CUMMINS: Are you better off now than you were?

March 22, 2008 11:00 pm

— Don’t know about you, but I’m worse. There’re about 13 factors underlying the deterioration of my status. In addressing three, the first is the rapid aging process, which causes all of us to end up dead. The second is that my financial resources are flowing down a drain faster than President Bush can say, “It’s bad, but not that bad.” The third is, my tech-skill IQ is bordering the moron level.
Let’s examine the first factor — finality — and get it over with. Thanks to modern medicine, we live longer, which prolongs experiencing the rest-in-peace moment. However, longevity costs money, so let’s move on to the rotten economy, which is suffering from a condition similar to the Alzheimer’s effect.
It’s like we’ve forgotten everything we ever knew about dollars and sense. Put it on my credit card. Buy-now-and-pay later. Take out an ARM. If the adjustable (meaning up) rate mortgage on your home fails, the government will bail you out. But who’s going to bail the government out, Saudi Arabia? Spending money before having at least part of it works if most other aspects of the economy are sound. Better off? Yes, if it weren’t for inflation, recession, the trade deficit and a dollar weaker than a bank stock. The fed should prop up the weak dollar, but who’s going to prop up the wimps in Washington?
I can’t go back to work, because I can’t fill a gas tank. The OPEC oil sheiks, not exactly admirers of the American way, have to be amused at how we’ve become totally at their mercy. Wait and see, $4.09 in big, bold numbers.
I quit work because the government said they’d send a monthly check, cure my ills and protect my shore. They do and the check pays for my food, but it would taste better under a roof. However, they’re dipping into the older folk’s security funds to pay for wars, pork and bailing out the banks. The federal government should be indicted on a rape charge.
To make a long doom-story short, if we continue following the current course, our national indebtedness, when adding in Medicare and Social Security shortfalls, would calculate to about $450,000 for each American family. Since 2000, our federal budget has increased 72 percent from $1.8 to $3.1 trillion. At that rate, we’ll hit $50 trillion in a few years unless Washington learns “cutting” is not a sin. After increasing my budget last year by 2 percent, I ran into a shortfall. My dollars get weaker thinking about it, so lets skip the first two death factors and analyze the third.
If the economy gets better, I’ll buy an iPod. I can then instantaneously update the latest developments impacting my shaky existence. I could also take pictures of my grandson and hyperlink them to YouTube, which I intend browsing someday. Then I’ll be in touch with modern culture.
Growing up in a modern culture back in simpler times, I had the necessities — food, water, shelter, breathable air, and oranges at Christmas. I didn’t need a laptop, cellphone, Blackberry, DVD player or a flat-screen digital TV. To compete today, a kid should carry a backpack full of all these gadgets. They are as essential today as was the book, paper and pencil back in my day. To start school, Mom bought me a writing tablet, a couple pencils and two new pairs of overalls. A decent standard of living back then didn’t require a house with an entertainment wing.
To maintain an acceptable standard of living now costs an arm and both and both legs. And human relations interfere with Internet time. You can’t get anybody’s attention. Try talking to a person who’s on a text-message roll. Normal conversations with another human being are a thing of the past. I prefer the old look-em-in-the-eye method. People I try talking with now are usually squinting at a tiny screen or have something hanging around their ear. And another thing, I don’t want cellphones chiming at my funeral.
One of the first things a twilight person loses is recall. I could function in the tech sphere if not being responsible for remembering a slew of “passwords.” When the time comes to knock on the pearly gates, I’m doomed. I can see it now — angels hovering over an electronic message board. Instructions moving across the screen; “Enter your password.”
Terry Cummins is an optimistic skeptic. Contact at TLCTLC@AOL.com.

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