Underwater… the view for many Americans.
Many “middle class” live well but all that separates them from poverty is a thin thin line called “a job”. Although older, they haven’t saved. And their assets, mainly house and car, have lost value. Many owe more in debt than assets and cash.
The Washington Post has a story about Chrissanda Walker of Fort Meyers, FL, a nursing home executive that lost her job one and half years ago.
Walker used to make $100,000 a year as a nursing home executive until she lost her job a year and a half ago. Unable to find a new one, she shed her business suits and high heels and put on an apron and soft-soled shoes. This year, she and her daughter are living on $11,000: her unemployment benefits plus whatever she can earn selling home-cooked dinners for $10 apiece.
I was impressed with Ms. Walker and those helping her. I like her faith. I like her work ethic. Wil Haygood, the author of the piece, goes into interesting detail but as happens with so many “journalists” they don’t ask the tough questions.
Like… where is your husband Ms. Walker? Or where is the father of your daughter? Why isn’t he helping? And why didn’t you save? What did you buy before, instead of saving, that you regret now? Are you only looking for nursing home executive jobs? Will your job hunt standards change once the unemployment benefits run out? How long, btw, is “fair” for those?
I’d like to see journalists asking tough questions like this to somebody other than Sarah Palin. Wouldn’t you?
I’m pretty well off. I probably save more than many earn each year, but I could save more. And I invest. And I own a business. But I know that it all come crashing down, and quickly. Especially with government assistance (Mr. Obama, Mr. Bernake). So I’m not speaking from the “glass house”. I’m far more irked with Mr. Haygood, than Ms. Walker.
But both represent fundamental problems in America… not planning for the future, and a compliant, complacent, biased media.
November 19th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
The rich lecturing the poor with about the same effect as the old lecturing the young. Since the rich are trying to cut government programs that help the poor and to lower government’s ability to do anything while while raising their own after-tax income, the poor might look more at the motivations than at the words. The young see also the old as unhelpful, a greedy generation that wants to keep its benefits while the young suffer growing employment instability and lower prospects for future pension. Its interesting to watch the old lecture the young who in turn lecture the poor. At the bottom of the ladder is the group, of all ages, that gets nothing but lectures.
November 19th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Cool, I have a rich brother. Nice to know.
November 19th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
The young have the old pegged.
I was more lecturing the reporter than the lady.
What I want is a system that lets people be free, and helps them, locally, if they fall on terrible times. What we have now is a travesty.
November 19th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Note he missed that while “rich” I still fear his government as a HUGE threat.
November 19th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Where is the line for rich? Comrade Obama drew a line at $250,000/yr verbally, but has voted it closer to $40,000. That means that I count as rich, with my mortgage, moderate income and ability to hold a job.
There was a book I enjoyed in college by Nancy Kress titled “Beggars in Spain.”
The premise of the book was science fiction, but one of the points in the book was a large group of people called “livers.” Created when the federal government was given an unprecedented economic boon in the form of a patent donation which gave the government unbelievable amounts of money. Doing as politicians do, the government expanded welfare to a voluntary basis for all Americans.
This communist dream ended as most do: it faced reality when the patent expired and the government resorted to more theft in the attempt to make up the deficit.
We face a reduced but still poignant version of the same problem: we have over-promised, even for the years of prosperity. Government is and will continue to refuse to reduce the budget, it will consume more of our economy in the name of the entitlement mentality that gets the bastards elected. It will steal more and more from the “smaller” group of successful individuals to feed the money.
I have already been told by a man who honestly believed it that the top 2% of rich americans should be executed and their money redistributed.
November 21st, 2010 at 9:29 am
If the bastards are elected and re-elected, to whom should look for the remedy? Who is doing all this ill-advised electing? One problem is that there has never been invented a better form of government than one where the ultimate power resides in the people. Since it is not practicable to have direct democracy for 300 million people, we have a representative system where each representative is freely chosen locally at state and district level. The solution is an educated electorate that can and will make adult choices in their 535 representatives. Only one representative is chosen at large and that one has nearly the same power as the two collections of representatives that make up the 535. But the ultimate power over the government resides in the 535 representatives who have the power to impeach any member of the other power centers. Start now to get us to an adult condition among the 535 representatives!
Don’t even think of re-writing the Constitution because we’re not smart enough nor adult enough to think through the consequences. You can NEVER change just one thing.
November 21st, 2010 at 10:07 am
There was an invented government that was better… PRE 1913 amendments.
Go back to that, to a smaller government, and UNDO the consequences progressives foisted on us.
November 21st, 2010 at 6:15 pm
I agree that an educated electorate would vastly reduce our problems. Neither demagogues nor warmongers would have near this chance of being elected. Many or most of the electorate grew up with skewed perspectives being taught to them by schoolteachers and television. The lies that no one believed 60 years ago have been kept by retelling over and over again until they are taken to be fact.
I also agree that significant changes to the constitution can’t be done now, we don’t have leadership with the wisdom or possibly even the intelligence to pull it off. However, we aren’t obeying the laws in the constitution anyway, so why bother rewriting it?
Case and point: Charlie Rangel. The man is corrupt but instead of doing the adult thing (resigning) he ran for his office again and WON.