Living in the Land of Hardship

Yeah, so all of our saving have been depleted. Emily is still looking for a job, and I still have no full-time employment. Lots of fun. But wait, it gets better, I did some calculations and I figured that to live the lifestyle we have been (which is not extravagant in the least) I would need to have a job that pays $31.25/hr. This figures seems unattainable. If we both had jobs we would only need jobs that pay like$15/hr or so, more realistically for me but not so much for Emily. Honestly, I'm not sure about this being possible either. This would bring in enough money to pay all our credit card bills, utilities, housing, food, etc. Of course if we wanted to get ahead, we'd have to make more. The not so bad news is that if I combine possible earnings from Primerica, then I wouldn't have to earn as much (tax reasons). Plus on Monday I'm meeting with a possible client, which could lead to doing some business and getting referrals and moving my business forward. So the future seems very bleak, but not without any light, so far anyways.

On the world front I've come across some crazy stories. One was about a Casino implementing rules where waitress or bartenders who gain more than 7% of their body weight could be fired. How ridiculous is that? On a scarier note, Bush passed legislation stating that any class action lawsuit seeking more than $5 million will be tried in the federal courts, which are less friendly towards such cases. The item not mentioned in this article but was mentioned in MPR, is that in the federal courts, when they try these cases for plaintiffs in multiple states, and the state laws don't match up in regards to the severity of the "crime," the case just gets thrown out. Think about that. This gives large corporations the chance to do whatever they want to their products or services with little legal recourse for the consumer. And I always thought that government was supposed to protect the consumer from big business, not the other way around. Go figure.