Friday, May 21, 2010

San Diego slobbering for "zonies"

San Diego: In today’s (5-19) Republic, Dawn Gilbertson writes that San Diego is concerned about the possible loss of the "zonie" business this year and wants to make it clear that they never said THEY were boycotting Arizona. They were only ASKING Governor Brewer to repeal the immigration law.

They were ready to let Arizonans know via an open letter that "Hey, we love you guys. Come on over and spend your dough with us." This was after they received a lot of emails from vacationers in our state saying they weren’t coming over this year. In other words, San Diego backtracked and said yeah, we feel sorry for illegal aliens but screw ‘em if they cost us those AZ dollars.

The open letter thing has been canceled probably for the embarrassment of having to eat crow and the Convention And Visitors Bureau wants to make it clear they think it is fine for Arizonans to come over and help San Diego’s economy regardless of how they feel about illegal immigration. What a bunch of hypocrites. What happened to all the garbage about human rights?

Bills of the past vs. today: I was looking through an old checkbook from 1970 today and thought I would compare my bills from April of that year to April of 2010. The amounts from 1970 are Kansas City based.

In April 1970 my gas bill was $6.22 vs. $36 in 2010. My car payment in 1970 was $88. My last car payment here was $435. My electric bill was $5.53 vs. $76.37. My telephone bill $8.28 vs. $24.50 now.

When Barb and I got married in 1967, we decided we should have health insurance. We called Blue Cross and they sold us a policy over the phone for $15 a month. We didn’t need a physical or to show proof of any health conditions. The few times we used it, everything was covered. Costs to see a doctor then were a lot less. I had a doctor while I was in college in1968 whose regular office call was $5. He only charged me $3 because I was a starving student.

On our first grocery trip in ‘67 we had three grocery carts full as we were setting up house. Total cost? $54. I still have the receipt. You could buy a 6 pack of Budweiser for $1.00. Today we spend $54 at the grocery store when we stop by just "to pick up a few things."

It’s a good thing prices were lower then. We felt rich making $14,000 between us.

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