Keep Them Poor?

[peeonme]

From my observations it would seem that there is an intentional assault on people that are barely able to keep their heads above water financially.
Rent increases in mobile home parks in some places have reached 100%, you own the unit but it would cost about $5000 to move it. These folds are defenseless. Many are disabled, retired and live on S.S. benefits or work at low pay jobs.
To put it into perspective, in 1969 my gross pay was $80. for a 40 hour week. I bought a 10 year old "clunker" for $75. an inflation calculator would show that the same car today would or should cost $625., but a car that is 10 years old today could easily run $5000, a lot more than a weeks pay. But, not to worry, poor areas are full of used car lots with signs that say "buy here, pat here" so the buyer pays high interest on a car that takes them to a low pay job.

How about taxes on cigarettes? (yes I know that they are deadly, filthy and disgusting) it's no secret that low income people are more likely to smoke that folks who earn a comfortable wage A pack of smokes cost .35 cents in the 60's, today as much as $10.

Lets look at lawn mowers, not the big 50 inch type that I use, just a 22 inch walk behind for a small yard. $250. is the going rate, the kicker is that they don't work worth a damn. I can't tell you how many I see behind trailers or sheds in low income areas. I mow a few yards in a trailer park (not the one I moved from) and charge $15.00, if the park does it it's $150. I mow a few rental homes with small yards they are loaded with debris, some are flooded and the tenets pay $1200. to live there.

When I was 16 there was some hope, you turned 18 and could get a job at a car plant or a factory that could set you on a path to live a decent life, save some money and break the cycle of being "poor". Today I am just thankful to be 71 and not face a world that offers little hope to the poor.

 

[Peloso]

From my observations it would seem that there is an intentional assault on people that are barely able to keep their heads above water financially.
Rent increases in mobile home parks in some places have reached 100%, you own the unit but it would cost about $5000 to move it. These folds are defenseless. Many are disabled, retired and live on S.S. benefits or work at low pay jobs.
To put it into perspective, in 1969 my gross pay was $80. for a 40 hour week. I bought a 10 year old "clunker" for $75. an inflation calculator would show that the same car today would or should cost $625., but a car that is 10 years old today could easily run $5000, a lot more than a weeks pay. But, not to worry, poor areas are full of used car lots with signs that say "buy here, pat here" so the buyer pays high interest on a car that takes them to a low pay job.

How about taxes on cigarettes? (yes I know that they are deadly, filthy and disgusting) it's no secret that low income people are more likely to smoke that folks who earn a comfortable wage A pack of smokes cost .35 cents in the 60's, today as much as $10.

Lets look at lawn mowers, not the big 50 inch type that I use, just a 22 inch walk behind for a small yard. $250. is the going rate, the kicker is that they don't work worth a damn. I can't tell you how many I see behind trailers or sheds in low income areas. I mow a few yards in a trailer park (not the one I moved from) and charge $15.00, if the park does it it's $150. I mow a few rental homes with small yards they are loaded with debris, some are flooded and the tenets pay $1200. to live there.

When I was 16 there was some hope, you turned 18 and could get a job at a car plant or a factory that could set you on a path to live a decent life, save some money and break the cycle of being "poor". Today I am just thankful to be 71 and not face a world that offers little hope to the poor.

 

[Dargelos]

A picture is worth a thousand words.

 

[gsdx]

Cigarettes in Ontario are almost $20 now. Packages have been generic for years with a black band at the top with the cigarette brand printed in white text. The majority of the package (both sides) is graphic images showing the perils of cigarette smoking and, in stores, all tobacco products are hidden behind horizontal doors which store clerks lift to retrieve the product.

Also, just recently, cigarettes now contain printed warnings on the filters. The governments are also getting strict on the sales of vapes (especially flavoured), making them less accessible to younger people.

I'm so glad that I quite almost 20 years ago.

 

[ShadowCat]

There is little hope for anything anymore! EVERYTHING IS ASSHOLE EXPENSIVE! Cant tell you the times Ive had to pinch a penny to make ends meet! Its for this very reason that its so important to keep your stuff clean, properly taken care of and stored right! Some stuff you gotta baby and pamper but whats the alternative?

 

[Kahaih]

Who could have guessed that we would have to share the world's limited space and resources with all those babies that have been pumped out since 1969?

The world's human population has more than doubled since then. Even if it doesn't look like it has in your own community.

 

[rareboy]

There is definitely an orchestrated assault on the poor in the US.

The oligarchs wish to keep a large underclass that is always at or below the poverty line. This ensures they stay desperate and angry and without hope.

And of course it is exacerbated by ensuring that health care, good nutrition and education remain out of reach of so many.

In Canada, the high cost of tobacco is intended to discourage smoking that contributes a huge burden on our universal health care system, so here, it is really voluntary taxation.

But anyone in the US, with a single 40 hour a week job should be able to afford housing, decent food and healthcare.

 

[peeonme]

Cigarettes in Ontario are almost $20 now. Packages have been generic for years with a black band at the top with the cigarette brand printed in white text. The majority of the package (both sides) is graphic images showing the perils of cigarette smoking and, in stores, all tobacco products are hidden behind horizontal doors which store clerks lift to retrieve the product.

Also, just recently, cigarettes now contain printed warnings on the filters. The governments are also getting strict on the sales of vapes (especially flavoured), making them less accessible to younger people.

I'm so glad that I quite almost 20 years ago.

I quit once at 19, when the price was low, then back in '95 I went in to a deep state of depression and started again. I made my own and it cost about a buck a pack, and took me about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to make them. Thankfully I stopped again about 10 years ago. I am glad that everything that's unhealthy isn't taxed like cigarettes are.

 

[metta]

Other countries have faced the same issues, and they had governments that implemented programs to help to keep pricing down (Thailand, for example). Housing costs have increased too much because of lack of housing. Some areas have now overbuilt and prices are dropping (like Austin, TX).

But states like California have huge shortages in housing. The state is trying to find alternatives. Like in Pasadena, they plan on building micro-housing. Units 200-300 square feet and for sale for only $250k in a city where $1 million buys very little. https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/pa...nit-apartment-community-draws-strong-interest


But I still support Social housing in the form of non-profit rent to own and purchase so that people can build equity and have something to help them deal with inflation better.

 

[Peloso]

 

[Kahaih]

View attachment 2152642

Just replace the word 'talent' with the word 'competition' to understand why. And that will never change, no matter who is on top.

 

[Dargelos]

There is a road out of this rut but it involves the use of a dirty word, don't know if this word is allowed on JUB.
Maybe if I say it very quietly. socialism.

 

[me203]

There is a road out of this rut but it involves the use of a dirty word, don't know if this word is allowed on JUB.
Maybe if I say it very quietly. socialism.

My ears are burning at that foul language!!!!!! You head right to the sink. Your mouth needs to be washed out with soap and water!

 

[Dargelos]

I'll go see the priest, he'll give me something to wash out my mouth with.

 

[me203]

A lot of this is regularly on my mind... I'm low income, although (at least thankfully) somewhat stable right now. But I've had times when I had to be conscious of every penny. And I'm worried about what the future might bring... And, even when not worried about survival or possible future survival, there is sadness at how limiting all this is.

Then, I listen to some commentators who discuss these sorts of issues. This leaves me with mixed thoughts and feelings. Some of what they have to say is interesting. Some of it comforting, since I know I'm not alone. But it's also pretty depressing, since it leaves me feeling hopeless. And it leaves me feeling pretty furious, too, that things are the way they are.

 

[purina]

I'll go see the priest, he'll give me something to wash out my mouth with.

I'd let you get off with an Our Father and an ejaculation.

 

[Peloso]

There is a road out of this rut but it involves the use of a dirty word, don't know if this word is allowed on JUB.
Maybe if I say it very quietly. socialism.

I thought you were going to say class war.
. . or at least guillotine.

 

[Dargelos]

The term class war has been soiled by the kind of class war we saw on Jan6. Hundreds of working class men fighting to defend working class rights? That's what class war once meant. Now it seems to mean hundreds of working class men risking injury and prison by fighting not to benefit themselves but to benefit one (almost) billionaire. This upper class gent rewards their sacrifice by throwing said working class men under the bus. And that just makes them love him all the more.
So I give up on class war.
There are certainly enough candidates who deserve the guillotine but I'm supposed to be against the death penalty so you'll have to be in charge of that one.

 

[Peloso]

The term class war has been soiled by the kind of class war we saw on Jan6. Hundreds of working class men fighting to defend working class rights? That's what class war once meant. Now it seems to mean hundreds of working class men risking injury and prison by fighting not to benefit themselves but to benefit one (almost) billionaire. This upper class gent rewards their sacrifice by throwing said working class men under the bus. And that just makes them love him all the more.
So I give up on class war.
There are certainly enough candidates who deserve the guillotine but I'm supposed to be against the death penalty so you'll have to be in charge of that one.

My interpretation of the insurrectionists motivation was that they were there to fight to reinstall racist Pop-Pop because their fear of brown people is of utmost importance to them. That and Jesus. How so many of them can look at him and see a Christ-like figure is either the biggest mystery of all time or just another example of the fallout from religious toxicity. If any of them understood politics or why they were struggling they wouldn't be voting republican.

The social fabric these days is no longer ripe for a class war, The capitalists have got us fighting and hating each other instead.

Can you just imaging what things would be like by now if the advent of technology hadn't made us all so damn smart?

 

[NotHardUp1]

There is a component missing from this construct.

When our great grandparents and their parents arrived on these shores, they lived in tenements, in squalor, and others moved out to the rural areas and worked themselves to death, scraping by, learning their work, including logging, farming, the slaughterhouses, domestic servants, and other grinding jobs.

They didn't suddenly live in Mayberry and have gingham curtains and pot roast.

I remember a masterclass choral director from Baylor who shared that he had lived as a child with his siblings and parents in a dugout in New Mexico, and lived there a year or two until they could build a log cabin.

We too conveniently forget the arduous path of the poor who came before us.

Today, those eaten alive by greed in the cities DO have a choice. They can move out to the rural areas that had been abandoned over the last two centuries. There are yet jobs there. No, they don't pay the riches of the car factories in the boom economy of post-war 1950's, but living there is affordable.

You go to where you must when you can't succeed where you are.