Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Random Observations

Mark the shade caused by Golden Parachutes blocking the Sun while the Dems prepare to land on other tax payer supported beach heads. We'll call it P-Day for Pay Day for all the rats abandoning the ship. They are nothing but thieves and cowards afraid to face the music. Accustomed to safe, gerrymandered districts, these politicians quickly get cold feet when they see a real challenge approaching.

With Captains Reid and Pelosi at the helm, the USS Graft N' Corruption is going full speed ahead straight towards the Polls Iceberg.

In other news, today is the 40th birthday of the ATM.

The machine, installed by Barclays at its Enfield branch in London, did not use a plastic card to access accounts, but instead used radioactive cheques impregnated with a small amount of Carbon 14.

The first customer was Reg Varney, from the television show "On the Buses", who withdrew the maximum amount then allowed of £10.

"That was regarded then as quite enough for a wild weekend," ATM inventor John
Shepherd-Barron
told the BBC.

There are about a million and a half ATM's in the world today with over 400,000 in the US alone. And yes, I could have a pretty wild weekend on $22 back in 1970. The average salary was $7,564 -- about $145.46 per week.
In 1970 I had just finished my junior year at SU and was making $3.20 an hour as a security guard -- $128 a week.
I supported a wife and child on that salary in married student housing. It was a great step up from my previous job which paid $2 an hour.
I also purchased my first rifle that year, a WWII 303 Lee Enfield. I was 21.
My first daughter was 2 months old. I still have the daughter and my brother has the rifle.

2 comments:

USA_Admiral said...

It is going to be an interesting year in politics.

The ATM has changed the world. It is a time of instant money. No need to plan ahead for those long weekends.

sig94 said...

It has made it far to easy to access our savings for immediate gratification. The ATM has been a curse.