uses the equity of your home as collateral. I suppose it could be akin to selling stocks short, i.e., selling stocks you don't have with the understanding you will buy them back later, hopefully at a lower price. Should the value of your stocks increase instead of decrease, then you will get a call from your broker to cover the margin of increase by putting more money into your reserve. If you don't have the money you must sell your stocks at a higher price than what you paid for them. Likewise the reverse mortgage must be paid back if the value of your house (the loan collateral) decreases. You must pay down the loan or risk losing the house.

Reverse mortgages can be likened to the same kind of danger as is selling stocks short, but probably not as risky. The stock market is way more vulnerable to price changes than is the housing market. One reason is due to what you cite about the assessments being the basis for taxes. If the assessor downgrades the home, the taxes go down too. And, that will never do. There are rare instances where the economy tanks and everything including houses lose value. It's a possibility, but it's not a highly likely event. Thus you need to weight the advantages of having extra income verses the disadvantage of your home potentially losing value. If you know of some other "danger" I'd be interested in learning about it.

The article you describe seems to be about how socialism and communism would work if there were no federal government to regulate things. I recognize the scenario and it's not quite as humorous as it used to be. There are people in this country who would like to minimize and/or eliminate what we know as the federal government today. I dare say it would be a return to home rule with the twist that big businesses would replace big government and eliminate the average man from the equation altogether. All the power would be in the hands of the elite, who in this case would be the owners of the big companies. That is exactly the same kind of agenda to which I referred earlier. Certain political parties in this country feel the people are not smart enough to live under a democracy. Back in Nixon's days they were called neocons. Today we hear a lot about Fascists performing the same function. Well, it works very well in places like Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and probably a few other places I failed to recall. If you like living that way then all is fine. If you prefer a democratic kind of twist to governing, then it's not all fine.

[Kellemora]

Debi and I have looked into Reverse Mortgages, many different types of them also.
The one that paid out the highest monthly payment is one that then owned your house after both on the deed had passed.
In fact, in essence, you are selling them your house, and can live there until you both die, and they then take over the house.
But there are way to many catches to it also. If you have to go into a nursing home, that is the same as if you died, they take the house, and you cannot go into a nursing home prior to 5 years after to sell them your house. The reason for this is, the state can take the house to cover your nursing home bills. So they are most cautious about their contract in that regard.

Rather than a Reverse Mortgage, a simple Loan which places a Mortgage on your houses equity, then the proceeds of the Loan are placed in a Trust that pays you X number of dollars per month, and also makes a Payment to the Mortgage you established.
If you die, the Trust continues to pay for the Mortgage, so your heir will not be saddled with making those payments. The heir can if they wish, sell off the house and pay the rest of the Mortgage, then whatever is left in the Trust they will get back at closing.
This looked like the better way to do it, but even so, we decided against it. Mainly because such a loan would only cover us for roughly 5 to 7 years. Then the Mortgage would be paid back off again, and you could do it again. Basically doing it this way, all the money goes back to paying the mortgage, and you only get the interest earned at a fairly low rate per month, which decreases a little bit each month as the balance held goes down. In the end, the amount of dollars you would be getting just wasn't worth it. It would only be like 800 bucks a month to start and goes down a few bucks each month thereafter.

I got the same impression when I was reading that article. In essence, it appeared we were all become paid slaves to the company, probably with no way of getting out of the deal. As the song used to say, and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt, St. Peter don't you call me, cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store.

[yogi]

All I know about reverse mortgages is how they work in principle ... plus interest. LOL I know there are several options to choose from and you seem to have a good understanding of a few of them. No matter how you arrange it, a reverse mortgage is a loan. My philosophy is that after retirement no long term loans are acceptable. Most folks turn to reverse mortgage type arrangements because they have a need for income but no other resource than their home equity. It's a calculated risk and I suspect those type of loans are not more popular because of the potential for underlying complications.

The founding fathers of this country had some pretty good ideas. Basically they knew what they did not want because they and their ancestors immigrated here to escape it all. Our system of governance has often been described as simply an idea those founders had, but there had not been any president. Thus they didn't know with any certainty how well it would all work. The flaw that has become evident over the centuries is that the federated democratic republic can only survive if all parties to it play flair and stand by the honor system. Well, it doesn't matter which political philosophy you follow today, it's very obvious that the honor system is not being adhered to. It's a bit of a dilemma because of the type of economy we created, i.e., capitalism. Capitalism is a wonderful motivator and has served us well for more than two centuries. Be it by design or by accident the capitalists have acquired all the influence that us citizens were intended to have. That is to say the lobbyists for corporate interests are far more influential than the lobbyists for the common man. By definition a capitalistic corporation is self serving and somewhat sociopathic. The goal is to maximize profits, and at times that is done against the best interests of the general population. The cure for all this is to return to the principles of the founding fathers wherein the best interests of this country's citizens are the highest priority. Then again, that would require a significant change in the morals and ethics of our society.

[Kellemora]

One of the problems we do have, part of the honor system you mentioned, is simply STATES were supposed to comply with any and all of the Federally mandated laws, and especially WITH the Constitution. And as you know, MOST STATES no longer adhere to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Laws not established as Federal were left to the states to control, provided that such laws adhered to the Constitution.
The other is the ability for the rich, including large corporations, to BUY (BRIBE) Congressmen.
Serving on Congress was supposed to be as a volunteer, with enough pay to support them, NOT make them multi-millionaires.
But they have turned it into the highest paying profession and changed laws so the laws they pass no longer apply to them.
And they give themselves raises, mega-benefit packages, etc.
It is ALL going to have to give way one of these days the way they are now doing things.

They also use every kind of sneaky tactic to constantly increase taxes by making it look like the common people are not paying it, when in fact they are the very ones paying it all, and at a much higher rate than it should be too.