Inflation

Once upon a time, my wife and I were members of the middle class...then came the economic meltdown of late 2008.  Since then, we've been barely ekeing  by with less than half what were making prior to October 2008.  Only at the beginning of this year was I able to find full-time work.  My wife yet has...to obtain a job that will give her more than 40 hours a week.  Karen-Anne  Shiver has an excellent desciption of just what inflation means.

Inflation stalks like a thief in the night, filling the nightmares of homemakers and breadwinners alike.


Inflation is the invisible beast that steals the long-awaited raise before it has a chance to hit the bank account.

Inflation is the disease that ravages the arduously saved dollars of decades.

Inflation is the bandit that steals from the poor while hardly ever even noticed by the likes of the politicians who guilefully prod its crime spree.

Inflation is the monster who gobbles up the goodies of responsible citizens no matter their station.

So, when Obama and Bernanke and all the Fed gurus like Mr. Dudley put their little heads together and formulate a monetary policy, it would really be nice if they remembered — just once — that while the iPads and the Guccis and the golf clubs they love so much are simply wonderful if they cost a little less, the rest of us do have to worry about the rising cost of our groceries and our gas.

In our world, the necessities of life don’t get paid for with other people’s money.

We in the middle class pay the most taxes and fuel the government engine.

It would be nice if we weren’t told to eat our iPads when we notice that our government has set out to deflate the middle class.

But the most telling part is this:

ObamaCare alone has caused a nearly 40% hike in insurance premiums for individual policies such as the one my self-employed husband and I have. The Democrats’ save-the-deadbeats credit card law caused an immediate rise in interest rates for us always-pay-on-time consumers to cover the cost of the mandated write-offs.

The company I work for...offers a great insurance plan, that doubled in cost on January 1...from $248 per month to over $526.  Think about just how much of a pay check that eats up when you make $17 hour.  Now with a huge increase in both food and gas costs, our barely getting by has placed us back in the "oh shit, how are we going to pay for..." category.  Thanks a lot Washington.