Friday, March 27, 2009
tent cities/expectations/reality
Strange isnt' it. "W" said, after hurricane Katrina, that Americans didn't live in tents. Yet another Republican, Arnold Sscharzenegger, has "tent" cities in Sacramento and no one seems inclined to do anything about helping those folks. The governor is actually going to "move" the tent occupants, but where?
Is the term "disaster" limited to something that occurs at the hands of nature only. Or should the defination be broadened to inclue that whihc was imposed by man? If FEMA can supply trailers for victims of natural disasters why can't FEMA "rent" trailers to those tent dwellers and put them up on public land?
Shades of Regan. Let's help big business, but to heck with the poor.
I ride the bus home each night. A woman rides the bus with me daily, and she gets off two stops before mine. She is a young woman with a 4 year old son. Yesterday we were seated together and she and I had a nice chat. I always suspected she worked at Walmart, which by the way is quite a ways from our house. She does. She works at the Walmart in Kendall. Her husband is also out of work so she is the primary wage earner.
To get to her job every day she wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to catch the first #1 route bus, then she transfers to the # 88 or #88A by 6:05 to get to work. (and spends $5 a day to ride the buses back and forth). She does this every week day and she said she's glad to have the job to go to because people come in every day to apply for work at Walmart and they are NOT hiring.
Bear with me, this is stream of consciousness stuff, ok?
She works hard for the pitance she gets and is happy to be able to do it .
Then I hear about these college kids. The complain that they have to "walk" so far from their cars in the parking lot. They have to get up "early" at 7:00 to make an 8:00 class. They complain about "only making $35,000.00" a year to start when and if they get a job.
There seems to be a very large gap in what life is all about.
Life isn't about what is owed to you. Life isn't about getting what you expected. Life is about dealing with the reality of what's actually happening.
The Republicans say we shouldn't sustain people who "expect" the government to bail them out.
OK, if we do that then we shouldn't sustain the spoiled little kids who expect to be given what they want because they deserve it either.
JMHO
Is the term "disaster" limited to something that occurs at the hands of nature only. Or should the defination be broadened to inclue that whihc was imposed by man? If FEMA can supply trailers for victims of natural disasters why can't FEMA "rent" trailers to those tent dwellers and put them up on public land?
Shades of Regan. Let's help big business, but to heck with the poor.
I ride the bus home each night. A woman rides the bus with me daily, and she gets off two stops before mine. She is a young woman with a 4 year old son. Yesterday we were seated together and she and I had a nice chat. I always suspected she worked at Walmart, which by the way is quite a ways from our house. She does. She works at the Walmart in Kendall. Her husband is also out of work so she is the primary wage earner.
To get to her job every day she wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to catch the first #1 route bus, then she transfers to the # 88 or #88A by 6:05 to get to work. (and spends $5 a day to ride the buses back and forth). She does this every week day and she said she's glad to have the job to go to because people come in every day to apply for work at Walmart and they are NOT hiring.
Bear with me, this is stream of consciousness stuff, ok?
She works hard for the pitance she gets and is happy to be able to do it .
Then I hear about these college kids. The complain that they have to "walk" so far from their cars in the parking lot. They have to get up "early" at 7:00 to make an 8:00 class. They complain about "only making $35,000.00" a year to start when and if they get a job.
There seems to be a very large gap in what life is all about.
Life isn't about what is owed to you. Life isn't about getting what you expected. Life is about dealing with the reality of what's actually happening.
The Republicans say we shouldn't sustain people who "expect" the government to bail them out.
OK, if we do that then we shouldn't sustain the spoiled little kids who expect to be given what they want because they deserve it either.
JMHO
Thursday, March 12, 2009
depression/recession
The government should call it what it is. A depression. If not for the use of the word economically, for the use of the word emotionally.
They call it fear.
Fear to spend.
Fear of job loss.
Fear of the future.
What it is is a depression.
The economy is depressed and so are the people.
Unable to find work because there is no work.
Hopeless.
And this time no bail out will help that feeling.
The rich are clueless.
I have heard people complaining about not having "enough" money. That's the rich wondering if they can afford to take the trip to Spain this year, and having to make due with a 2 year old luxury car. Even they are without hope because the lifestyle they have come to beleive is their right is GONE.
The poor have no hope because the jobs they depended upon to make it from pay check to paycheck, are gone.
At first there were no manuracturing jobs, then no construction jobs, and now no retial jobs.
Why?
Greed.
It was easier to sell a business to a foreign corporation and have them dismantle it and move jobs elsewhere than it was to actually MAKE A COMPANY profitable in the US.
We've outsourced our future because of the greed of the past 8 years.
And now we pay for it.
And that's what's causing a depression.
We finally realize that we did it to ourselves.
They call it fear.
Fear to spend.
Fear of job loss.
Fear of the future.
What it is is a depression.
The economy is depressed and so are the people.
Unable to find work because there is no work.
Hopeless.
And this time no bail out will help that feeling.
The rich are clueless.
I have heard people complaining about not having "enough" money. That's the rich wondering if they can afford to take the trip to Spain this year, and having to make due with a 2 year old luxury car. Even they are without hope because the lifestyle they have come to beleive is their right is GONE.
The poor have no hope because the jobs they depended upon to make it from pay check to paycheck, are gone.
At first there were no manuracturing jobs, then no construction jobs, and now no retial jobs.
Why?
Greed.
It was easier to sell a business to a foreign corporation and have them dismantle it and move jobs elsewhere than it was to actually MAKE A COMPANY profitable in the US.
We've outsourced our future because of the greed of the past 8 years.
And now we pay for it.
And that's what's causing a depression.
We finally realize that we did it to ourselves.
