My 1st letter to the editor and it isn’t about Shaw

Strangely, you never know what will set you off to put ink on dead tree to write to the publishers of another dead tree.
I’m annoyed with the Washington Post and I wrote an actual letter to the editor and it isn’t about my usual pet peeves with the Post, such as the damned thing not showing up on my doorstep. And it isn’t the Post using the same stupid gentrification template. Nor is it having to do anything with the neighborhood, or the city for that matter. It’s about money.
In their graphic for their Sunday December 16th article in the Business section “State of the Household”. Their graphic pissed me off. Why? Because they counted Employer contributions for pensions, insurance, Social Security & Medicare as part of the average household’s disposable income.
I consider disposable income any money that can be spent on booze and male strippers. Or in my sister’s case, donuts and Disney World. I can’t spend my employer’s contribution to my retirement or their part of my health insurance on a 50 year old port. Thus, it is not disposable income to me. Unless there is some technicality in the definition of disposable income that I’m not aware of.
Another thing that pissed me off enough to write a letter to the editor, no explanation of the Government social benefits that are a part of my disposable income. According to their graphic the average household gets $14,774 in government benefits, which is a part of their or my disposable income. Outside of my salary and a single bonus, I haven’t received this extra government funding to stock my personal bar or my trophy husband hunt fund. This may once again be related to a different definition of ‘disposable income’. I don’t deny that I benefit from a government funded police that may or may not show up when I call 911 depending on if the dispatcher is in a foul mood, or a school system that at least keeps kids off the streets for a few hours in the day. However, those benefits, I can’t spend on liquor and thus, once again fails my personal definition of ‘disposable income’.

8 thoughts on “My 1st letter to the editor and it isn’t about Shaw”

  1. I have noticed that in the past couple of years the ‘professional journalists’ – the very ones who poo-poo bloggers – are writing really lazy news stories.

  2. You don’t need to pay for male strippers. Pookie in your back alley will strip for you for free. He might even have some Mad Dog 20/20 for you. Kill two birds with one stone! Man I miss Shaw or Le Droit park, Bloomingdale whatever it was. PG just does not have that same je ne sais quoi.

  3. Pookie? You mean the jerk on the other side of the alley. You can’t pay me enough to look at his sorry butt.
    And as far as the booze goes, only top shelf stuff for me.

  4. “PG just does not have that same je ne sais quoi.”

    LOL! Someone who willingly lives in PG county and reads blogs about Shaw. HAHAH! And he knows some trite phrases en Francais! You’ve come so far, you’re now bourgeois!

    Anti-PG

  5. Haha, interesting uses of disposable income there guys.

    I agree to an extent with your gripe, but remember, the people releasing these numbers are economists, and they would consider that a higher contribution by employer would reduce the contribution you need to make (or economically SHOULD be making), and thus free up your money to be spent elsewhere.

    Amanda from DCMetrocentric.com

  7. I have a degree in Finance and this chart doesn’t make sense to me either so it must be some squirrely economist thing. Plus I’m really bothered by the postive Savings and positive Net Worth appearing in RED!

  8. “LOL! Someone who willingly lives in PG county and reads blogs about Shaw. HAHAH! And he knows some trite phrases en Francais! You’ve come so far, you’re now bourgeois!”

    Gee thanks, I did not know using trite French phrases that are a standard part of the American English lexicon made me bourgeois, (or bougy as we like to say). Your comment reeks of disdain for my new home so I won’t entertain your ignorance any further.

    Good day to you, anonymous sir or madame.

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