03.25.2008 1:59 pm
Are you gloomy about the economy? What would perk you up?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
From the wires today comes this news:
American consumers are gloomier about the economy that at any point since just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as slumping housing prices and soaring fuel costs depress consumer confidence to its lowest level in five years.
What about you? Are you one of the Americans who is gloomy about the economy? What fuels that gloominess? What would make you less gloomy?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
Amazed–your state school cost how much…back in which decade? A few thousand a semester?
Today, a private college is $50,000 a year….Why should you give your kids 4 free years? And not much you can do with a Master’s Degree but waste another 2 years and $100,000.
If graduating around 27, they’ll have spent enough money to have purchased a $300,000 home free and clear with no mortgage payments–ever! How would you like to be in that position?
All you would have to worry about would be utilities $220/mo and food $400/month. Anybody can earn that much doing something they enjoy. And in 20 years the house would be worth upwards of $900,000.
Being “thrown out of the house at 18″ sounds down right mean. Your tots are only 3 and 6 right now, poor kids….you think that low of them now?
I’m chuckling at the image of go-fish’s kids being frog-marched out the door at age 18 with a bankbook in their pocket.
A couple other things about the financial aid rules as they exist today (and will certainly be worse 10 years from now, when fish’s kids are needing them).
If you have a joint savings account with your child, the system counts the money in that account as the PARENT’s asset. Same as with stock investments, etc. Using a state-defined plan helps, but even then, the money in the account is defined as a parent’s asset, not a child’s asset. Since in most states, a child cannot open a bank account in their own name until they are 16, even resetting the account to the child’s name alone at 16 won’t help: they look at the history.
Regardless, I’m pretty pessimistic about the economy. At best, I see my earned income staying constant or decreasing relative to inflation for the next 10 years. I’m worried that my retirement fund (a combination of 401K and an employer provided ‘cash balance’ pension), being entirely dependent on the stock market, could collapse at any time. I’m worried that my kids will have trouble finding employment that will pay them enough to live on.
hs and others….At no time did I say I was frog marching my children out the door at 18. They will be raised as if there isn’t a pile of money there for them to go to school on even though there should very well be a BIG pile.
I love this. I say it cost me a few thousand a year to attend a state school and ole Bill replies back that PRIVATE schools average about 50,000 a year. Then goes into a tirade about being in debt forever after attending a private school.
Bill, in about 5 minutes researching their sites, I found that SEMO will cost an undergrad 10-13 grand a year, Missouri State would be about 13 and Missouri a little less than 20. Granted there will be incidentals that would add to the overall cost, but I see AFFORDABLE educational opportunities in our great state of Missouri. Also, any able bodied 18-22 year old that can’t earn 5, 10, or 15 grand a year is a lazy bum or a spoiled brat.
Lunatic, our economy’s so bad now, there’s a lot of able-bodied, single parent families out there who can’t find jobs that pay more than $15,000 a year, let alone a teen. Communiy junior college is a struggle for them.You must live in a dream world.
Better stay in school a little longer then there fella. 15 grand a year is about 7.50 and hour for full time work. Delivering pizzas in college in 94-96 averaged me about 13 bucks an hour. In the summers as a landscaper, I usually averaged 12 an hour working for someone else and as much as 100 bucks an hour when I worked for myself. In one summer of 94, I made a little less than 17,000 by building retaining walls in West County subdivisions. 3 months of 12-14 hour days 6 sometimes 7 days a week and I was able to make enough to pay for a year and half of school. It can be done.
As long as you continue to make excuses, “the economy is bad, single parent wha wha wha” people have no need to work through a struggle. I hope to god(no particular one) that our country slows are constant decent to nanny government.
our constant decent not are. Duh I guess you get what you pay for at a state skool.
and I can’t spell descent.
Point is, work hard and you will be ok. Got it Slu?
I will quit typing now.
I’m not worried at all. Soon we will have a newer, smarter political leadership. Also, if things get really bad, commodities-wise, I assure you that there will be no shortage of squirrel burgers to be had, here in the burbs.
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