Millions of Americans are wrestling with the impossibility of a traditional middle-class existence. In homes across the country, kitchen tables are strewn with unpaid bills. Lights burn late into the night. The same calculations get performed again and again, through exhaustion and sometimes tears.

Wages minus grocery receipts. Minus medical bills. Minus credit card debt. Minus utility fees. Minus student loan and car payments. Minus the biggest expense of all: rent.

In the widening gap between credits and debits hangs a question: which bits of this life are you willing to give up, so you can keep on living?

During three years of research for my book, Nomadland: Surviving America in The Twenty-First Century, I spent time with hundreds of people who had arrived at the same answer. They gave up traditional housing and moved into “wheel estate”: RVs, travel trailers, vans, pickup campers, even a salvaged Prius and other sedans. For many, sacrificing some material comforts had allowed them to survive, while reclaiming a small measure of freedom and autonomy. But that didn’t mean life on the road was easy.
[Complete article at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/02/nomadland-living-in-cars-working-amazon ]

 

Maybe if people would throw away the credit cards they would not be if such bad shape.
Maybe buy a car that is a few years old.
The people I see that have problems are those who waste what money they have and if their paycheck is a day or so late they have to borrow to make it.

 

The people OlDogger wrote about are not paid well enough to pay for necessities. A lot of them take two or three jobs. They still cannot afford to pay for necessities.

 

There was a national inventory service for whom I worked on-call while in Nebraska. The folks there, if they used their credit cards for regualr necessities, it was because didn't have enough cash..
I was more fortunate and used cash for all but big repairs to the car and house, but for the many, credit cards are the closest they have to income-as perverse as that is..

Getting back to Sen Grassley's comments about the lack of thrift by the average person.. Some of those in that article had their 401k's in the market in '08 and lost the bulk, if not all. How many can and DO want to center their lives on leveraging their assets, beyond being a self-employed person-as many of these are now on the side by way of a broker or being a home stock troll??? How many people can afford the fees that a bank has on minimum deposit levels?

There seems to be something desperately grasping, when people are reduced not only to hand-to-mouth, but worse have the PSYCHOLOGY that what is meaningful is hoarding to an excessive surplus that becomes adverse to their economic as well as ecological environment

 

Oh dear. The millennials are finding that it takes real money to live in the real world, and unless you are a very rich trust fund baby, have to prioritize your spending.

Shooter was there. Until 1975 he was but a poor servant of the people. From 1975 until 1980 he was just poor (but having a huge amount of fun). Starting in 1980, when he realized he was no longer a young bullet proof stud, he started building for his future. It took him 25 years to pay off his bills, pay for his misspent youth, and secure his financial future.

If the book old dogger is pitching had been written when Shooter was in his 20s, he is sure the book would carry the same message. Only, Shooter's generation didn't expect anyone to bail them out of their dilemma. Or expect anyone to offer any sympathy. Or give a shit.

 

We now have a group of people, can't call them adults, that have no idea how to make a living on their own.
For some reason they think everything should be handed to them. Might have a lot to do with the everyone gets a trophy idea.
They want the best of everything while not working to get it. They want the best job but fail to get an education or skill that will land a good job.
They want the newest car, biggest house, newest toy, but don't want to have to work for it.
The gimme generation.

 

Your ad hominem presumptions makes me wonder about your assertions..

I lived in Nebraska and worked temp jobs.. Worked in Memphis, Western MD, CNY as a contract worker.. Was hailed as the rare generalists of versatile talents, that got me through the post-Iraq enlistments until my military pension kicked in 6 years later

You're guilty of conflating and branding w/a broad brush. There's a difference between the young who've not been taught and trained of learning the basics before moving on to know about greater paying responsibilities, to guys older than me who were signing up for the hazardous duty pay as Reservist in the military or as paramilitary temps for strikes.. They take risks and hazards that are legal but more hazardous than selling contraband for drugs to other things as entrepreneurs on their local black markets in the parallel economy...

You just DON'T KNOW... You just want to believe what you believe from your limited observations..

When your IDOLS, which I say with karmic irony, fail you with their false paradigms in another economic crunch that devastates your community, then you'll know how Steinbeck and Faulkner were able to write such palpably real novels about the inequit that people face in your ideal world

 

NPR‏Verified account @NPR 14h14 hours ago
HUD says homelessness in the U.S. is on the rise and that affordable housing crises, mostly on the West Coast, are to blame
https://t.co/utpR7j8wT1

 

A tax cut would help ease these problems. Lower taxes on corporations would allow companies to pay better and lower taxes on workers would allow them to keep more of their money. The problem is all those greedy Democrats and RINOs who want to take as much as they can from poor workers who have to live in their cars.

 

And as far as picking up and relocating for better paying regions...

 

If the Trump administration continues to reduce mass illegal immigration of low skill workers, the employment picture for low income workers will improve.

 

Immigration is the otherside of the coin of oligarchs and plutocrats excesses of kleptocracy in those departure countries.. while what's been happening here in the US since the 70's has been the wage worker being reduced to a share-cropper status of perpetual debt:

Eagle Baldini‏ @CripesMyPipes Nov 28
A family of 4 making $59k/year is not middle class. They are working poor living check to check with no savings, no retirement $ and most likely do not own a home (or are underwater with their mortgage versus home value). $1300/year will do little to change their lives #TaxDebate

 

With thoughts about the similarities between Marie Antoinette and the advocates for the policies that do nothing directly for the working poor..
Jerry Tamburino ‏ @janjer1 Dec 1
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
No successful working economy has EVER existed by giving tax breaks to the already wealthy and already cash-rich corporations. EVER! Economies are grown by giving money directly to the working poor and middle class. They will spend it thus creating jobs. Wealthy will hoard it. BS

 

One Party feels that unlimited illegal immigration on a massive scale will help the working poor find a better job. They also believe that we can tax ourselves into prosperity. You know, like they have in Venezuela.

 

I agree with you about "unlimited illegal immigration on a massive scale." Even legal immigration depresses wages.

Nevertheless, Democrat presidents have only once reduced the top tax rate. Usually they have raised it. Democrat presidents also have better records than Republican presidents on economic growth, job growth, and even growth in the stock market.

The economic history of the twentieth century demonstrates that we can tax and spend our way to prosperity, and usually have.

I have documented these assertions many times in the past. I have tired of trying to push facts into closed and narrow minds.

 

Is Shooter the only one around here that has a raised eye brow every time someone says "give" (insert group) tax breaks?
Give ?
GIVE ?!?!?!?
That's our fucking money they are talking about. And Congress and the pundits actually act like they are "giving" (insert group) something, like a gift.
Fuck that.
That's our fucking money in the first place. Congress and the Government ought to stop being so damned entitled to OUR fucking money!

 

The FICA taxes are taken out and given back by deductions. Because they have that boon provided to them is not entirely because of a lack of effort on their part, but by circumstances such as stock market crashes automation, relocation to other domestic or foreign host that have no insinuation that they were the direct authors and composers of their fate. Those whose wealth was assisted by an infrastructure-human and constructed-owe part of their wealth to the agencies that provided that.

As far as the govt wasting our tax dollars; I'd be all for we citizens being able to itemize what proportion of our Line 32(?) on our tax return gets distributed to whatever agencies and programs, so that our taxable income before deductions is representative of our will, and not on the dubious fabrications of needs by those whose loyalties are for their re-election campaign coffers than our needs

 

Wishful thinking. But first, comments about Social Security;
So this is a sort of contract between Government and the labor force.
We are obligated to have 6.2% of our income withheld, and our employer matches that.
The Government "invests" it for us, and when (if) we retire, we get some of it back in the form of a retirement.
A similar program provides Americans over 65 with a paltry sort of health insurance, we pay 1.45% of our income for that.
If one does the math one discovers that if we could invest for ourselves that combined 14% or so of our income we could have good health insurance for life, and a more comfortable retirement. Social Security and Medicare are classic examples of Government fucking up a good idea.

Now, as to "voting" where our taxes go, it would not work very well. Programs that are necessary but distasteful, such as Congress costs, need to be funded, like it or not.

If Congress was taking care of our business, and not theirs, we could happily pay our taxes and be a better country for it.

 

A work-friend in 1978-79 was telling me that to get a home on his insurance underwriters (good) pay was $800-$1000 per month for rent.. This was well before the tech boom in the Bay area, and was down in the LA area..
I high school classmate is facing the same thing presently in the San Diego area

There are plenty of articles complaining about illegal immigration, but this economic development worker gives this opinion
According to Al Lerma, director of business development for the Sonoma County Economic Development Board,

there are about 4,000 Hispanic-owned businesses in Sonoma County.
“You can make generalizations and assumptions about the immigrant population of the United States, but there are so many sources of information that point to the fact that immigrants contribute millions of dollars to our economy – on the national level, the state level and the county level,” says Lerma.

In addition to the jobs created by immigrant-owned businesses, Lerma says the buying power of Sonoma County’s immigrant population must also be taken into account.

“Immigrants are also consumers,” he says, “and when you look at their numbers, their consumer power is significant.”

Lerma describes the impact on Sonoma County of immigrant spending – documented and not – as “sizable.”

“If you take that income out of the picture, that number is going to really hurt the economy,” says Lerma. “Immigrants buy cars, they buy refrigerators, they buy consumer goods – just like everyone else.”

Email David at david.templeton@sonomanews.com.
http://www.sonomanews.com/news/6689424-181/the-impact-of-the-immigration?artslide=0

“You can make generalizations and assumptions about the immigrant population of the United States, but there are so many sources of information that point to the fact that immigrants contribute millions of dollars to our economy – on the national level, the state level and the county level,” says Lerma.

In addition to the jobs created by immigrant-owned businesses, Lerma says the buying power of Sonoma County’s immigrant population must also be taken into account.

“Immigrants are also consumers,” he says, “and when you look at their numbers, their consumer power is significant.”

Lerma describes the impact on Sonoma County of immigrant spending – documented and not – as “sizable.”

“If you take that income out of the picture, that number is going to really hurt the economy,” says Lerma. “Immigrants buy cars, they buy refrigerators, they buy consumer goods – just like everyone else.”

Email David at david.templeton@sonomanews.com.

 

LEGAL immigration is good for the US.
ILLEGAL immigration is bad for the US.