Pertinacious Poverty

Gawker


From the article:

 "Somehow, along the way, America's poorest, hardest-working, least-secure citizens accepted this elision: Their jobs are endangered not by the avarice of the management or investors who exploited them in the first place, but by periodic indigestion in the mysterious guts of this cosmic clock known as The Economy. This economy, man. It's the economy, stupid. Can't anyone fix this economy?"

 There is a false dichotomy in America. You have the noble/eccentric/kindly/frugal super-rich and then you have the poor. Only the poor aren't really poor. They are microwave/tv/refrigerating owning motherfuckers hell bent on stealing the rims of your tires to fill their greedy lustful pockets. The story goes that the wealthy would give more of their hard earned money they work their asses off for if only you would cut their taxes by 100%. See, they can't give fully of their wealth if the government keeps nickel and diming their bank accounts--they might have to ski in Telluride instead of Aspen, for shame. Whereas the poor welfare queens with their special sauce on their cheap McDonalds hamburgers would just keep buying cigarettes anyway and living the high life in the emergency rooms sucking up all the good medical care this country can afford.

 Or. Or we can consider there is this vast spectrum of financial health in our economy where the people scraping by are the majority of the country. A large portion are mitigating financial danger with putting $50 out of each paycheck into savings and still live on the edge of car repair, medical expense, home repair yet can still fill their children's bellies. They feel the pinch, but not the sword of despair. These people are working so damn hard they don't have time to complain. Taking 2 jobs at a time and while their kids are getting an education, vaccinations, and having small birthday parties in their living room with a $20 present, they are stressed every day that the bottom will fall out. They don't know if this is the year they will get to keep their job and develop more skills before the next layoff. These are the people that get let go easily because they work hard, climb the ladder, do all the right things but become a wee bit too expensive to keep increasing pay when a motivated 20yo comes along to do the same job for half the price.

 This isn't a wealthy hit piece. I don't give a shit about the wealthy. They can hire people, politicians, PAC's to care about their narrow economic pet issues. The wealthy do not care about me and they don't care about you either. These people glorify wedge issues in the public square but privately snort coke on the body of a prostitute and send their daughter to a private doctor for that medicinal abortion. Then they get up on Sunday and line the pockets of their loudest preacher to denigrate those that dare sin in the eyes of God. They don't care that life is hard because for them? Life is a fucking feast and you are their dessert.