the alley Newspaper | News & Views of Phillips Since 1976

Are You Letting Expenses Rise to Meet Income?

Written by the alley on 30 August 2021

By MARY ELLEN KALUZA

I once heard the phrase: Expenses rise to meet income. “Not me!” I thought. But, to be honest, even a pathologically frugal person like me lets expenses rise with income.

Case in point: For most of my life (we”™re talking quite a few decades) I watched broadcast television and library videos on hand-me-down TVs. Cable was not in the budget as a single parent.

After my nest emptied and I had only myself to support, I envied friends and the great stuff they were watching on internet streaming sites. So, I started to pay for streaming. But, because my TV was so old and dated, I had to move off the couch in the living room to a hard chair in front of the computer screen to watch streaming video. I was okay with that, but my cat was not. We had a lot of disagreements about what was comfortable and what wasn”™t.

So I finally paid money for a new TV for the first time in my life. (Don”™t worry – I didn”™t completely go off the rails; it is a modest TV). We were back on the couch for TV time, and harmony was restored to the household.… Read the rest “Are You Letting Expenses Rise to Meet Income?”

Transit News: Going Too Slow

Written by the alley on 30 August 2021

by John Charles Wilson

(Note: Some concepts in this month”™s column are borrowed from a streets.mn article titled “Metro Transit Service: Chicken or Egg”, posted 6 August 2021 by Andy Lewis, even though the opinions I will state are my own.)

Metro Transit is going too slow. By that, I don”™t mean the buses and trains are literally going too slow, or running too infrequently. (In some parts of the country, “fast” and “slow” are used colloquially to refer to frequency of transit service.) What I mean is, Metro Transit is going too slow at responding to changing conditions regarding changing transit needs as pandemic conditions keep changing.

We had light at the end of the tunnel, then it got extinguished by the Delta variant. With the even more threatening Lambda variant on the international scene, we may be in for another round of Stay-At-Home Orders. Or we may not, we just don”™t know.

Metro Transit typically adjusts schedules during something called a “pick”, when operators sign up for their piece of work for the next three months. During normal times, this quarterly schedule adjustment is plenty. However, in the rapidly changing world of COVID-19, perhaps a monthly adjustment would be wise.… Read the rest “Transit News: Going Too Slow”