3 EM 1 – 19/05/2022

In contrast to the March general Consumer Confidence Index of The Conference Board, which fell over 10% to the low levels last seen in Fall 2010, the affluent, who account for about half of all consumer spending, report a better outlook for the economy and their personal spending plans in a new Spring 2011 survey of the affluent market. Spending plans for all 17 products and services tracked by these twice-yearly surveys of the wealthiest 10% of US households are much stronger than in the Fall 2010 survey. There is also improvement in the plans to make major expenditures…

With the economic recovery supposedly in full bloom there is a large group of people who are being left out of the picture and they are the 50 and older crowd. We along with the baby boomers are the people who made many of the giant corporations what they are today. We are the people who many years ago corporations illegally let go just before we hit our required number of years worked to qualify for a pensions so they could make a few millions more in profit.

It is usually assumed that private enterprise will find efficient ways to do things and lower costs to the benefit of consumers and taxpayers. However, while privatization of basic public services may seem both financially and ideologically appealing, it may have undesirable consequences in the long term.

There was an interesting cartoon recently in our local newspaper, and the setting as a South Pacific Island beach endowed with palm trees, with a massive wave about to hit the shoreline. The wave was titled; “Entitlements” and on the beach as a bureaucrat or politician stacking up sand bags. His stack was just over his own height about five and a half feet I’d say.

In 1989 the British introduced the first stamp which was a “non-denominated” stamp, meaning a value was not printed on the face of the stamp. Instead, the stamp was sold at current prices, but could be used anytime for a particular service. The goal was to workaround the problem of rapidly-changing postal rates.