On the lighter Side:-Music

And you thought that I don’t like music. Well guess again. But instead of sticking with one genre I diversify myself and like music which clicks with me. It can be hip hop or rap, disco (from the old era) to rock and heavy metal (one of my favorites), Classical and kids music, if music is good to listen and to my ears I listen, I don’t discriminate among music genres.

So you say what I am listening now, it can the latest hits or I just browse around on the internet to listen to the oldies from yesteryears. Although I still don’t an IPOD or any other listening device to listen to my favorite music, I may in the future but for now I keep listening in the car or when I am on the internet. There are so many distractions in life now that it is hard to concentrate on the music alone if you are at home or somewhere else where your attention is distracted and diverted. But still I try to listen to it whenever I can. I will keep on talking about music in my later posts.

On the lighter Side:-Movies- Pineapple Express

An action comedy staring Seth Rogen who witnesses a drug dealer and a corrupt cop shoot a cop in cold blood and runs away from them. James Franco is his drug dealer buddy friend whom he drags along as they try to stay one step ahead of the cop and the drug dealers. Crude jokes and vulgar language mark this buddy movie with an explosive finale in a drug green house.

Jokes come and go and some are on target and some misfire, although it is a passable and stupidly violent movie, it is not that great as compared to the Superbad (which was made by the same people). I would not recommend it because of graphic language and violence for the kids; otherwise watch it at your own risk. It is a hit or miss movie

Recession and Deficit:-2

And the private sector people long time ago lost their pension plans or it were converted into private savings plans which are not guaranteed as they are subject to the vagaries of stock market and other things. All I am saying is that even with all the cuts and reduction in expenditure, if the deficit of the public service companies don’t come down then we will have to reduce other benefits and reduce salaries since we can’t keep on increasing fares and cutting services to a point where there is no use of these services. Times are hard and we will have to make sure that these essential services are to the benefit of the common people and not make a burden on them lest a vicious cycle starts which can be people will start car pool and find other means of transportation and in turn the rider ship on these transit services will plummet and then they will have to cut more services and raise more fares in order to provide the minimal essential services. Then the people who are using these services will have to pay much more making them think about alternatives and then the whole cycle starts again.

Recession and deficit:

Today the NJ transit announced that they will increase fare by 25 percent and cut jobs and services since they are in a huge deficit. I can’t understand one thing, every time there is a deficit, the prices go up. It is really a shame that when unemployment is high and people are looking for work and are scrapping for money, for most of them the only viable piece of transportation is getting very expensive. And the New York transit authority is also trying to raise fares because they also have a shortfall of funds.

My point is that why that is every time we are in a recession, the price of everything used by common people goes up. Many it is because everybody is demanding more of the same stuff or maybe in good times, the governments spend recklessly and lavishly and don’t save enough for a rainy day or may be because they don’t rein in costs and think that good times will never stop.

You know I am one of the persons who is sick and tired of doling out my dwindling income on things which we need the most because when we have surplus, usually raises of essential things don’t go down. It is only a one way street. I know that I will be cruel and heartless to say this but since we the private sector people don’t get pension benefits anymore why not reduce this thing from the public sector also. But now the people will say that since the private sector people get paid more they may not need the pension benefits. But not all of the private sector people get paid lavishly. Most of them are just surviving check by check.

Baby Boomers Dilemma

Read an interesting and sobering article today regarding the baby boomers job and health situation and it is an eye opener for anyone who is entering the golden age or who thinks he or she has enough for retirement. The article states that the baby bombers who lose a job in the fifties are having a hard time find a job since there are so many of them. Apart for this, their health care costs are also rising and it has made them realize that they should forget about the early retirement that they were thinking of. The article goes to say that these baby boomers (the ones who are approaching retirement in a few years from now) have lost so much income due to the shrinking stock market and their home equity and retirement funds that they are not likely to retire any time soon and besides the health care that they will need in their old age will overwhelm the economy as a whole.

The society has not been able to solve this health care problem and I believe it will be hard to solve it with more aged people and less workers to pay for all the health care bills. As I have said so many times in my previous posts that either we will have to reduce the entitlements that we expect to receive (like medicare, social security benefits, etc) or we will have to raise taxes very high to care for all our retirees. Other thing is that the young people should not wait for their 401K to support them during their retirement years since as they say in Finance a dollar today is worth more than what it is worth tomorrow. And who is to say that we will have lower taxes when (and if) we retire. So folks it is now up to the individual to take care of themselves since the government is already under pressure in so many fronts and the health care reform that is having so much time devoted to it will just merely postpone not reduce the high expenses.

The cost of Textbooks

Books have been becoming of late but the cost of textbooks has been skyrocketing like there is no end. Textbooks of all kinds are becoming expensive but the books for professional education like medical, engineering, law and business has become prohibitively expensive. This issue has been raised before but there was no resolution to it or no protest from anywhere. I guess the students have no choice but to buy these books. Even with the advent of the internet and the rent a book websites, it is still expensive to buy these textbooks because there is no competition and the prices are fixed even if you buy on the internet.

The poor student already burdened by high tuition and living costs have to spend enormous amounts of sum on even one text book which is outrageous. These same textbooks costs almost one fourth outside the United States. Since we the American Students are so rich that we have to buy these expensive books so that we can subside the poor students overseas. It is time to stop ripping off the American students and have the same price every where since we are not that rich enough considering that the average American student graduates with enormous amount of student loans in the first place.

Store brand vs. Name Brand-2

Here I just want to caution you that not every thing will have a store brand to it because obviously the store does not want to lose out customers who will prefer the name brand no matter what. You don’t see in the vegetable or the fruit section that they are store brands or some times the appliances section that they are made by the store. In the appliances case or in many other store brands, you will see a marking stating that it is distributed by the store; they rarely say that it is made by them. They just put their own store brand label on it and sometimes say compare to the name brand ingredients or something like that.

This trend of the store brand has become huge in terms of more and more stores (not just the grocery stores) are trying to have their exclusive brands (which can be called store brand) displays in their stores to show that they are the only ones selling them. These stores have teamed up with top designers to design stuff for less for their stores without cheapening the designers’ original work. And it has been working for them quite well in terms of the margin of profit. There is a subtle difference in the brands quality but apart for this if you are not into too much status quo you can still buy the store brand or lower quality brand and still be hip and also save money in the process.