The Legislative Thinking Mentality

The other day, on the news, San Diego is contemplating the idea of affordable housing for the homeless. Two problems here, the climate is so mild and it never rains so you don’t need a home, just a tent for privacy and a shopping cart for your belongings. Second, homes cost about $400,000. All a tent cost is about $100 and shopping carts are free. Figure $10 dollars a day for food and booze, no cigarettes, (they’re $10 a pack) you can be a beach bum for less than $3,650 a year. The problem with the tents intensifies when the owner picks up discarded items to more properly furnish his or her domicile. And the issue of trash removal and sanitation is nonexistent. At this point it becomes a health issue.

Then after the tragic Las Vegas shootings, Congress is contemplating tougher gun control laws. Criminals don’t shop at gun stores to purchase a weapon; honest law-abiding people do. There is no law we can pass that will stop someone from repeating what just happened. Almost everyone is entitled to buy a gun, if they do it before they break any laws. People are not born killers, but a law will not stop someone from killing if he is willing to die in the act. All gun laws do is process people into the jail system after they have fired their weapon (if they do not take their own life). Laws do not prevent bad behavior, they only punish it.

With these two examples, you might arrive at the conclusion; Congress believes that there is an obvious legislative solution to all of our problems. Of course, some problems solve themselves. 20 trillion dollars of national debt kind of explains why cigarettes went from 25 cents a pack to $10 dollars.

“Give the rich a tax break,” sets the Democrats ballistic. The bleeding hearts think the rich are obligated to foot the bill. At the same time, I haven’t picked up a newspaper reporting that someone in this country starved to death for any reason. I would bet that more than half of the people in this country on food stamps are severely overweight. Food stamps offer people the cell phone and cable tv option. But I digress.

Congress-i-anal stupidly assumes that low income people will spend their food stamp allotment and other monies on their kids. Not quite. But when anyone wants to change a program, it is pointed out that it is the kids that will lose out. The kids are used to earn more government handouts and believe me, the kids are the last ones to receive any of the trickle down from this. A 12 pack and a pack of cigarettes is $28.00 and the kids don’t get to drink the beer or smoke the cigarettes. They grow up eating macaroni and cheese with an occasional hot dog and some Kool aid. As a kid, I knew some of these kids, they would marvel at our refrigerator when they came over, it had food in it!

Reality is out there, it just depends on how your mind colors the pictures. Government should not be there to fix our problems, but rather to pay the bills.

California is the land of half million-dollar homes, and a climate that lends itself to the homeless on a $3,600 a year budget. Food stamps, a cell phone and a surf board, what a life!

Governor Jerry “Moon Beam” Brown will probably even get them registered to vote to boot. And then there is marijuana legalization. That old biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah comes to mind. The Democrats have started a party that even Harvey Weinstein might want to attend/fund.

Restaurant Menu Prices 1938

Here is a reprint from four years ago for some of you that might have missed it. This was during the Great Depression that was already into its 10th year.

I was searching through some picture albums of my parents from way back and ran into some restaurant menus  from the depression era of late 1930's.. The first 3 pictures are from the Manhattan  Restaurant

 

The Second menu (three pictures) is on the Union Pacific Railroad from 1937 somewhere in Wyoming.

This last menu is from the Hotel Windermere in Chicago 1937.

Double click on the images to see what the prices were back then.   Did you notice that the Manhattan offered a broiled (Whole) lobster for 65 cents?  In today's world, you'd be lucky to get half a lobster for $30.  Bear in mind, the people that read these menus in real time are probably dead by now.

The pay raise that everyone gets each year because of inflation is just an allusion. Look around, the new hires are starting out a few pennies less than what the seasoned workers are making.  The neat thing about inflation is that Congress doesn't have to raise the tax rates, you earn more, you pay more.  That's the real difference between the Democrats and Republicans; print as you go verses pay as you go.

The real odd thing is that the average person does not connect the dots. The relationship between government spending and inflation does not exist. Rumor has it, we've always had inflation-- I guess we're supposed to get used to it.  My wife bought a new battery and asked me to guess how much she paid for it, and I said $40.  Her answer; "That's the price you would have paid 20 years ago, the battery was $100."

Let's see,(from top menu third pic red part) I'll have the broiled lobster with coffee and a slice of cake--that's about 85 cents total, plus 15 cents for a tip.  The trouble is, 76 years of inflation have raised the prices a tad.