Leftover Inflation? (November 2024):
I wonder if there is a significant “leftover inflation” yet to come, though, from companies and people who neglected to raise prices or who were locked into long-term agreements during the core years of Bidenflation.
Our electrician, a solo practitioner in mid career (i.e., he already has all of the skills that is going to have), is coming over tomorrow. His rate in December was $100 per hour. His rate for 2025: $125/hour. I think that he was at $90/hour in 2022, when we first hired him, but he apparently hadn’t kept up with inflation, which means he is now charging 40 percent more than he was in 2022.
Rent goes up 10% every year. They jack up the maximum allowed under state rent control & increase the utility fee many hundreds of percent to make up the rest. The once insane, typical $3k mortgage payment of 2015 looks really good now.
Electricians and other workers who need to read manuals are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. Apparently, even ‘honor students’ graduating from high school no longer possess these abilities.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/27/us/connecticut-aleysha-ortiz-illiterate-lawsuit-cec/index.html
@Anonymous, she is a special needs student suing the school for not addressing her handicap (funny they don’t call it what it is, “handicap”.) I don’t see how her case holds any weight — no school can accommodate every individual handicap need. If she wins, it sets a precedent where any student could sue for a subjective or unrealistic demand that the school has not meet.
Can a student sue their public school for not providing an Olympic-sized swimming pool, claiming it robbed them of their dream of becoming a gold medalist? This is what her lawsuit is all about.
One could argue that the school should never have graduated her since she couldn’t read or write. But if they hadn’t, she likely would have sued for robbing her of her future and dreams.
My only question is: how did she graduate with honors, and what exactly were those honors? CNN’s report doesn’t mention any details.
$125/hour is cheap.