Well, being retired and comfortable for now, my only comment is that the people in their 20’s – 50″s need to figure out that regardless what they think, they are the ones that are paying for everything. Our outstanding Governor and legislature just increased our annual budget in Minnesota by 36%, figuring the tax base just created a $17B surplus, it will keep doing it, we might as well spend it than keep having to deal with surpluses. Corporations don’t pay taxes, their customers do, taxes is just an expense on the cost side of things. Tax credits are paid by every tax payer, regardless. High interest rates, they are nothing compared to when I bought my first house in 1982, I paid 14.5% then later refinanced when it hit 9.5%. Back then houses were build to reflect the interest rate, it was 920 square feet, split level. Today it seems the houses are well over 3000 square feet and become very unaffordable quickly as interest rates go up. Cities are not helping either as they demand new developments to be of a certain value. Print more money, the inflation rate goes up, the Feds respond by raising interest rates putting further strain on prices and the ability for the younger people to get ahead. They want more money, get it but now someone has to pay for this. UPS workers just settled their contract, good for them. Somewhere I read it’s a 50% increase over the new contract period. Guess who will pay for this, certainly not the companies shipping but the end user. My company quoted freight costs as FOB (Freight on Board) origin. This means the customer was responsible for picking up the freight charges from our factory. Like taxes, shipping is simply an expense on the balance sheet. Amazon prime jump up considerably in the last few years, you haven’t seen nothing yet as most of my packages are delivered via UPS. I hope the younger generations start realizing that we must get our financial house in order to allow them to prosper like we did 50 years ago. Of course some will definitely disagree but when the government spends more on interest on the debt than our military, nothing is free. Of course the other issue is that families are not having as many children anymore and it really puts the burden on the younger generations as spending is out of control.
