Part of it Wally. I leave my house at 4:50 AM to get to work by 6 AM. Fortunately, they allow us flex time, I can start that early. The whole reason I go for the early start (no, I’m not naturally an early riser) is traffic on Interstate 80 in NJ. If I’m running 10 minutes late, my commute goes from 55 minutes to 1.5 hours. Plus I work a compressed workweek (9 hours a day with an extra day off every two weeks) to eliminate one round trip every two weeks. At least I usually get to sleep in that day. [:D] One out we’d have with that cell phone thing, it’s illegal to talk on the cell phone while you’re driving in NJ (they even want to make it a primary offence). And I don’t have a hands-free device for it. Most of my commute is in NJ.
Respectfully, I disagree. I’ve been down the road of no restraint myself but it’s not always the case. Sometimes personal credit can be affected by figures other than lack of restraint. Want an example? How about being a franchisee of a global sub sandwich company. When you’ve just bought a house so that you can have some equity, and the company you are a franchisee for tell you you have a year to remodel your store to their specifications to the tune of anywhere from $10-50k. Not horrible in and of itself, but take into account that you have 3 stores in this same boat that you’ll have to shell out dough for. Also take into account that you will be inspected at least once a month by a corporate representative whose job it is to make sure you are following the rules set by corporate. If you disregard these rules, even if it might be by mistake, you can get marked “out of compliance”, and of course this includes for not remodelling. Get marked out of compliance enough and you can have your franchise rights
The section of parking lot aka expressway I take was directly responsible for the foreshortened life of the CNS&M which paralleled it, running commuter interurbans at 80mph down the Skokie Valley until 1963. The section of I-94 I take has not had its capacity increased in 45 years but every few miles you pay a toll to go 20 miles an hour. . Ah, progress…We live in a transit 3rd world compared to
Europe.The illusion of workless work I heard in my youth trumpeting a foreshortened work week where we have technology do the heavy lifting. We have traded productivity increases for quality of life. The rise in income has not kept pace with the cost of material goods. Every family in my 1950’s suburbia had only one parent that worked. Nobody was wealthy-just comfortable. I love that commercial where the guy says:where are the flying cars? They said we would have flying cars! We consume more than we sell. The federal government of the USA lives on a Chinese credit card.You don’t have to be psychic to know the future. If policy is not transforming the direction we are going today, we are headed for what TS Elliott once wrote. To paraphrase him, it wont end with a big bang, it will end in a whimper. Anyone who cant see this coming probably also believes in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It can’t happen here. Right?
And just think, your favorite road you mentioned there, the Dan Ryan is getting a full facelift this summer. Lucky you.
Last summer at my previous job I drove a truck into chicago 5 days a week. I’d unload at Summit and then take the always joyful ride up 55 to the Ryan and then go down to 80/94 across into Indiana. After sitting in gawdawful traffic a few times I decided to take the Skyway since it got me way closer to where I had to go in Indiana. I gladly ate the $10 toll every day to save me a boatload of time and the hassle.
I don’t envy you one bit and I don’t miss it at all. I took a paycut to stay close to home and not put up with that at all anymore. I remember getting pretty pissed off watching the Metra trains flyin by me at 70mph while I was sitting there reading my newspaper in traffic.
The article – like similar articles intended to scare – ignores the fact that the American economy is highly dynamic – jobs are created or disappear as needs require. It’s a key component of what makes the U.S. economy so strong. Most of us simply take that as part of life and look at it as an opportunity, not a problem. What’s important is that in the U.S. more jobs are created than destroyed in the long run. The position might disappear but by that time we’ve either already moved on or simply move to the next gig, hopefully to something better. That’s been my experience time and again. Most of the jobs I’ve had didn’t exist when I was a child and were really beyond the imagination.
My job will be around for many years after I retire, which will come in 10 years. But, whether the company I work for now is around for years to come depends on management.
When you look at the new jobs created by our economy in the “blue collar” sector they are mostly lower paid with fewer benifits than the jobs that are lost. And this slide to the bottom for the “blue collar” worker started about 25 to 30 years ago.
Jimmy B
I am an accountant specialising right now in corporate compliance and internal controls. As long as the US Govt keeps passing ridiculous, complex laws such as Sarbanes Oxley for purely political reasons my family will continue to live quite comfortably.
Another post about those 6 figures. My brother just bought a house for him and his wife and 2 babies. In northern NJ, where he grew up, family lives, kinda near work.
1920 sq ft bi-level, on .3 acre, in a decent town (no slums) … $489,000. Property taxes are almost $10, 000 (and that’s without a paid fire department or garbage collection, etc etc).
And since NJ is just about bankrupct because of cowardly, corrupt politicians, things are about to get much more expensive around here.
Raise a family on $100K, I’m not sure.
TomDiehl … hi…I’m just curious, where do you live and where do you work? I’m curious about the Pa living and NJ working thing. I live just off NJ I-80 exit 37.
Greg Ross