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#2
June 16th 05, 01:02 PM
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On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:37:58 -0400, (I
AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote: From: (Dave*Hall) On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:29:46 -0400, (I AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote: David T. Hall (N3CVJ) wrote: The number of those without health care (seniors included) far outnumber those healthy workers who get laid off. Most companies who employ skilled workers, have some form of healthcare coverage as part of their benefits package. I've never had a job without it. Your personal situation is irrelevant to the majority. Not really. Most people who are in full time gainfully employed jobs have some form of health care coverage. Unless you're a part time worker, chances are you have some coverage. Each year (for the last 4 years) the number of part-time workers has increased as the number of those laid off has increased. A growing trend has been major employers hiring at 32 hours or less to avoid offering health care benefits. There are laws to discourage this practice. Bull****. Any company can fill their positions with ft or pt employees. There is no law that claims copanies must offer ft work. You are right. But wasn't there some provision that stated that if a "part time" worker works consistently more than 32 hours that they become considered full time? Just as there are laws to prevent an employer from paying you a "Salary" instead of an hourly rate to avoid paying overtime. Look into the federal wage and hour laws. * I have to abide by the laws you speak of but it seems you are not familiar with them. Another easy way to avoid offering benefits is to hire people as independent cotractors, from laborers to clerical..this is very common in Fl. It also negates the need for federal withholding, placing the burden on the worker with a 10-99. Independent contractors are common here too. I know many professionals who actually prefer working this way. My company hires contractors for special projects. For the company it's a win-win situation since, if they like the person and they do a good job, they have the option of hiring them on full time. If not, they can just let him go when his contract expires. But the thing is, the company usually pays much more for a contractor than they pay for a full time employee. The people who like contract work claim that they can make enough to easily pay their own medical coverage and still end up ahead of the game. The biggest downside is the uncertainty of finding consistent contracts. Many of these people work through an agency to help them find contract jobs. The downside to that though is that the agency takes a "cut" of what a company would otherwise pay you. On the other hand, some of these agencies will pick up medical coverage, and you end up becoming an employee of the contract agency. There are many variations. *Resumption of healthcare coverage is tied to .the laid-off worker's need to find another job. So what happens in between when on needs prescription medication? When one is laid off from their job and offered the mandated COBRA, the cost is always greater than the original. Now, you have people who can not only pay their bills, but can't afford their medical covereage. What is your solution? No one said that life would always be easy. If you don't have a solution, say so, but saying resumption of healthcare is tied to finding another job goes without say. Problem is, the jobs do not exist..check your stats from the feds. Last month, the feds fell short of 100,000 jobs they expected to add to the stats of added jobs for the month. On the other hand, the federal unemployment rate is around 5.1%. Even if that number under represents the total number of unemployed people, and it's really 10%, that also means that 90% of eligible people are working. Try growing up during the great depression in the 30's as my parents did, and then tell me what hardship is. How are your parents any different from any other of our parents who did the same thing? They're different in that they understood the hardship and got through it without screaming for the government to bale them out. What we are going through today is a walk in the park compared to back then. When I was a kid, all I would hear were stories of how people did "this and that" to get by. You've probably heard the stereotypical stories of people walking to school with ratty shoes full of holes in the snow. Uphill,,,both ways. And they were glad! Except that these were true. I guess my perspective is a bit different than yours. To me, the examples you've given are a speed bump compared to life during the depression. Except you weren't there and did not experience anything remotely associated with such a hardship as that. Not directly no. But when the family would talk about it seemingly endlessly when I was a kid, you'd swear they were reliving it. That way, no one layoff can cripple a significant portion of the population. Depends what you consider a significant portion of the population. I can think of several examples..Reagan importing cheaper metals from the Asians decimated the steel industry in Pa and Ohio. I live within an easy drive of 4 different steel plants. The towns that surrounded them were dependant on those mills for the majority of their income. Not one of those small towns you mentioned were major steel producing towns. In fact, those towns are obscure to all but those who live near them, except for Allentown, and that was made famous by Billy Joel. But the problem was very real to those who lived there. Phoenixville was especially hard hit when not only the steel mill closed, but the Firestone tire plant closed, and the Budd Company (Made truck and train bodies) closed as well. But today, the town is doing alright. A whole new host of tech and office type jobs opened up. But 20 years later and things have pretty much recovered. People can get pretty creative when they need to be. Recovered from what? You said it couldn't happen, but by invoking the fact they recovered, you unwittingly admit the towns were indeed crippled from such layoffs.. Only temporarily. It happened. An entire generation came of age and went during that "temporary" era you refer. 20 years is a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. Recovery started sooner than that. It took 20 years to finally raze the old buildings. That's the whole point. Life goes on. People adapt and adjust. Allow them to do that, give them a few tools to help them, and they will solve their own problem. Except many cities did not recover. Most did, and still do. If not, people always have the option to move. We don't need the government mollycoddling us and indoctrinating us into becoming dependant on them. Asking for health care from those who are charged with regulating it when they have the best care available and toss our cash away like ****ing in the wind and give away health care to the very same people you say are trying to kill us and wage war and terror on us, is not mollycoddling. Kind of difficult to explain your position when you suport these leaders who "mollycoddle" with healthcare those you repeatedly insist are our enemy and hate us and want us dead. I'm not so sure how true it is that we are giving free healthcare to all Iraqi's. That was a rumor started by a liberal rag, based on war related casualties. That doesn't mean that every sick person in Iraq gets free healthcare at our expense. If the government provided all of us healthcare, it would cost a huge sum. Just the medicare prescription benefit that Bush signed in (And I strongly opposed) is a huge adder to the deficit. To cover every American, it would require a sizable increase in taxes. I already have good coverage, and it costs me less than the tax increase to cover the government's plan. So why should I favor it? It's nothing more than socialism. Taking from those according to their means, to give to those according to their needs. And when the government is paying the bill, those "needs" will increase exponentially. There is a certain segment of the population that like to take advantage of as much free money as they can get. In many of those industry towns, this led to the closing of the mills and a significant layoff of those town's populations and many of those towns became ghettos or ghost towns because of that. Not in my area. The towns (Allentown, Phoenixville, Fairless Hills, and Conshohocken) are still going strong, although the people who live there are forced to commute to work now. The towns are going through a revitalization, where the old factories have been leveled and in their place have sprung up huge business campuses. Those towns were never considered large steel towns or large steel industy towns. Tell that to the thousands of people (And Billy Joel) who lived and worked there and were laid off when the mills closed. They were small, tiny mills compared to the larger cities and employed a fraction of the workers.* *Think Pittsburgh and similar cities in Ohio. Same can be said with coal mining and to a certain extent, the auto industry. History repeats itself. Yes, as we continue to become more efficient at manufacture, Whaaaa? Manufacturing is DOWN, not becoming more efficient. Down in this country. It's growing strong in other places where it is cheaper (Hence more efficient) to manufacture things. Yea, but that isn't "we". "We" is,,,,er,,,are the USA! "We" still own many of the companies and still manage the operations overseas. That employs people. True, it requires a more advanced management skillset, but the jobs usually pay better too. **the nature of jobs have evolved along with it. The automobile pretty much ended the demand for blacksmiths. *But we shouldn't blame the automobile for causing the demise of the blacksmith industry. The smart blacksmith went back to school and learned to repair cars. Blacksmiths were never a large industry and the position was never one of those that most in a city were employed, rendering the example fruitless and non-related. It's very much related. A particular vocation doesn't have to be large to be relevant. It does to be compared to an entire industry such as the steel industry of which we were speaking. The principle is the same, regardless of the size of the industry. When technology allows the reduction of manual labor, or the obsolescence of a particular vocation, and a savings in costs, should we not take advantage of it? Isn't part of an individual's responsibility to remain marketable? The blacksmith example highlights quite accurately what happens when our society evolves and old skills and crafts are no longer needed. The loss of blacksmith jobs never crippled any towns or cities and that was what we were speaking. Again the scale of the effect is irrelevant. The principle is the same. When jobs become obsolete, people must learn new current skills. At the same time newer skills open up as a result of advancing technology. People need to keep up with the trends so that the skills they posses are not obsolete. That's one of the reasons why I still live where I do. I was once contemplating a move to both Florida and North Carolina. But the lack of .diverse skilled jobs and much lower pay scales pretty much nixed that move. Lack of diverse skilled jobs? Excuse me, I should have said diverse high .paying skilled jobs. When was the last time you checked the stats? Florida has led the country in adding new jobs and has not felt the inflation the country has felt the last so many years. The pay here was always offset by the lower cost of living. All that sounds fine and all, but the long and short of it is that for the field that I am in, the salaries offered were between 20 and 40% lower than they are here. The employers there (And I interviewed with quite a few) once they find out where you're from, tell you right up front not to expect a comparable salary. Ok,,in the same manner you claimed one who lived in another state could not tell you about Pa, what makes you feel you can tell a lifelong resident of another state about their state? Because I did some extensive research So did Shark on your laws, Says you. I saw no evidence of that. But please stay focussed. but you stil claimed because one lived somewhere else, they cold not know the particulars as well as one who resided there. Which is true in most cases. when I was considering the move there 15 years ago. 15 years ago was another era in Fl. Things have changed that much? Ok, I'll take your word for it, since you live there. I walked into a K-Mart and compared prices of the things that I normally buy with what I pay up here. My wife was especially knowledgable about clothing prices. It's not a myth, Dave. There is no state income tax and prices have always been lower in Fl,,until recently (last 10 years). Slightly lower in specific cases, like locally produced goods like fruit and other food. *Yes, there are certain costs which are lower in Florida. The homestead exemption saves a bundle on property tax. Homes are (were) cheaper. There is no state tax, and utilities are somewhat lower. Utilites are higher, especially electric, as the majority of homes do not have gas. Actually, when I was checking, I was currently paying 15 cents per kilowatt hour. In Florida (In Brevard County), the rate was about 8 cents per kilowatt hour. Water rates varied depending on whether you had "city" water or a privately owned "utility", but they were cheaper by and large than what I paid up here. What do you refer to as a privately owned utility? You either have city, county, or well water. I have city -and- a well. Wells were usually used to water the grass. The new homes I was looking at all had one. What I meant by a privately owned utility was a utility that was built by the housing developer to provide water to their developments. It's not owned or operated by the city, it is a private entity. I understand that after a certain number of years passed many of these private utilities were sold to the city. Heat was not an issue as most homes used efficient heat pumps, which spent most of their times as air conditioners. With insulation ratings of R34 in most new homes, the cooling costs offset the normal eastern PA winter heating cost by a considerable margin. Gas was only recently introduced as a choice for heating and cooking, and even in most cities, it has to be trucked in (propane). I prefer electric for cooking (When I'm not grilling). Not me. I hate it, but until we get gas lines, I'm not paying for propane. Personal choice I guess. I grew up with electric appliances, so that's what I'm used to. And heating in Florida is not normally an issue, as you know. A couple of logs on the fireplace will take the chill off on those few chilly mornings. Depends where you live. The top of the state, even from Ocala northward use their heat all winter every winter. 30's is a bit chilly and a fireplace can't heat the entire house. I was in Central Florida (Brevard), and was told that heat was a rarity for about a three week span in January. *Yes, many costs ARE lower to an extent. But if you try to buy something like a car, gasoline, or a major appliance or consumer good, the cost is pretty mush the same as it is in any other state. Again,,nope. Autos are not only in better condition (speaking of used, of course) but new cars are somewhat cheaper here, so are most manufactured goods. Not according to what I found. I didn't bother with used car pricing because there is a certain amount of subjective perception. (shrug) I go by NADA or edmunds.com perceptions, as does the auto industry. Check resale and trade-in values. But the MSRP of new cars there was the same (or very close) as what I see up here. Sure, no one pays MSRP, but the degree of discount is not going to be any more significant there than here. Gasoline was actually more expensive back then than up here. What do you pay for gas now? Last week, I paid $1.94/gallon * Last week I paid 1.94 also. This week it's 2.03 but I haven't checked gasbuddy.com in a few weeks. I'm up to $2.04 as of today. But that just goes to show that there isn't enough of a difference in most consumer costs in Florida to justify a 30% reduction in salary. *The exceptions are the tourist areas and coastal regions that are developed. I can get a gallon of milk for 3 bucks here. I can get a gallon of milk in Chiefland for 2.29. this is the norm, not the exception. I can do the same up here. Orange Juice is $2.00 a half gallon (for the "Not from concentrate" stuff). That's something I would expect to be much cheaper in Florida. It is, bit not in the stores. Go to the stands or groves. And it's better there too. There's nothing tastier than a fresh from the grove Florida Orange juice. We have vegetable stands too. Obviously we can't grow citrus fruits, but we do tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, lettuce and most common produce. And it's cheaper than the stores usually too. Dave "Sandbagger" |
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#3
June 16th 05, 10:04 PM
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From: (Dave=A0Hall)
On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 16:37:58 -0400, (I AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote: From: (Dave=A0Hall) On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 11:29:46 -0400, (I AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote: David T. Hall (N3CVJ) wrote: The number of those without health care (seniors included) far outnumber those healthy workers who get laid off. Most companies who employ skilled workers, have some form of healthcare coverage as part of their benefits package. I've never had a job without it. Your personal situation is irrelevant to the majority. Not really. Most people who are in full time gainfully employed jobs have some form of health care coverage. Unless you're a part time worker, chances are you have some coverage. Each year (for the last 4 years) the number of part-time workers has increased as the number of those laid off has increased. A growing trend has been major employers hiring at 32 hours or less to avoid offering health care benefits. There are laws to discourage this practice. Bull****. Any company can fill their positions with ft or pt employees. There is no law that claims copanies must offer ft work. You are right. But wasn't there some provision that stated that if a "part time" worker works consistently more than 32 hours that they become considered full time? =A0 That's a hell of a way of merely saying jobs that require more than 32 hours per week are considered full time. =A0Just as there are laws to prevent an employer from paying you a "Salary" instead of an hourly rate to avoid paying overtime. Look into the federal wage and hour laws. There is nothing that prevents management from working longer hours when they are salaried and their job requires it. =A0 I have to abide by the laws you speak of but it seems you are not familiar with them. Another easy way to avoid offering benefits is to hire people as independent cotractors, from laborers to clerical..this is very common in Fl. It also negates the need for federal withholding, placing the burden on the worker with a 10-99. Independent contractors are common here too. I know many professionals who actually prefer working this way. My company hires contractors for special projects. For the company it's a win-win situation since, if they like the person and they do a good job, they have the option of hiring them on full time. If not, they can just let him go when his contract expires. But the thing is, the company usually pays much more for a contractor than they pay for a full time employee. They actually pay LESS since they don't have to pay for the contractor's health insurance and workman's comp insurance. When the cost does actually cost the company more, it is simply a deduction taken at tax time as a cost of doing business. The people who like contract work claim that they can make enough to easily pay their own medical coverage and still end up ahead of the game. The biggest downside is the uncertainty of finding consistent contracts. And many of them have been doing such work for twenty some years or longer. Many of these people work through an agency to help them find contract jobs. The downside to that though is that the agency takes a "cut" of what a company would otherwise pay you. Not true in the medical field at all. I have a good friend who is a respiratory therapist. He has been working with a medical agency since 1989 that specializes in 12-52 week contract assignments. He goes all over the country and his apartment/house is always paid for, he often gets to choose his own place to live or he can accept a stipend of usually around 1000-1200 per month. He makes up to 32 bucks an hour, no less than 26 an hour, depending on specialty floors he works and geographical areas. His agencies receive a flat fee from the hospitals or they charge the ospital two bucks more on the hour than he actually makes per hour. This is not money that the company would otherwise pay him, as these contract workers would never make that hourly wage working for a hospital directly. On the other hand, some of these agencies will pick up medical coverage, and you end up becoming an employee of the contract agency. There are many variations. The medical agencies are standard. They all are covered under health insurance, but the worker often must contribute, as the agency covers only a portion of the insurance cost. =A0Resumption of healthcare coverage is tied to the laid-off worker's need to find another job. So what happens in between when on needs prescription medication? When one is laid off from their job and offered the mandated COBRA, the cost is always greater than the original. Now, you have people who can not only pay their bills, but can't afford their medical covereage. What is your solution? No one said that life would always be easy. If you don't have a solution, say so, but saying resumption of healthcare is tied to finding another job goes without say. Problem is, the jobs do not exist..check your stats from the feds. Last month, the feds fell short of 100,000 jobs they expected to add to the stats of added jobs for the month. On the other hand, the federal unemployment rate is around 5.1%. Even if that number under represents the total number of unemployed people, and it's really 10%, that also means that 90% of eligible people are working. =A0 That is not what those statistics mean, but I'll play devil's advocate for a second...the stats don't mean squat when those certain areas are hotbeds of layoff activities, such as the example you gave with your small towns no one ever heard of outside of Pa with the exception of Allentown. =A0Try growing up during the great depression in the 30's as my parents did, and then tell me what hardship is. How are your parents any different from any other of our parents who did the same thing? They're different in that they understood the hardship and got through it without screaming for the government to bale them out. And you just naturally assumed these traits were inherent only to your parents. Interesting. What we are going through today is a walk in the park compared to back then. When I was a kid, all I would hear were stories of how people did "this and that" to get by. You've probably heard the stereotypical stories of people walking to school with ratty shoes full of holes in the snow. Uphill,,,both ways. And they were glad! Except that these were true. I guess my perspective is a bit different than yours. To me, the examples you've given are a speed bump compared to life during the depression. Except you weren't there and did not experience anything remotely associated with such a hardship as that. Not directly no. But when the family would talk about it seemingly endlessly when I was a kid, you'd swear they were reliving it. - That way, no one layoff can cripple a significant portion of the population. Depends what you consider a significant portion of the population. I can think of several examples..Reagan importing cheaper metals from the Asians decimated the steel industry in Pa and Ohio. I live within an easy drive of 4 different steel plants. The towns that surrounded them were dependant on those mills for the majority of their income. Not one of those small towns you mentioned were major steel producing towns. In fact, those towns are obscure to all but those who live near them, except for Allentown, and that was made famous by Billy Joel. But the problem was very real to those who lived there. As is today, even with you pointing to what you feel is an aceptable and positive unemployment rate to undermine those who were laid off. Phoenixville was especially hard hit when not only the steel mill closed, but the Firestone tire plant closed, and the Budd Company (Made truck and train bodies) closed as well. But today, the town is doing alright. A whole new host of tech and office type jobs opened up. But 20 years later and things have pretty much recovered. People can get pretty creative when they need to be. Recovered from what? You said it couldn't happen, but by invoking the fact they recovered, you unwittingly admit the towns were indeed crippled from such layoffs.. Only temporarily. It happened. An entire generation came of age and went during that "temporary" era you refer. .20 years is a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. Not when those are the years one is growing up in such a town. Recovery started sooner than that. Not in the majority of US Steel towns it didn't. It took 20 years to finally raze the old buildings. That's the whole point. Life goes on. People adapt and adjust. Allow them to do that, give them a few tools to help them, and they will solve their own problem. Except many cities did not recover. Most did, and still do. No, most did not recover for over an entire generation coming of age. Again, I direct you to the real steel cities, not some small industry town that has a single mill or so. If not, people always have the option to move. No, that option is not always available for people. We don't need the government mollycoddling us and indoctrinating us into becoming dependant on them. Asking for health care from those who are charged with regulating it when they have the best care available and toss our cash away like ****ing in the wind and give away health care to the very same people you say are trying to kill us and wage war and terror on us, is not mollycoddling. Kind of difficult to explain your position when you suport these leaders who "mollycoddle" with healthcare those you repeatedly insist are our enemy and hate us and want us dead. I'm not so sure how true it is that we are giving free healthcare to all Iraqi's. Only you said "All" Iraqis. That was a rumor started by a liberal rag, based on war related casualties. That doesn't mean that every sick person in Iraq gets free healthcare at our expense. That's exactly what is happening, Dave. Instead of knee-jerk reactional blames from you, try a little investigation and reading. ANY Iraqi can walk up to the military and ask for health care and recieve it, to some extent. I'm not talking about an MRI, I'm talking about antibiotics, treatment for wounds, injuries, etc., whether "war" related or not. If the government provided all of us healthcare, it would cost a huge sum. It would be a fraction compared to what the war is costing. Just the medicare prescription benefit that Bush signed in (And I strongly opposed) is a huge adder to the deficit. A deficit created and made deeper daily by the war on thee wrong people. That sucking sound could have been avoided if only Bush would have been honest. To cover every American, it would require a sizable increase in taxes. Bull****. The war in Iraq cost much more than it would cost to subsidize every living American. I already have good coverage, and it costs me less than the tax increase to cover the .government's plan. So why should I favor it? That's the "As long as I got mine" attitude that put this country in the financial pit it is become. It's nothing more than socialism. And socialized medicine is long overdue. Taking from those according to their means, to give to those according to their needs. It's not taking, Dave. It's fixing the system with the cash they already have as opposed to ****ing it away waging war in some foreign land that never attacked us or was even a diect threat. And when the government is paying the bill, those "needs" will increase exponentially. Sort of like the war. People are waking up though, as Bush had his extension of a portion of the (un)Patriot Act rightfully defeated yesterday and he threw his usual baby tantrum and threatened to start vetoing other things. There is a certain segment of the population that like to take advantage of as much free money as they can get. And when you stop equating medical care with giving away things, you may begin to understand each. |
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#4
June 16th 05, 10:21 PM
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David Hall Jr. (N3CVJ) wrote:
Yes, as we continue to become more efficient at manufacture, Whaaaa? Manufacturing is DOWN, not becoming more efficient. .Down in this country. Where it matters most. It's growing strong in other places where it is cheaper (Hence more efficient) to manufacture things. Yea, but that isn't "we". "We" is,,,,er,,,are the USA! "We" still own many of the companies and still manage the operations overseas. Nope, "we" the people don't own ****..you are speaking of a very select and elite group of private investors who do not by any means make up "we" or represent the majority of the people in the US. That employs people. Sure,,overseas. True, it requires a more advanced management skillset, but the jobs usually pay better too. =A0 Ummm....no, that's why these manufacturing jobs are sent overeeas, because they are cheaper. The automobile pretty much ended the demand for blacksmiths. =A0But we shouldn't blame the automobile for causing the demise of the blacksmith industry. The smart blacksmith went back to school and learned to repair cars. Blacksmiths were never a large industry and the position was never one of those that most in a city were employed, rendering the example fruitless and non-related. .It's very much related. A particular vocation doesn't have to be large to be relevant. It does to be compared to an entire industry such as the steel industry of which we were speaking. The principle is the same, regardless of the size of the industry. When technology allows the reduction of manual labor, or the obsolescence of a particular vocation, and a savings in costs, should we not take advantage of it? Isn't part of an individual's responsibility to remain marketable? The blacksmith example highlights quite accurately what happens when our society evolves and old skills and crafts are no longer needed. The loss of blacksmith jobs never crippled any towns or cities and that was what we were speaking. Again the scale of the effect is irrelevant. It's very relevant in relation to the economic health of a town, city, or vocation. The principle is the same. When jobs become obsolete, people must learn new current skills. At the same time newer skills open up as a result of advancing technology. People need to keep up with the trends so that the skills they posses are not obsolete. That's one of the reasons why I still live where I do. I was once contemplating a move to both Florida and North Carolina. But the lack of .diverse skilled jobs and much lower pay scales pretty much nixed that move. Lack of diverse skilled jobs? Excuse me, I should have said diverse high .paying skilled jobs. When was the last time you checked the stats? Florida has led the country in adding new jobs and has not felt the inflation the country has felt the last so many years. The pay here was always offset by the lower cost of living. All that sounds fine and all, but the long and short of it is that for the field that I am in, the salaries offered were between 20 and 40% lower than they are here. The employers there (And I interviewed with quite a few) once they find out where you're from, tell you right up front not to expect a comparable salary. Ok,,in the same manner you claimed one who lived in another state could not tell you about Pa, what makes you feel you can tell a lifelong resident of another state about their state? Because I did some extensive research So did Shark on your laws, Says you. No, says Shark. I saw no evidence of that. So it comes down to your personal core beliefs of when to selectively apply your rules. But please stay focussed. but you stil claimed because one lived somewhere else, they cold not know the particulars as well as one who resided there. Which is true in most cases. Except in yours, of course, when I was considering the move there 15 years ago. 15 years ago was another era in Fl. Things have changed that much? Ok, I'll take your word for it, since you live there. I walked into a K-Mart and compared prices of the things that I normally buy with what I pay up here. My wife was especially knowledgable about clothing prices. It's not a myth, Dave. There is no state income tax and prices have always been lower in Fl,,until recently (last 10 years). Slightly lower in specific cases, like locally produced goods like fruit and other food. =A0Yes, there are certain costs which are lower in Florida. The homestead exemption saves a bundle on property tax. Homes are (were) cheaper. No more. There is no state tax, and utilities are somewhat lower. Utilites are higher, especially electric, as the majority of homes do not have gas. Actually, when I was checking, I was currently paying 15 cents per kilowatt hour. In Florida ( In Brevard County), the rate was about 8 cents per kilowatt hour. Water rates varied depending on whether you had "city" water or a privately owned "utility", but they were cheaper by and large than what I paid up here. What do you refer to as a privately owned utility? You either have city, county, or well water. I have city -and- a well. Wells were usually used to water the grass. And for agriculture, animals, drinking, bathing, etc. The new homes I was looking at all had one. Oh, THOSE type wells are into the water table just below the surface,,that's sulphur water and as you say, used just for grass watering. What I meant by a privately owned utility was a utility that was built by the housing developer to provide water to their developments. It's not owned or operated by the city, it is a private entity. I understand that after a certain number of years passed many of these private utilities were sold to the city. I'm not aware of any such utility being built by home developers here. Heat was not an issue as most homes used efficient heat pumps, which spent most of their times as air conditioners. With insulation ratings of R34 in most new homes, the cooling costs offset the normal eastern PA winter heating cost by a considerable margin. Gas was only recently introduced as a choice for heating and cooking, and even in most cities, it has to be trucked in (propane). I prefer electric for cooking (When I'm not grilling). Not me. I hate it, but until we get gas lines, I'm not paying for propane. Personal choice I guess. I grew up with electric appliances, so that's what I'm used to. =A0=A0And heating in Florida is not normally an issue, as you know. A couple of logs on the fireplace will take the chill off on those few chilly mornings. Depends where you live. The top of the state, even from Ocala northward use their heat all winter every winter. 30's is a bit chilly and a fireplace can't heat the entire house. I was in Central Florida (Brevard), and was told that heat was a rarity for about a three week span in January. Yea,,,that would be about right, but it damn right gets cold in the winter time, now. Never used to, but it does. =A0Yes, many costs ARE lower to an extent. But if you try to buy something like a car, gasoline, or a major appliance or consumer good, the cost is pretty mush the same as it is in any other state. =A0 =A0Again,,nope. Autos are not only in better condition (speaking of used, of course) but new cars are somewhat cheaper here, so are most manufactured goods. Not according to what I found. I didn't bother with used car pricing because there is a certain amount of subjective perception. (shrug) I go by NADA or edmunds.com perceptions, as does the auto industry. Check resale and trade-in values. But the MSRP of new cars there was the same (or very close) as what I see up here. I still say they are cheaper here. I've seen the SUV prices in the north and they are higher. That's why when you check out a major car maker's site on the net, they need to put in your zip code for pricing. Sure, no one pays MSRP, but the degree of discount is not going to be any more significant there than here. And Georgia is even cheaper. Gasoline was actually more expensive back then than up here. What do you pay for gas now? Last week, I paid $1.94/gallon =A0 Last week I paid 1.94 also. This week it's 2.03 but I haven't checked gasbuddy.com in a few weeks. I'm up to $2.04 as of today. But that just goes to show that there isn't enough of a difference in most consumer costs in Florida to justify a 30% reduction in salary. I disagree. Quality of life is much better, at least for me. I would trade for the weather...I need to see the sun daily. _ =A0The exceptions are the tourist areas and coastal regions that are developed. I can get a gallon of milk for 3 bucks here. I can get a gallon of milk in Chiefland for 2.29. this is the norm, not the exception. I can do the same up here. Orange Juice is $2.00 a half gallon (for the "Not from concentrate" stuff). That's something I would expect to be much cheaper in Florida. It is, bit not in the stores. Go to the stands or groves. And it's better there too. There's nothing tastier than a fresh from the grove Florida Orange juice. We have vegetable stands too. Obviously we can't grow citrus fruits, but we do tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, lettuce and most common produce. And it's cheaper than the stores usually too. Stores rape us on the prices for citrus. Dave "Sandbagger" |
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