Subject:
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Re: Some Lego buying stats
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 21 Jun 2001 10:06:32 GMT
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ssgore@superonline+AvoidSpam+.com
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767 times
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Thank you very much for the inputs Maggie..:-)
Maggie Cambron wrote:
>
> Hi again, Selcuk (sorry I don't know how to type the proper "c"!),
>
> All of the answers to your question so far have been pretty representative of
> the middle class (and we are probably more highly educated on Lugnet than
> average), but I don't believe anyone has addressed the first part of your
> question-- what kind of jobs make 10,000-20,000 USD per year. The answer is
> the fast food (and possibly restaurant-- I don't know with tips) and, to a
> lesser extent, retail industries. Because it is impossible to support a family
> here on those kind of wages ($6-8/hour someone CMIIAW), these jobs normally go
> to high school or college kids working part-time and, sadly, to senior citizens
> who are having trouble making it on their retirement. Also where I live there
> are many workers from Mexico, both documented and undocumented, who work in
> California and send money home to their families in Mexico (where I live they
> tend to be ranch-hands who get free living quarters in a trailer on the
> property).
Actually, although we (me and my wife) earn quite above the average in
Turkish terms, (minimum legal wage is 107 million TL here, and 1
USD=1.25 million TL), I think it does not buy us a decent life. Here is
some numbers:
House Rent : 170 million TL (140 USD) expected to be at least %70 higher
starting from October. It is a 2 rooms + 1 living room type (~100m2)
flat in a small apartment building, located at one of the cheaper land
value side of Istanbul.
If you want to have your own home, You must collect about 40-50 billion
TL (35-40 000 USD) as a whole because there is no such thing that
purchasing this big items by paying month by month.
This is very natural because we always have inflation rates like 50-100%
annual, and from time to time, we have deep economical crisis, in which
you loose half of your income generally. The most recent one, February
crisis causes a 100% rise in USD parity. This simply means, my monthly
income was ~1400 USD/month on 19.03.2001, and it became ~720 USD/month
the day after. Although prices of everything doubled during the last 4
months, my income still same, and I expect only 10-15% increase at most
in July.
Utilities:
Phone: 8 million (first line, used for normal voice communication) + 22
million (second line, used for dial-up internet connection) + 28 million
(cellular) = 50 million TL (46 USD)
Water/Savage : 12 million TL (10 USD)
Electricity : 28 million TL (22 USD)
Heating : 60 million TL (48 USD) during winters
Consumer Products: about 200-250 million TL, including all the needs
like food, cleaning materials and such. (200 USD). We generally prefer
ready to eat/ready to cook type products or go outside for eating (both
are pretty expensive compared to other ways) since we both are working
and we don't have much time to cook.
Others:
Health Insurance : 90 million TL (72 USD) for me and my wife. It's a
private insurance since the state regulated one (for which we already
pay monthly, it is mandatory) just sucks. Once they gave me a date for
six months later, for an emergency lung operation..:-) This private
insurance pays 80% of all expenses.
Car: I don't pay anything for car, since it is given by the company I'm
working for, including all the maintenance, oil and the car itself (car
is still company property). It sounds good, but actually not. They give
it to you because they expect you to be present at the factory whenever
needed (during the night and weekends). I was working 12 hours a day,
six days a week during the first four months of 2001 (needless to say,
we don't have overtime payment).
RCI travel payment: 120 USD (till 07.2002)
So this means a total of ~660 USD per month of bills to pay. Considering
that me and my wife make a total income of 1170 USD/month, this gives us
~500 USD extra. And I should remind you that we still don't have kids.
The problem here is that, although the essentials are cheaper than most
of the European countries and US, all the extra costs at least same, if
not more (consider for example Lego/DVD/Book/vacation/any other fun
thing prices here and US and/or European countries). So all the money
that we can collect in our bank account with my 7 and my wife's 4 years
of carrier is around 5000 USD, which is not enough for even immigrating
to a decent country like Canada..:-) With this rate, having our own home
someday is quite far (lurking around the limits of impossibility), for
example..:-)
> What you tend to see in the movies is not always representative. For the
> middle class, especially out West in newer developments, the houses do tend to
> look like those in the movie E.T. (Only example I can think of-- my kids were
> just watching that movie.) The kitchens on tv shows are usually much
> better than those in real life-- most of us don't have Sub-Zero refrigerators
> or Wolf stoves (although my neighbor does-- she also has ranch-hands living and
> working on her premises though-- her husband just retired from being a pilot
> for Delta Airlines and they have a working ranch). Everyone generally does
> have a car because even the poorest people need one to get around.
Actually I'm in home appliances business for about four years
(refrigeration, air conditioning and heating), but I don't know the
brands you mentioned..:-). The thing that I must say, no appliances are
included to the house inventory when you rent or buy a house, so you
must have your own appliances. Here are the representative prices from
our biggest local manufacturer (Turkey is becoming the second biggest
supplier of home appliances):
Refrigerator (no-frost): 739 - 2884 million. A decent mid size one is
1316 million (1050 USD)
Washing Machine: 486 - 1015 million. A mid size one is 625 million (500
USD)
Oven: 270 - 703 million. A mid size one 378 million (300 USD)
Combi Heating Unit: 700 - 1200 million. A mid size one is 950 million
(760 USD)
Dish Washer: 429 - 834 million. A mid size one is 605 million (484 USD)
Having a car is the most wanted thing maybe but I consider it a luxury,
because even I can't afford having one (1 liter of oil is 1 USD here,
and even our very cheap and bad locally manufactured (under license)
cars like Fiat Palio and such costs more than 10 billion TL [10000-12000
USD]).
> But in some schools in Sacramento 90 percent of the students are eligible for
> free school lunches based on their family's income. Every summer charitable
> organizations set up a summer lunch program because the fear is that this free
> lunch is the best (or only) meal some students get all day. At Christmas our
> local newspaper always highlights several individuals/families who have wish
> lists that a few hundred dollars could fulfill-- things like a new wheelchair
> for a disabled person or warm coats for the children. So not everyone can
> afford to indulge a LEGO habit.
We don't have school lunches here, since almost all of the state owned
schools are double education types (I mean education starts at morning
and stops before afternoon for half of the students, then it again
starts at afternoon and stops at evening for the other half). But I bet,
if there were something like that, *all* of the students going to state
schools would have been eligible for it. Because, education quality is
so bad in state schools (80 students per class anyone?) that, only the
ones who cannot afford a private school go to normal state schools. And
for a representative price, a private primary school costs 7-8 billion
(~6500 USD) which is almost half of our annual income! Guess why we
don't have any kid..:-)
> If you and your wife were working here, you would be quite well-paid. Most of
> us here on Lugnet get by fairly comfortably. But some people in the U.S. are
> not so fortunate, and sometimes they are treated less than kindly. I hope
> in Turkey that either you do not have this problem, or if you do, people are
> more compassionate toward those less fortunate.
Our biggest problem is the very very big difference in income levels of
the people. We have a minimum legal wage of 107 million (85 USD), and
very big portion of working people are working for that only and trying
to survive, Turkey also has the second big Mercedes/BMW fleet after
Germany. I'm educated in best state owned schools of my country. My high
school was a special purpose one. You must have very good secondary
school grades (9 out of 10) to have the chance to have the exam, and you
must also pass the exam (at that time, about 50000 was taking the exam
and only the first 384 people allowed to pass) to go to this school.
Then I graduated from the best technical university of Turkey (again
state owned, but private universities are a very new concept at that
time, only one was available when I took the university entering exams).
And now, even I'm not happy with the living quality of my own life,
although I paid almost well in our standards.
The difference here maybe, although the conditions are very very bad,
still we don't have any people died on streets from starving (not in our
entire history) but it looks like it would be changed very soon, looking
at the current trend.
Selçuk
> Maggie
>
> Fut, if any, to OT.debate because we certainly are not talking about
> techno-geeks here.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Some Lego buying stats
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| (...) My sister lives in a two bedroom two bath apartment in Santa Monica, probably considered a desirable neighborhood (whenever you see a Southern California street lined with those tall skinny palm trees in a movie, chances are good it is her (...) (23 years ago, 25-Jun-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Some Lego buying stats
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| Hi guys, Just like to know what is the conditions of living in US. For example, what amount an engineer (a common one, say a mechanical engineer working in a production facility, say automotive industry, with an experience of 3-4 years), a (...) (23 years ago, 8-Jun-01, to lugnet.general, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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