[fabsroman]

Just,

When my dad retired 4 years ago, he was making $45,000 a year working for the government. My mom quit working 37 years ago when I was born. My parents raised 5 kids, sent 4 to college (i.e., one of us didn't have the scores to get into college), and have owned outright their 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom house on 2/3 acres for over 15 years now. They were as frugal as could be, and I think they did a great job. The average household income around where I live is $100K, but the average house price at its height was $500K. $45K in a lot of places in America is a pretty decent income, especially when the average house price is $200K or less. A friend of mine just went from Baltimore to Louisville, Kentucky. He sold his house in Baltimore for $450K and bought a bigger house with a lot more property in Kentucky for $270K.

The relevance of income amounts depends on location.

As far as why companies don't use asbestos or manufacture lead paint or choose not to use flame retardant material in childrens pajamas has nothing to do with health insurance, but something called class action lawsuits. They get the pants sued off of them for doing stuff like that, especially once it becomes known that those actions are harmful. Peter Angelos and Saul Kerpelman are famous for asbestos lawsuits and lead paint poisoning law suits in the Baltimore area, and Peter Angelos made enough from class action asbestos lawsuits that he was able to buy the Orioles baseball team. About 8 years ago, Angelos made $200 million+ on a class action lawsuit against the tobacco companies on behalf of the State of Maryland. The judgment amount was $25 billion and Angelos' contingency fee agreement provided that he should get $4 billion. The State thought that was a little much, so they took him to Court and the Courts agreed and reduced the attorney fee from $4 billion to $200 million. Try comparing that to CEO salaries.

How about the owners of sports franchises? How about the players? Alex Rodriquez makes $25 million a year to hit a little white ball. Manny Ramirez might be getting close to that pretty soon. How about LeBron James or Michael Jordan?

Honestly, I believe in a free market place and under normal circumstances would say let the financial institutions and the Big 3 go down. However, we are not facing normal circumstances here. The question is whether letting all of them go down in flames will result in the country going down in flames?