Geez I wish I knew where this 3 or 4 hunnert dollar Blue Cross plan is....My
current single guy rate is $600/mo and on May 1, it jumps to $825/mo
(Double-Whammy, I turned the double nickel a couple of weeks ago).

30 cents for gas 20 years ago?  Maybe 35 years ago, but 20 years ago it was
around 65-75 cents a gallon here in SoCal (I'll have to check my old log
book for the 67 21 Window Deluxe I drove around then to be sure).

It might be Frydae, but it's no joke in my pocketbook, which is rather empty
these days ;-)
--
Jim Thompson
84 GL 1.9 "Gloria"
84 Westfalia 2.1 "Ole Putt"
73 K Ghia Coupe "Denise"
72 411 Station Wagon "Pug"
oldvolkshome@gmail.com
http://www.oldvolkshome.com
***********************************
On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 10:18 AM, Don Hanson <dhanson@gorge.net> wrote:

> "Used to be, an out of work hippy could buy a van and travel to his hearts
> content"?
>
>  Well yah, maybe.  Not now, though.  In fact, even a working hippy has a
> very difficult time buying or traveling in a van now, when gas is about
>  13
> times as expensive as 20 years ago...(very late "Hippy-era")  Let's look a
> it:  Gas will soon hit $4.00 yet a journeyman carpenter still makes what
> he
> did 20 years ago.  Don't ask me how I know this for sure, but according to
> an average wage search on Google, it IS true, and according to the money I
> make, again, true.   I am still one of them working hippies, I guess.. $16
> an hr back in the 80s and about $18 now, if you can find a house to work
> on...
>  Yet 20 years ago a gallon of gas was around $.30  Thirty...cents!  So you
> could fill your van for about $4.80...or about the cost we'll soon be
> paying
> for ONE gallon of fuel..  So now a days, they want about $3-4 hundred
> bucks
> a month for health care.  That was my single guy rate with Blue Cross
> recently....that is  ~ one week's wage.  Fill the van to drag your tools
> to
> the job once a week..another weeks wage each month..Forget a car or a
> house
> payment, because tools wear out, and of course, you gotta plan for when
> the
> current job is done and you have to find another somewhere.  Now, if
> sumpin
> goes wrong on the van, or you drop your skilsaw off the roof and it
> breaks.....you better go get a night job..flipping burgers at Mickey D's
> or
> something..Funny, the van I drive now is over 30 years old, but back in
> the
> real "hippy days," I could afford one that was only 15 years old on a
>  very
> very part time carpenters wage...Hmmm...And if I wanted a Go Westy van, at
> my current wage it would take me about........8 years to earn enough to
> pay
> for it...Shoot, If only I'd a known...I could have started saving back in
> the 80s to buy an....80-sumpthin Westy 35 years later...
>  You suppose, if there were still such a thing as journeyman tradesmen,
> that some of the "new" middle class, like the Dot-com workers, or some
> saving and loan officers, or...what other jobs have been 'created in the
> US
> lately?.....would be willing to pay an equivalent wage to what we got back
> when gas was cheaper and going to the doc cost about $50 a visit?...Let's
> see, if I wanted to 'stay even' with the increase in costs for stuff like
> gas, insurance, health care, etc I would need to up my rates about 13
> times,
> or charge a fair wage of ....oh, about $325 per hour.  I just read on the
> web news where the two guys who started Google just made around 2 Billion
> per hour a few days back..so I guess that would be reasonable...$325 per
> hour for a carpenter who's been in the trade for 30 years...
>  Hee hee, fat f---ing chance..We now have 'guest workers' who'll
> 'assemble'
> a house for $7.20 an hour..
>  Fryeday.. so excuse the joking post..
>  Don Hanson