Got some folks coming over for super bowl. Making green chicken chili, baked beans, sausages, hot dogs, chips, mexican dips, nachos and other such health food. Can't say as I care too much about who wins. I do think that Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, et al do have some 18-1 memories to expunge.$19,090.00 is the poverty level for a family of three in the United States in the year of our lord 2012. So sayeth the US Department of Health and Human Services. None can question this wisdom. God Save the enlightened ones in Washington DC.
I am going to try not naming blogs whenever I read something that I disagree with.....Oh well, so much for that.
One of my pet peeves is that folks in bloggoland are spending a great deal of the their time bitching about how we have to leave our lifestyles behind. How the world is running on less and less and how we need to make due with less. OK I agree.
Then folks go and start bitching about how anything less than 200% of the official poverty level is an insult to anyone and anything and that, at this level (200%), they and their offspring will be cast into outer darkness, residing there with Fuller brush salesmen and podiatrists.
OK, everyone agrees that getting from point A, the current wasteful and excessive state of affairs, to state B, the future is going to take a bunch of cutting. Most folks will be living in what, in today's parlance, is poverty. But it isn't. Guys, real poverty is not having anything to eat or anyplace to sleep. 19,090 in the US of A is pretty damn low on the totem pole of life, but it is just barely doable.
200% of that level is just fine thank you....that says a beater car, a small rental house, and lots and lots of home cooking. Vacations are camping in the national forest, days out are hiking and beating around town. Kids will get to college, they will just have to work along with the parents wanting them to go. They won't go to Harvard on that amount of coin, but there are degrees to be had. They will have to work, same as us, but was there ever any doubt? Hell some of them, the ones with brains and drive will probably get into the second estate after all.
Look, we are going to be poorer. So what? Do you really think that the lifestyles we have now are non-negotiable? They most certainly are. We are going to be downsizing a lot of things soon. Government statistics don't change anything. No one believes them anyway. But the society will change itself to adapt to new reality. Some of the rich will be richer. Some of the rich will be poorer.
We have to get over the idea that winners and losers in society aren't natural. We do have to keep it from getting out of hand. Implying that a family making less than $38,180 are losers and will be left behind is just silliness.
4 comments:
Maybe it is my imagination, but our friend Mr. C seems to be getting even more unhinged.
Alot of his ramblings are pretty much doctrinaire for an archist communist. He talks about being opposed to the Democrats and Republicans (and he is), but it is not some sort of "middle-way" that he is looking for.
It's just me but I can make it on that and no other subsidies. Any family at that level will get $200+ in food stamps and possibly an heating subsidy.
No I don't go out a lot, I cook and bake at home and some of my stuff is basic but I live a darn good life and I'm not deprived at all.
I really hate these pronouncments because it gives some people an excuse not to do anything for themselves.
I agree, but with one caveat: it depends on where you live. Here on the "Texas Riviera", a modest rental such as mine runs around $1,000 per month, and are rare as hen's teeth. The other option is a fleabag apartment or shotgun shack in Crackville. With the price of gas, outlying areas are just not feasible unless you want to ride a moped 100 miles round trip every day in all weather. "Affordable" neighborhoods are riddled with meth labs and gang bangers, English is a second and unwelcome language, and gringos need not apply...
I posted to you on the list of blogs I love.
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