some of the comments are interesting too....
In the Middle Ages, tenant farmers worked three months of the year for the lord of the estate. In return, they got land, house, and the advantages of the communal defense system. Three months. And we call these people serfs. In grade school, we thought of serfdom as only slightly removed from slavery. Yet in my home state of New York, "Tax Freedom Day" is in late May. We work the first 140-odd days of the year just to pay local, state and federal taxes…and we still haven't done anything about the shelter itself. With roughly a third of the average after-tax middle-class income going toward housing, we can conservatively add another 90 days to reach "Shelter Freedom Day" sometime in late August. So now we're committed to eight months labor to achieve what the peasants of the Middle Ages accomplished by their three-month contract with their lords. If these poor wretches were serfs, what word can we find to describe ourselves?
~ Rob Roy, Mortgage-FREE! p. x, 1998
Well, it's 30% for consumer debt servicing, 40% for the house, and 10% for the car. We just add 20% for health care for those who don't get it.
Let's see, that leaves …
Hmm. I think I just discovered why so many people are relying on food stamps.
