I’ll make you famous. The worlds #1 blog!
I have been thinking, that perhaps, the things I write here in my little blog, are not “cutting edge” enough to get noticed.
Perhaps I am too main stream to get lots of hits.. hell, I may like my peanut butter sauce recipe but how many people out there really want to put peanut butter over chicken?
SO what is a boy to do? Do I go political.. 100% politics 100% of the time? If I do, do I pick Conservative issues and POV or Liberal?
Do I go outrageous, with topics like “Boobies” , “Big Boobies”, “Huge Boobies” and of course “Nekkid Boobies” .
Seems that the internet is full of perverts (like me) and they are the easiest to draw in, after all there are only so many keywords that can be associated with sex and the human sex organs.
Again, what is a boy to do?
It is not that I have some grand moral compass, that makes me immune from wanting to talk about “mommy pillows” in all their reigning beauty.. . or that I am not aware of current events to talk about politics, right or left hand spin. (Heck all you would have to do is listen to an hour of Rush each day, and echo what he has said here.. why not a lot of conservative talk radio and TV hosts do?)
What is really comes down to, is interests.. I am interested in politics, religion, sex, sexual expression, sexuality (oh oh better stop here, before my wife chimes in) . But I have a wide range in things that interest me.. in other words I read most sections of the news paper.. not just one or two.
I have to believe that , even as simple as we try to make our lives, that there are other’s out there somewhere that also have a wide range in tastes and humor? (Am I deluding myself, when I say.. I am a part of a silent majority?)
Perhaps my biggest problem is picking what I want to talk about in any given day.. with a case of ADD like I have, it is hard to focus on just one topic long enough to get an article out.
One of the reasons I hate deadlines.
So let’s just say that today’s topic is Petroleum prices.. (that is a good set of keywords to get noticed by searchers huh?) I think Gas Prices are nuts.. I know you do too. I know that there is nothing at all I can say or do that will make them more reasonable.. and if I have to hear one more person say.. “Yea, but do you know what they pay in the UK for petrol?” I am gonna slap someone!
Let’s examine that shall we.. In the UK you will pay $6 for gasoline. (roughly 3.4 pounds sterling) BUT if you are a entry level worker in the UK you will make upwards of 9 pounds per hour! That’s $16.2380 an hour!
Also, you will live closer to work, than we do, you will have better and cheaper public transportation, and you will have cars available to you that get better fuel economy! It’s all relative dumbass!
Same about taxes.. Listen, my wife makes $7.50 an hour working for a convenience store.
She pays roughly 7% in social security tax, 3.5 % state tax, 1.3% local tax and then about 8% federal tax.. let’s do the math shall we..
7+3.5+1.3+8= 19.8
7.50 x 19.8% = 1.49
7.50 – 1.49 =6.01/hr take home
she uses about 5 gallons of gas per week going back and forth to work. 5 x 2.75 (price per gallon paid this weekend) = $13.75
she works 40 hours 40x6.01= 240.40
13.75 is what percent of 240.40 ? 5.7%
Same job in UK. 9 pounds less 45% tax = 5.85 (5.85 pounds sterling = 10.54 / hr take home!)
Now if she worked, in London, for 40 hours.. (no accounting for vacation or healthcare , neither of which she gets now, and she cannot use public transportation cause quite frankly it bites here.. )
10.54 x 40 = 421.60
5 gallons at $6 / gallon = $30
$30 is what % of 421.60? = 7.1% yep it is slightly higher than our figure of 5.7% for her here in the states.. but at the end of the week in the UK she would still be using the equivalent of $391.6 / week after taxes and gas vs. her current $226.25 after taxes and gas here.
I am not here to debate economics, there are many people who are more wise than I that can do that, but I intended with this post only to point out, that some of what you have heard about taxes and gas prices abroad is mere propaganda.
I do not hate our system, not at all, I like it, and capitalize from it every chance I get, as I encourage all of you to do. With that said however, you have to admit, things are not as bleak in Europe as some would have you think.
Now if you are stinking rich none of this applies to you, so you may now go on to your yacht clubs and tee times with no cause for alarm. (on more this side of the pond than the right)
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