[VERY OT] Is everybody here over 35? If not, do you know what Usenet is?

Its been a while but this sounds similar to what I've had a few times. My ISP's tech support has been pretty good and it turned out that they block Usenet access to IP address's that are out of their range. Of course that range can change over time and the filter gets out of sync.

If that doesn't ring any bells with them, try unplugging the DSL modem for a bit to see if it gets a new IP address that works.

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    Gerald Bonnstetter
    Bonnsoft - Computer Programming and Software Repair
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Gerald Bonnstetter
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Through church we sometimes get to know people who have a tough time. Food is usually not their #1 worry. Medical services often are. They are receiving rather generous help through the food bank which, in part, is financed by extra donations after worship and people give quite freely. I know, because sometimes I am the guy holding that basket and more than once it wasn't large enough. And no, people asking for hand-outs do not need to be Lutheran, or Christians at all.

From knowing people in such situations I have to re-state what I said, often they could get by if they would prioritize correctly. Your statements suggest that you also know several such folks. Ask them what they pay for:

a. Cable/Satellite TV b. Car payments c. Other payments (credit cards, new TV, appliances etc.) d. Gym memberships e. Cell phones f. Cigarettes/beer

Then ask:

g. Did they ever _write_ _down_ where their money goes?

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Regards, Joerg

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Reply to
Joerg

For the people I know, their priority list breaks down like this:

  1. Place to live. They will never have the money for a deposit on a rental (studio apartments start at 00/mo in my area) so they live in short-term places with week-by-week payments.
1a. Transportation to work. Usually subway, bus, etc.
  1. "Stuff" for kids. "Stuff" is food, medical, books, school fees, all the miscellaneous things kids require.
  2. Food for adults in household.
  3. Pay-as-you-go cellphone because they can't afford the deposit on a landline (if they even have a place to install one) or a normal cellphone contract.

Cable TV? Gym memberships? Not even on the over-the-horizon radar. Car payment? Not possible because in NYC insurance easily costs $200/month for liability only, or even more for people in risk categories.

Maybe poverty is kinder wherever you live.

Reply to
larwe

Then my first order of action in their case would be quite clear: Get the hell outta there. High rent areas are rarely justified by potential job prospects. Most definitely not in the low wage ranges. Even if they make a buck more per hour they will always be way behind folks in similar situations outside large cities.

BTW the same goes for highly paid folks like engineers. I have met people (in NYC) who sold their home when the taxman slapped them with another xx% property taxes. Which already were outrageous to begin with. So they are back to being renters :-(

Out here (California) families with kids can receive pretty generous welfare.

You guys don't haeve a food bank?

Ouch! I'd have to look but mine is around $60/mo and has full coverage, all of it, the works. So, this just reinforces it: They should get out of that area. And fast. Seems like you can only comfortably live there if your family name is something like Rockefeller.

Probably, but this ain't a super high cost metropolitan area. Where I'd never want to live in the first place.

Out here, too often I see cases where people don't have the 30 bucks for a cab back from hospital for mom while sitting in front of an expensive big screen TV. I just don't get it. Totally messed up priorities, very sad.

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Regards, Joerg

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Joerg

l

Well, sure - I want to get out myself (I need to live somewhere where the night sky has stars, not f#$king sodium and mercury lamplight reflecting off low-lying smog clouds).

Thinking of a couple of specific examples here with young children, what do you do if it is a constant struggle for you to make your $175 weekly rent, when there is literally no money left over at the end of the week? Where do you get the money for the bus ticket, let alone the seed money you'll need to live while you find a job at your new location? Minimum-wage jobs like foodservice do not have a complex hiring process, and they don't keep a window open for anyone - you walk in and ask for work, if they have it you got it then and there. You don't call ahead and say "I'll be arriving in a month, will you have a guaranteed position?" because these employers turn over employees on a totally unpredictable basis depending on who got arrested for DUI or drugs or stabbing someone.

Many of these people are illegal immigrants who can't get a "real" job anyway.

And suppose your family lives close by and they at least offer free daycare so you can go to work while they mind your young child[ren]? How do you raise the money for daycare at the new location? I realize Jonathan Swift proposed a modest solution for this, but I for one am becoming semi-vegetarian so I don't like it too much.

There are dimensions to the problem I don't think you've fully explored.

Probably, but protip: that doesn't happen too often in NYC. Property taxes in the 5 boroughs are held artificially low (compared to, say, Long Island) by means of pillaging everyone through an additional city income tax. Just another reason I want to escape the organized gang- rape that is NYC.

Perhaps others feel, as I do, that living in a cardboard box and hunting rats for food would be preferable to moving to California ;)

Yeeeessss... I think it's not quite the same in an horrifically dense urban wasteland like NYC. Seems that big cities concentrate needy people much more efficiently than they concentrate people who are willing and able to donate. I'm not personally familiar with the options here, but it seems the people I know are only occasionally able to draw down on sources of this type.

I pay $220/mo for two cars (comprehensive) but that's because I have a spotless driving record (touch wood, not even a speeding or parking ticket), so does my wife, we've been with the same insurance company, claimless, for several years, and we have new cars that have many safety discounts AND are unpopular enough not to be theft targets.

When I first got my US drivers' license I was paying ***$800/mo*** for LIABILITY ONLY on a 20-year-old car.

d.

I have two old CRT TVs, one 21" monaural set I bought refurbed for $100 in 1999, and the other (27") I got for free one year for helping my brother-in-law buy a bigger TV set at a Black Friday sale :) However we don't watch any TV at all - both sets are connected to DVD players and other devices, which are rarely turned on anyway because we do practically everything on our laptops.

I used to live in a town supported almost entirely by welfare - your archetypical 10-to-a-room slums - and every trash day I would see the Sony widescreen TV set boxes in the recycle pile, so I know exactly what you mean.

Reply to
larwe

I find it interesting when people in the USA talk about poverty. I remember watching an Opera show where she discussed poverty. AFAICR the bread line income stated was something like US$ 35000 per year for a household. For most people in Africa, this amount is never earned in a lifetime. AFAICR the minimu wage in South Africa in the countryside (higher in cities) is in the order of US$40 a month. I have a friend who has traveled alone all over the world, venturing in the most remote places one could imagine. During a discussion one evening he told me that from his traveling experience, he believes that the USA is probably the worst country in the world to be poor in. He said in any other country in the world, one could sleep on a park bench or doorway without being harassed. In the USA if he sat down on a bench for more than 15 minutes, the police would stop, and ask him in no uncertain terms to move on.

Regards Anton Erasmus

Reply to
Anton Erasmus

Typical journalist's . I live here and can assure you that none of this is true. Unless the guy sitting on the bench has a certain criminal history (child molestation etc.) that makes lingering in a particular area suspicious.

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Joerg

I don't know where that number came from. The Federal government publishes an official table of poverty thresholds [note this is NOT the same thing as the poverty guidelines] - it is a sliding scale according to the household size. The guidelines, not thresholds, are higher in AK and HI due to the higher cost of absolutely everything in HI, and [I think] the higher heating costs required in AK.

Anyway, as you can see, for someone living in the lower 48, in order to have a $35k poverty level you'd need to have an eight-person family unit.

And in South Africa groceries for a family of three do not cost $150 a month (and that's really stretching a dollar, by the way, at least in major cities).

Yes, because of difficult access to services, no medical, etc.

This is nonsense. I guess you've never been to Manhattan in the evening to see people sleeping in doorways and subway stations (well, they're ejected from stations usually) and bus shelters. Plenty of homeless people sleep on the subways - a single fare is good for an all-night ride, and it's warm and dry.

Reply to
larwe

For the record: About 25 years ago I lived in the Netherlands, off campus because it was cheaper and less "academic". Monthly budget was

600 guilders/month, about $300 back then which is maybe $600 in today's Dollars. Never fell behind in rent or anything else, cooked my own meals fresh every day, mode of transportation was a 10-speed bicycle and on occasion a 16-horse car with a crank. Heck, sometimes I could even splurge and buy a case of Australian red wine. Later I worked on the side but saved much of that money. By the time I received my masters degree I had a nice savings account and could buy a decent car for my first job. I did have to be creative at times. For example, I got a discarded bar sign for one guilder which became the main lighting in my room. The TV set was found discarded on the street and repaired. And so on. Student loans to be paid back: Zero. Zilch. Nada.

It is possible.

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Regards, Joerg

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Joerg

That must have been Twente University then, the only campus uni in the netherlands. Also went there, also off campus, but that was 20 years ago. :-)

Things must have changed drastically in those 5 years. IIRC, I had about the same student income, but that was partly a loan. Still paying that back now (but only because of the ridicously low interest which makes it uneconomic to pay back faster).

Students today must lend more money and pay more realistic interest rates. Which is becoming a real problem for drop-outs, they are stuck with a huge loan and will not end up in high pay jobs.

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Stef

I did check out Twente but I was studying on the German side, at RWTH Aachen. Lived in Vaals on the Dutch side and I really liked it there. We could look down on all you guys because we proudly had the highest "mountain" in the Netherlands, at a whopping 322.5 meters :-)

They had huge tall buildings to house students but that never appealed to me. Plus it was cheaper living in NL.

Today's students all seem to "need" a car, fancy TVs, cell phones, MP3 players, powerful computers and all that. No wonder they blow through more money.

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Joerg

This guy usually travels for 4 to 6 months at a time. He takes one rucksack, so his clothes probably is not the cleanest and he has long hair. So after a few weeks he looks very much like the typical hippie Vietnam vet type character one sees in the movies. i.e. like a bum. The point is that he looks the same in other countries as well, and he is not harassed there.

Regards Anton Erasmus

Reply to
Anton Erasmus

Everything in South Africa, except labour is basically priced in dollars. If there is a shortage of Corn in the USA, prices go up here, even though there may be a surplus in South Africa. (Mielie pap - a porridge made from Corn flower is a staple in the poorer areas) If one typically look at the dollar prices for goods in the USA, and look at similar things in South Africa, then it is VERY seldom that things are cheaper here.

He started in New York, but got out of the city as quickly as possible, so I believe his experience is related more to the smaller towns than the cities.

Regards Anton Erasmus

Reply to
Anton Erasmus

But can a panhandler in another country besides Canada and England make $50-$300 per day?

Not quite right. There is medical care for everyone poor enough. A coworker of mine, without insurance, had a state-paid $250,000 bone marrow transplant.

The problem isn't poor people and lack of care, it's the $600+ month insurance and losing your house if you don't have insurance and you get some sort of catastrophic illness.

I wished we had some of those police in my town.

OTOH, I let the homeless sleep overnight in front of my building on rainy nights providing they follow two simple rules, put your empties in the trash and don't crap on the sidewalk...

Reply to
Jim Stewart

We've got a few guys looking like that here. I never saw the sheriff bother them at all. Except maybe on really cold winter days when they want to inform them about a warm-up shelter. That is necessary because some get so drunk that they fall asleep anywhere and never wake up.

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Regards, Joerg

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Joerg

Alaska has no sales or state income tax (actually, Sarah Palin is very popular there because she instituted reverse tax, i.e. payments to every Alaska resident from the oil leases, amounting to over $2k last year---talk about socialism :). On the other hand, everything costs a lot: $5 gas this summer, prices for groceries significantly higher than in the lower states even in large chain stores in large cities, and even higher in small stores in the country, where half of the 500,000 AK residents live.

--
		Przemek Klosowski, Ph.D.
Reply to
przemek klosowski

Well, what do you expect, when there is essentially no farming in Alaska, and everything has to be shipped in, and trudged to its destination by various methods, including dog teams. At the same time there are essentially no products (except for oil, which will eventually run-out, and military bases, which probably won't run-out).

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 [mail]: Chuck F (cbfalconer at maineline dot net) 
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CBFalconer

On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 04:21:56 -0800, Stef wrote (in article ):

snip

Universities are charging much more today simply because they can. Everyone thinks they need to go to college.

I would do it differently looking back (who wouldn't?). I graduated in '77, physics. I should have stayed in military aviation and let them pay for college and grad school. Or gone merchant marine and invested 3/4 of my income. All the companies I liked then, HP, Apple, GE, etc. did very well. Instead I worked for them and most of my early earnings went to pay debts and insane Silicon Valley rent and other living expenses. Investing during your youth is what really pays off. Being surrounded by my fellow dweebs and running with startups was exciting, but nearly all startups fail.

Put it this way, if I had gone merchant marine I would be making $150,000 to $200,000 a year with a 6 week on 6 week off schedule today. With that and just a little financial acumen, retire rich at 45 and go to college for fun. Build airplanes for a hobby, which can be pretty nice when you have half the year free in six week chunks. Even better when you retire. I'm rambling, but a Vans RV8 can be less than a four month job if you have the tools and some experience.

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-- Charlie Springer

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Charlie Springer

On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 16:35:45 -0800, CBFalconer wrote (in article ):

There are so many Sarah Palin stories! I think the oil money has been paid out since before she was born. I have friends in Alaska and they have been getting their natural resources checks for the last 20 or 30 years IIRC.

I wouldn't call it socialism. What would you call it if it went right into the tax base and was spent on everyone's behalf by government?

SE Alaska grows record sized veggies. They have a lot of daylight in the summer. Fantastic salmon fishing. Small halibut are called "chickens" and big ones with 300 pounds of meat are like a beef critter. Don't forget the delicious moose tissue with Spotted Owl sauce. You can grease your bearings with seal blubber but the dogs will chew at your tires.

Biggest drawback? In the spring about six months of dog crap all thaws out at once.

-- Charlie Springer

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Charlie Springer

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