By Rob Pue
October 15, 2023
My wife and I were married in 1990. For the first year of our marriage, we lived in a small, one-bedroom apartment building. Rent was $300 a month there, which at the time, being young, and me having just started a brand new business, was hard on our budget. Today, that same apartment is renting for $800 a month.
After a year, we were able to buy our first home. A “starter home” — modest, three bedrooms, one bath but it had “good bones.” We paid $29,000 for that house, and yes, I put a lot of work into fixing it up while we lived there, and did most all the work myself.
We lived in our starter home for 14 years, until our family was getting too big and we needed something larger. It was a bittersweet time, selling our first house. I’d put so much blood, sweat and tears into fixing it, improving it and maintaining it — and it was our first house. After we sold it, I would drive by it every single day for over a year. I guess I had an emotional attachment. But bottom line, having purchased that house for $29,000 in 1991, fourteen years later, we sold it for $129,000. That was in 2005. Today, that same house is valued at over $200,000.
And by the grace of God, we were able to find a much larger house that was way over our budget, but it was in foreclosure and the bank was willing to sell it to us for the exact same price: $129,000. We had immediate equity in our second home because it was worth well over that amount, but the bank wanted a quick sale. We lived there for thirteen years before moving to a different town. Now, we purchased our second house for $129,000. I didn’t have to put nearly as much work into this one, and that was a good thing, because by this time I was in full time ministry work with Wisconsin Christian News, and we were on an extremely tight budget; not to mention being in the midst of raising our children. But having purchased that home in 2005, in 2018 we sold it for $229,000… a $100,000 increase.
And once again, by the grace of God, we were blessed to be able to purchase an even nicer home in the new town. We’ve now lived here for only five years, but in that five years, the value of our current home has more than doubled.
I tend to keep an eye on housing costs, because housing costs are indicative of the overall economy. So, I watch the local real estate listings on a somewhat regular basis. The cost of homes has skyrocketed over the past five years. There’s no way in the world we’d ever be able to afford to live in our current home at the price it’s valued at now. At the same time, the cost for renters has also increased dramatically. The average cost to rent an apartment is now $2000 a month where I live, plus utilities. That’s for a modest, 2-3 bedroom apartment. House rentals and duplexes cost even more.
Now, have all the homes really increased in value that much? And what does that even mean? In reality, it’s a stark indicator of super inflation. Because our “money” isn’t really money anymore — it’s fiat currency, as it’s been for decades. Federal Reserve Notes, based on nothing. In the last few years, we’ve continued to print money at a constantly accelerated pace, and this has caused the highest inflation rates we’ve seen in over forty years.
In the 1990s, I remember we used to be able to go to Arby’s and feed the whole family for $5. They had their “Five for Five” deal — five roast beef sandwiches for $5. Today, being empty nesters, when my wife and I go to Arby’s, we can get two of those same sandwiches for $10.32. That’s just one example. And we very rarely eat out, but at the grocery store, price increases are just as drastic.
Let me share with you some of the figures I was able to locate online at BusinessInsider.com. Now, these numbers are already two years old. It’s basically impossible to find real data on the cost increases for basic necessities that’s up to date. I assume the “powers that be” are censoring and hiding this information, because if we really knew the truth, and were able to see it all in one place, Americans would be furious.
So this information is from 2021, and the increases are what we saw in just one year’s time. The cost of milk was up 8% in ‘21 compared to ‘20. Apples were up 7%. Citrus fruits up 10%. Fuel oil was up 45%. Propane was up 18% in 2021 over 2020, but I can tell you it has since more than doubled in price. Gasoline was up 45%.
The cost of washers, dryers, stoves, and other household appliances increased by 30%. Men’s pants increased 11%. Women’s dresses increased 16%. And the cost of used cars and trucks went up 45%. Car and truck rentals went up a whopping 88%. Hotel rooms were up 17%. Mind you, once again, these figures are two years old. But suffice to say, when prices go up, they don’t come back down, so the numbers are even higher today.
I was able to find some reliable information on the cost of healthcare from HealthSystemTracker.org. In the last three years, the cost of medical services has increased by 114%. And remember when the so-called “Affordable Care Act” was forced upon us? Obamacare. We were told we would be able to get excellent health insurance for less than the cost of our monthly cell phone bill.
Prior to the start of Obamacare, we did have good health insurance that we were able to afford. Then we got the letter from our insurance carrier… the cost of our monthly premium was going to increase to $1800 a month — for just myself and my wife, and the new policy would include a hefty increase in our deductible and limit where and when we could use it. Now, since we couldn’t afford to pay the equivalent of two additional mortgages for something we likely could never, ever use, we went without health insurance.
Instead, we joined a Christian health-sharing program, that covered a lot and cost about the same as what we had been paying previously. But over the years, the cost for this has increased dramatically as well, and very few hospitals and clinics will accept it. But it’s still the best deal we can find, and we maintain our membership in that program in case of something catastrophic that may happen.
But over the past year, we’ve learned a lot about how hospitals and emergency rooms work, and our experience should alarm everyone. Last December, while visiting our daughter and her family in Texas, my wife fell and hit her head on a curb. There was a massive amount of bleeding, and it looked like a horrendous amount of trauma. I rushed her to the closest emergency room, where we waited for about two hours before anyone came to see us.
They did no testing, not even an x-ray, but instead advised us to have that done once we returned home. Essentially, they cleaned up the wound and put a bandage on it and sent us away. I’d estimate my wife was actually “treated” by a nurse for no more than 20 minutes.
This Baptist hospital did not accept our Christian health-sharing program, so they put us down as a “self-pay” patient. We got that bill, for several thousand dollars, and somehow, we paid it, and received a statement saying, “Paid In Full.” Fast forward nine months. In September, we got another bill, for the same services, at the same hospital. But this time, they had run the bill through our health-sharing plan, which gave us a $1200 “discount,” but this bill is still $4700. This is in addition to the “paid in full” bill we already paid.
We have all the documentation, we have the original “paid in full” receipt, but the hospital is still insisting on payment on this second bill, and offering absolutely zero negotiations; they won’t even acknowledge our first enormous payment that supposedly covered everything at that time.
Bottom line, we’re being double-charged. And the facility has no one — not one single employee — that we can go to with our dispute of the charges. We have two options: set up a payment plan or be sent to collections.
The original bill (which we paid) was less, but still enormous for 20 minutes’ worth of a nurse’s time and a bandage. That was the “self-pay” charge. Now that they’re apparently accepting our Christian health-sharing plan, they’re charging us again, but now they’re calling the cleaning of a wound and the application of a bandage “surgery” — to the tune of $4700.00.
I should note, that while we waited to be seen by someone in our little curtained-off cubicle, we were surrounded by patients in the other emergency room cubicles — and none of them spoke English. I can only assume that these were some of the millions of illegal aliens that had crossed the border and were there being treated there — for FREE. So, I guess the hospital needs to recoup the cost of free healthcare for illegals somehow, and I guess we’re the ones directly paying for it.
This is happening all over the country now. Hospitals and clinics are very deceptive with their pricing and billing, charging those with insurance much more than self-pay patients, but now, they’re even double-billing patients like us.
The cost of everything is increasing daily. When Klaus Schwab stated that by 2030, we will “own nothing,” I wondered how the Globalist Communists would make that happen. Now it’s becoming more clear. As interest rates continue to rise and banks are getting more restrictive with their lending every day, it’s very difficult for people — especially young married couples — to afford to buy a home. The days of the $29,000 “starter home” are gone. Starter homes now start at an average of $160,000 and need a ton of work. And that’s with a 30-year-fixed interest rate near 8%.
When the “Green New Deal” was announced, stating that all existing homes and buildings would be replaced with modern “sustainable” buildings, I wondered how that would ever be possible. Now we see the Globalists burning things down and destroying essential infrastructure, just so they can “build back better.” They’re so invasive, they even want to ban your gas stove. Just remember, every time you hear the words “renewable,” “sustainable,” “clean” or “green,” you can replace those words with the word “CONTROLLABLE.” It’s not about “climate change” and never has been. It’s always been about obtaining complete control and domination over the world population.
And they can’t even have an honest debate on these subjects because the Leftists ban, censor, scrub, mock, ridicule and delete all those who offer an opposing opinion, even when it’s backed up by real science. They tell us to “follow the science.” But of course, we’re only allowed to follow their “science.” Things like basic biology of “male” and “female” are, of course, “disinformation.”
Last year, our government passed the “Inflation Reduction Act” which was supposed to help everyday Americans and fight the hyper-inflation we’re in the midst of. So how has that worked out for us? Prices of necessities like food, shelter and clothing are still on the rise. Interest rates are still on the rise, and this new multi-billion dollar “credit card” is being spent primarily on the following: “reducing carbon emissions, lowering healthcare costs (yeah, right), and funding the IRS to improve taxpayer compliance.”
I smell a “Great Reset” coming — America’s been bankrupt for a long time, so Central Bank Digital Currencies will be necessary, resetting our entire economy, and moreover, our entire way of life. When that happens, the last of our few remaining freedoms will be stolen from us once and for all, and we will truly, as Klaus Schwab has told us, own nothing.
© 2023 Rob Pue – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Rob Pue: Rob@WisconsinChristianNews.com
