Well I just opened my National Fuel bill and I just about pooped my pants! $217........you'd think I was heating the entire block! Now granted my place is a large 2 bedroom apartment, but I am one person and I have kept my thermostat at 66-68 and I do not cook much and I do not yet have a washer and dryer! WOW! God forbid I should bake a cake or a casserole and my fuel bill will be $5000.00!
It is becoming quit obvious that gas, fuel and heating is becoming a LUXURY to those who are low-income. Perhaps I should put an add online....."single white female in need of a husband who can help subsidize her heating bill". Making a joke helps mitigate the REALITY of many people today that your $10 an hour just does not bring home the bacon anymore. I have tried to get to school for an LPN but the timing never seemed to be right not to mention the lack of funds because I was denied financial aid twice.
More and more low-income people are realizing how crappy things are and how increasingly more difficult things will become. And people wonder why you can't pull yourself up by your "bootstraps". Well this is why. I know if I try to get into a licensed pratical nursing program and go on to graduate I can start out making roughy $30,000 a year........a lot more than I am making now, but once again another shock.........the cost....$13,800. That is $3,800 more than it was in just 2007 when I inquired about the LPN program here in NW PA. That is almost a 40% jump in less than 3 years.
I have always had an interest in medicine and I have a head start because of my background. Fortunately I have many medical books on hand from my dad who is a retired M.D. so these reference books have served a wonder funtion to help me diagnose my own aliments. But today there is so much political interference in health care; the insurance companies and the government are telling the docs how to practice medicine and of course the skyrocketing malpractice premiums that these independent docs must pay. And now with socialized health care coming on board...........
I just recently saw a doc for terrible PMS symtoms that interfer with my life and he prescribed me an anti-depressant. I knew he was going to do that because these doctors are under beauracratic pressures to conform to the psychiatric "industry" and the FDA and these powerful pharmaceutical companies that cram these drugs down our necks. There is tons of money to be had with these pharmaceuticals and I have tried a more natural approach to my terrible PMS, but it has gotten worse. To be frank, probably one in five people is on an anti-depressant and is it any wonder why...........just look at the world we are living in! Everytime you turn on your television, you will no doubt see a pharmaceutical add telling you that you need this drug and that drug to cure your deficiencies. It's like Pharmacology 101. Are you depressed? Take our drug abilify. Do you have high blood pressure? Take low-pressor. Do you have rheumatoid arthritis? Take our drug. Can't get it up anymore? Take Viagra! You ever notice that it seems everybody has a deficiency (even if you do not think you have one) and the pharmaceutical companies have a drug for every single one. You bet, they are making billions and billions of dollars on these new drugs.
Well I am not the only one experiencing shock and awe. Another shock and awe..........the hugh earthquake that rattled Japan today. More are coming. Perhaps the New-Madrid fault will collapse and cause a massive quake that could trigger another large quake on the San Andreas fault line. You never know what could happen.
Read these books.........."Big Pharma" by Jackie Law
"Generation Debt" by Anya Kamenetz
"War on the middle class" by Lou Dobbs
"Maxed Out" by James Scurlock