Adjusting for the Truth

What does this sentence mean?

"Inflation-adjusted median family income has declined about 6 percent since it peaked at around $64,000 in 2000."

Do you mean that the same $64,000 adjusted for inflation is down 6% since 2000 -- or that the median is actually down 6% in current dollars, which doesn't need further adjustment for inflation to distort the number (median), which is the midpoint number adjusted equally for all current dollars (income).
But in 2000, we didn't have the smartphones -- that many people can get for 99 dollars, or even 99 cents -- with contract. Even the electricity we buy -- can be much more productive for such reasons -- nullifying the fact that we now pay 10 cents per KwH rather than 9 cents -- for the 10% increase in inflation. A barrel of oil can be made into made more products -- and not just for combustion.

So there is a self-adjusting mechanism for inflation -- that shouldn't be double-adjusted, and in the case of labor (government) negotiators, multiplied by double -- so that their median is entitled to the top 1% of their "peers" -- and all that other nonsense.

Just the facts (median) -- without adjusting it for anything one thinks it "ought" to be, would be extremely informative -- and not subject to such manipulations by anyone who will further adjust it to their expedience.

Adding Rocket Fuel to the Fire

"In fact, insurance costs have been skyrocketing for decades."

The basic injustice of the Obama insurance plan is that some people will pay for the Cadillac insurance plans of those who aren't paying for it at all -- but are being paid for by the taxpayers, who don't have those plans for themselves.  So in effect, they are paying twice -- for those not paying anything but getting Cadillac health coverage -- while those who actually pay their own way, have to take high deductibles to lower their fixed cost -- which is the major reason most people don't buy health insurance.

They are usually the healthiest segment of the population, who never or infrequently get sick, so that it makes sense to pay their medical expenses only if they actually occur, rather than the $1,000 a month the health plans want because now they have to.  This is the substantial portion of the population frequently ignored by the arguments that people without health insurance are invariably the sickest.  Those latter people are already riding free -- or on the union Cadillac health plans which they also can collect "sick pay" for going to the doctor, for every reason possible -- because they "max out" their health and sick benefits.

Of course such people are not vested in their own better health -- because it pays so much better to be paid to be "sick," and not have to go to "work."

So it is not like everybody has to pay -- because those with Cadillac (union) health plans don't, while the small business man, now has to scramble for that cash flow that maintains his business -- while he can't afford to be sick.

Of course people with the Cadillac (union) health plans aren't interested in the single-payer system, because that means their members would have to pay their own fair share -- rather than have that as an advantage, over those not so privileged -- while claiming entitlement as a member of the 99% from the mythical 1% who should be paying for everybody.

But that's just the propaganda.

Enhancing Your Strength and Health Throughout Life

Most people think that at some point in life, they have to begin to deteriorate -- and not get better, but at best, simply slow down that decline, and adjust their attitude that is the best they can hope for, and convince themselves, that is not so bad -- as long as they can keep denying that.  That is undeniably the reality of most people's lives -- but is that deterioration absolutely necessary and inevitable, or is life itself, successfully figuring out what needs to be modified in one's behaviors, to change that balance -- and restore it to a positive again.

I think even the most dysfunctional person, would admit that at some point, they made a wrong turn in their lives that has caused their disastrous plunge towards destruction that they are so overwhelmed by that they can no longer think clearly, and have the insight that will allow them to regain their footing on the right path again.  For a few, that has seemed like a long time now, in which all they have experienced and known, is a long, irreversible and irrecoverable "losing streak," and have long ago given up on expecting, much less hoping for anything else.

That is the truth and reality of their "conditioning" -- that has produced the shape and condition they are now in -- and would like to see changed, if they thought that it was even possible anymore.  There is a saying in life, that as long as there is life, there is still hope -- or the possibility for a different outcome than the one that has been trending and accelerating for as long as they can remember now -- and has become their "reality."  But is that reality, their inevitability -- or is there the possibility of a cure, from their own self-inflicted mortal wound?

Of course, not every wound is self-inflicted -- but most are.  Invariably, it was making a decision, or adopting a practice, that one persisted with, that was wrong -- yet wouldn't change, despite the overwhelming evidence, that it was "wrong," so determined one was, that it was right -- no matter how much evidence to the contrary, was evident to every other person but themselves, and it was not everybody else that had to change their thinking, but only themselves, that had to come upon that better understanding, and changing that reality.

You cannot change the outcome -- by not changing anything else.  One has to change the behaviors, that produce that outcome -- unfailingly, and invariably.  Some people will insist that you need their permission to do so -- or for that matter, to do anything -- and they are also part of the problem, and how one became to be conditioned that way -- in thinking that one could not change and improve oneself, until they first sought permission and paid some one else to allow them to improve their own lives.

In fact, the whole idea that people even had a right to their own lives, is an idea that some people and cultures will not allow -- and even kill others, to maintain.  One reads it in the news every day -- as well as in the fairy tales one has been conditioned as young people to inherently believe others are -- and the world is.

It is the affirmation that the situation is hopeless -- unless there is some miraculous intervention by someone else, some greater power, be it the president or some party, that will deliver us from all the problems of the world -- that we are not allowed to solve ourselves, individually, and more effectively -- as the only way it ever can be for every individual -- to live a life of improvement, all through one's life.  But that changes and has to be rediscovered from time to time -- when it no longer works, even if it ever did.

That is a shocking revelation for those who have been educated and convinced that the world (of knowledge),  was always the way it is now -- and should also remain so, forevermore.  That is the aging of knowledge, that also becomes its reality.

So there is this immense challenge throughout life, of remaining in reality, and not fixed in only the knowledge of it -- and then demanding that reality must conform to that knowledge, rather than that the knowledge, must change and adapt to the new realities that are always changing -- and so to be moving with it, is what it means to be "fit" for that survival, and beyond that, to thrive and prosper -- as one's greatest hope for the future, no matter what.  That outlook, is having one's whole life ahead of them -- no matter what.

Then yesterday's weariness and fatigue, can be replaced by tomorrow's revival and resuscitation -- to even greater capabilities than were spent -- thinking they were lost forever.  Instead, they became the directives for new growth -- in the ways one recognized were the new needs, and not just the old -- one thought they could never unburden themselves of until the (ac)cumulative weight of them, dragged them down before ultimately crushing them.  That is what many recognize as the despair of "old age."

But it has very little to do with age, and mostly to do with outlook, attitude and understanding (conditioning) -- which is how people begin to differentiate "in time."