We All Struggle!

Everyone knows that the average Joe is struggling….rent, food, gas, health prices are sky high and rising as we languish in a bit of self-pity….what about the wealthy? Do they have the same worries and problems as us humans?

If you’ve found it impossible to save money as living costs have surged over the last few years, you’re far from alone. According to a Bank of America Institute analysis, around a quarter of American households live “paycheck to paycheck,” which the institute defines as households “where necessity spending is more than 95% of their household income, leaving them relatively little left over for ‘nice to have’ discretionary spending or saving.”

  • Lower-income households were most likely to live paycheck to paycheck—35% of households with an income below $50,000 fell into the category, up from 32% in 2019. But pressures didn’t disappear with fatter paychecks. Some 20% of households with incomes higher than $150,000 also spend almost all their income on necessities like housing costs and groceries, according to the analysis, which used Bank of America customer data. “One reason is that higher-income households may have bought larger, more expensive, homes and consequently have bigger mortgages,” the institute said. “And often along with bigger homes come bigger insurance costs, property taxes, and utility bills.”
  • “Many of these spending pressures are likely unavoidable, as they relate to family and housing costs,” David Tinsley, a senior economist at the institute, tells CBS MoneyWatch. “The share of households that are living paycheck to paycheck has been rising slightly over the last few years, which is not terribly surprising, because prices have risen for a lot of essential goods—groceries are more expensive, the cost of car insurance is up, and child care is up, too,” Tinsley says.
  • Tinsley notes that living paycheck to paycheck is stressful and it’s a hard situation to get out of. “For most people, they can’t do much about where they live and how much they pay for their home, if they have kids at a school in a particular neighborhood,” he says. “A lot of these costs are sticky, and there isn’t much to do about it.”

Please forgive me if I do not feel too bad for them.

We have an election very soon now….and nothing will change as far as your expenses as a matter of fact the necessities will most likely keep rising.

I just do not see we have the same definition of wealthy.

So if you have Spam tonight know that Bezos is probably having Filet and all is right with the nation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Pet Killing Brigade

As a person who has a canine companion I am appalled at the treatment pets get from some GOPers…I am sure that my friends that have feline companions feel as I do.

I bring this up because of an article I read about the Uber GOPer that leads the NRA and others

We expect October surprises in an election year, but this time out the GOP has also offered up some serious Halloween jump scares. In a season when Donald Trump and JD Vance continue to lie about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, a genuine Republican Pet Sematary has emerged to haunt Trumpworld. As with so many Trump accusations, this one doubles as an admission, involving several of MAGA’s guiding lights and tales of grotesque animal cruelty. Let’s start with the NRA’s new president, Douglas Hamlin.

Hamlin took the NRA post this summer, and against all odds managed to tarnish the legacy of the scandal-plagued, financially strapped gun lobby even further. In 1979, Hamlin and four other fraternity brothers decided to rid their University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s Alpha Phi Delta fraternity of a house cat that did not care to use its litterbox. At the time, Hamlin served as president of the house; he and his frat brothers proceeded to burn and dismember the cat, then publicly displayed it by stringing it up. The grislier details can be found here.

If Hamlin’s was an isolated instance, maybe you could dismiss it as one man’s youthful mistake. Unfortunately, the story broke less than a month after Heritage Foundation President Kenneth Roberts’s own pet-slaying saga surfaced. Roberts also serves as the intellectual engine behind Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump administration that’s so politically toxic that Trump has denied knowing what’s in it or even ever meeting Roberts—despite sharing private flights with Roberts and employing well over half of Project 2025’s 307 authors in his first administration, past campaigns, and transition teams.

(There is more….Read On)

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/the-republican-pet-killing-brigade/

These acts and others precludes me from ever considering a Repub for anything in public office.

If they are this cruel to animals think how they feel about us mere peasants.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”