If you haven't heard the fuss over that Brooks column in the NYT, ho.
And ho, ho, ho.
Brooks claimed that our ecomony is doing splendid! Honest! (Apparently some Rethug hack told him it was, probably with numbers written on a cocktail napkin, and you know Dave, he believes anything with numbers, especially if it's written down by a Rethug.)
Well, anyone who actually has been living in America over the past seven years, watching her paycheck, or his paycheck, buy less and less each month, seeing his or her life get more restricted each quarter (so much for a vacation...all right, so we won't go out to eat this week...no, I guess I won't get new glasses this year...nah, we don't really need a new jacket, do we? The old one is still good enough...) knows what crap this is, but Dave? He bought it and swallowed it and printed it up.
Ezra Klein spent all day yesteday tearing Brooks a new one. Amanda has it all collected here.
4 hours ago
5 comments:
Agreed. I've actually started limiting the amount of milk (1-2 cups/ day) the kids drink because it's getting so expensive. What gets me is that we're pushing everyone to be health conscious in this country yet the stuff that's good for you costs significantly more than the crap ($3.59 for milk vs. 99¢ for a 2-liter of soda) leaving those that are on a tight budget anyway to opt for the less expensive, less healthy choice. Our grocery bill has gone up by about $200 in the last few months. I have no idea how we're going to swing everything when JP goes back to preschool in September. Between his tuition and the increase in gas use for my car, that pretty much eats up the extra money needed for the grocery budget. Neat! Good economy my ass...
Plus, I don't know about you, but our tuition has also increased -- $75/month -- because the school's own fuel costs and such have inceased so much over the past few years. So my wages haven't increased by much, but the cost of everything else is shooting up -- but hey! Rich guys are lots richer and can buy more yachts. So it's all good. (Now what now?)
That's the kid's tuition, I mean, at the Montessori school -- tuition at the university has also increased. I forgot what that increase is. (I bet Mouse knows!)
Yup, went up to 133 per credit hour for instate 296 for out of state.
That's up from the eight or so that it was before.
Indeed.
But you know why those good for you products are higher? Because the distribution of wealth is so f*ked up. Seriously. It has a lot to do with this environmental movement.
These products do cost more to produce but if money was balanced so that even one made living wage (the living wage is considerably higher, as I'm sure you know, than the minimum wage)and kept in balance, those products would be cheaper than those non-biological products or at least approximately equal in price.
Read Cradle to Cradle by Braungart and McDounough for more info. They talk about redesigning products so that they are ecologically sound, but they address that issue of cost in there.
I'm sure it's no small coincidence that the working poor are much more likely to be overweight than the middle class.
JP's tuition has gone up but that's due, at least in part, to the extra day he's going to be spending at school.
Off topic: I responded to your Kool-Aid question, delagar but it's not showing up that any comments have been added on Haloscan (they're there, though).
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