Mark Morford

I have to chuckle when people WITH a job tell me how great it is that gas is so cheap. I try to explain to them the "why" of this. It doesn't affect them. They have a job..for now.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/12/31/notes123108.DTL

Ya gotta luv Mark Morford.

Everyone is still abed here and I have my quiet time. I just spent over 1200.00 and didn't have to leave the house to do it. Taxes; parish and city plus my driver's license was up for renewal this year. I paid the license renewal online. I was going to pay the property taxes online also but they have this nifty little "convenience charge" of 24.00 per item and I had one parish bill and two city bills for a grand total of 72.00 for that convenience. I wrote a check, used two stamps and mailed the taxes. How much convenience do I really need on this?

We paid on this house for 8years and saved about 45,000.00 in interest charges. In order to do that I worked more then one job. I had a goal. Wow, our house is paid off; we can relax a bit.

Insurance now is billed yearly. Taxes yearly. They were escrowed into the house payment before. Vehicles are paid but 6 month premiums come due bi yearly and each of these have escalated astronomically. I can't imagine how the rest of the population makes all these payments along with house payments, food, gas, clothing and other incidentals. Add a child or two to this and a few credit cards because we all know we don't save to buy something; we have to have it now and forget about doing without.

I don't remember years ago anyone having credit cards. Did they? Did they charge as they do today? Didn't we save for a new TV, a new car and on and on? Oh and forget about fixing something. Pitch it out and buy new. Call someone for repairs. My dad and grandparents never called anyone.
The only time I remember someone was called was the vet. My grandparents raised horses. Occasionally the vet would make a visit.
Grandpa had a blacksmith shop on his property and he would shoe his own horses, shear his own sheep and cut and bale his own hay. He raised poll Herefords and was the head of the Hereford association. He tended all the animals. He had a dairy farm too and had to feed and milk and clean the stalls. We didn't buy milk. He sold it. We always had fresh milk and butter.
I remember my grandmother churning milk to make that butter. We all had to help. Good work ethics? Yeah, it probably helped us to recognize what real work was all about.

That self sufficiency is a thing of the past. How would we make it if that were our only option? I'm hoping this generation never has to look that direction.

It must be time of me to hobble somewhere and do something. I'm restless.
I have things to do and they aren't getting done so this is The End.