This week’s roundup:
1) At a local Wendy’s I ordered my usual (baked potato with margarine, small chili, no cheese, medium unsweet tea) and got a bonus. It was 5 cents less than what I’d been used to paying. I realized that on July 1 North Carolina’s sales tax had gone down 1 percent, thanks to the Legislature’s budget for 2011-12 (the Governor’s budget veto, the first in NC history, was overridden).
2) UNC Wilmington announced that it’s losing almost $17 million in state funding, which will result in a loss of 147 staff positions, plus fewer courses and larger class sizes. Overall the UNC system, historically one of the best in the South (and beyond), will lose $414 million, affecting every campus.
3) An item from Radio Sales Today (“Affluent Americans More Optimistic, Within Reason“) quotes Stephen Kraus, VP and chief research and insights officer at Ipsos Mendelsohn. Their new study that shows that this segment (household income over $100,000, about 20% of the U.S. population) is slowly regaining confidence in the economy, after reaching a low point in April 2011. Here’s the quote that caught my eye:
The study also found a big behavioral difference between people making less than and those making more than a quarter million dollars a year. … Kraus says that difference reflects something else about the U.S. economy that has been in process since the middle of the last century: The rich are getting richer and the middle and upper-middle class are disappearing.
Interesting matter-of-fact tone there. Kind of reminds me of Emily Dickinson’s description of seeing a snake and feeling
a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
On the plus side, I saved that nickel.
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