3 Things....that you are struggling with this election

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Permalink Reply by Branhower on October 22, 2008 at 2:29pm

My family is one of those families that make more in figures than we actually see. We reported an income of around $300,000 last year, but that's total income. About 90% of that we had to pour back into our small business (for employees, new equipment, equipment maintenance, expenses incurred by the government, etc.), so we only received about $30,000. Divide that out for five people, and yeah, things get a little hectic. That's our primary concern; money. And if part of Obama's plan involves mandatory healthcare with no form of compensation (like I keep hearing, and read about online), you can guess who we're voting for. Not to mention McCain's plan seems to favor small business owners, so until I move out on my own; I'll have to side on what benefits the entire family.

The second-most issue for me personally is education. I'm past high-school now, and am having a problem paying for my education. Most scholarships around here are only worth around $500, and there's mad competition for those; on average 1,000 people interested per scholarship. Also, since job security is an issue, I don't want to take out a loan; because I'm not sure if the money will be there to pay for it in the future. So, pretty much all of the money I make while crashing at the parent's home goes to college. My parents make too much money for me to qualify for financial aid, and they're not going to help. I read both McCain's and Obama's plans, and they both pledge to make getting any type of loan easier. If somebody would do something about job security though, I would feel a lot better about getting a college loan.

Almost forgot the third one: cheaper insurance. Insurance is reaming my family dry. The only way this is going to get cheaper is if the government lessens their grip on it and more insurance companies compete for more customers. Only good comes out of competition. If a certain candidate is elected this year, we may learn that lesson the hard way.

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Permalink Reply by TheRetroMetro on October 22, 2008 at 4:59pm

I can understand about the college loans. I owe a bunch, but as long as I am allowed employment deferments, I am going to be ok. I pay a the interest every six months to the unsubsidized loans and a little more - whatever I can afford - in order to maintain that specific level dropping a little at a time. As a single mother, it was important for me to finish what I started. I knew that if I left college just one more time, it would be another lifetime to finish. I had also anticipated that the job horizon would look better, but at this point, there are more layoffs than not it seems. I'm working 20 hours a week steady doing course development, so I really shouldn't complain. I've seen friends on the down hill track. They could lose everything. At least at this point, I'm still treading water.

That's the good thing about college loans. You have some time to begin pay back (6 months) and if you follow the rules of deferment, in the event that you cannot begin at that established time, you'll be all right. It seems that you could be about my daughter's age (she's 20), so I can understand the responsibilities you are facing now. She knows how hard it was and is trying to pay for it as she goes instead of doing the loan thing. The main idea is that as long as she finishes before she's 38, then she'll beat Mom's "time" AND owe nothing! Nice plan but I'm concerned she'll be passed over for specific opportunities in the meantime. I'd really hate for her to give up the same things that I had to.

From a small business POV, (I'm just starting www.theretrometro.com, but continuing to use etsy as it's easier to let them process payments until I can figure out how to fine tune "payments" on my own site ), I sure could use the help. As far as goals are concerned for the business (IE: 3 year plan, 5 year plan, etc) I'm concerned on the enforcement of mandatory health plans later on down the road and just what would the "cap off level" be (especially if I have to take a loss).

I understand how it can be hard for your family's business. You have to pay off incurred debt, salaries, insurance assistance, maintain equipment and figure depreciation expenses, and of course there's always debt collection! Life just gets grander when someone who owes you money declares bankruptcy! In paper at tax time it all LOOKS like you made out, but you really didn't. My father was a residential contractor/carpenter for years and is recently retired, however, he is starting to feel the need to possibly come out of it because of the current economic status. I have a picture of him in my profile, working on his model workboats.

I don't know how I'm going to take care of my daughter and my parents in the future, so that is a big concern as well as far as the health care arena is concerned. Competition in the insurance area seriously raises my awareness. Isn't that what we have already? We see tons of commercials for folks who offer the *insert adjective here* rates. There's Blue Cross Blue Shield, Geico, State Farm and a million other insurance companies for other auto, life and health insurance... so how can this help? What sorts of ... regulations...for lack of a better word at this time... can we expect to maintain a level of quality health and to prevent "gouging" of sorts. We have also heard of insurances saying they have coverage on things that they really don't (IE: Flood insurance). I'm really in something of a tizzy over this.

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Permalink Reply by zach on October 22, 2008 at 2:39pm

well most important to me is the war, and mccain has a much better strategy for that, so vote mccain

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