May 19, 2009
The cost of being rich and Liberal: Stupidity
The Washington Post ran an absurd article yesterday, bemoaning how much more the poor have to pay for things. While the premise is partially correct, the story itself is an example of the type of idiocy Liberal papers print on a regular basis.
Having done little actual research the reporter interviewed a handful of people to write about a few illustrations of the story’s main point, mostly irrelevant, and avoided any real discussion of cause, affect and solutions.
Like food: You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.
The stories continues for a few more paragraphs whining about the cost of inner city grocery stores. It doesn’t clarify the actual location of the stores in relationship to the voluntary segregation that occurs in every US city, where Blacks create their own, segregated neighborhoods.
In 1994 my wife and I had been married barely 2 years, had an infant son and got our own apartment. It was a one bedroom in a neighborhood that was racially mixed. Probably about 40% white, 40% black and 20% Hispanic. It had a slightly elevated crime rate, but there were three grocery stores within walking distance, 4 within a 5 minute drive. We had one car and an income of about $10,000 a year. I was working as maintenance at a business about 5 to 6 miles away. So I drove to work, and Linda did grocery shopping on the weekends. She took the time to compare prices and visited 2 to 3 different grocery stores to get the least expensive items at each.
The difference between us and the people in the story? We didn’t insist on living in a segregated, high-crime neighborhood. While it may have taken a little more time to do grocery shopping, by being willing to take the time and effort we were able to get good prices. We didn’t whine about how high the prices were, we (or rather Linda) found a solution. We had one TV, no VCR or DVD player, but most of our neighbors (who almost all were on housing assistance or AFDC) had large color TV’s and stereos and VCR’s and or DVD players, and constantly complained about how tough things were.
The articles continues with…
When you are poor, you don't have the luxury of throwing a load into the washing machine and then taking your morning jog while it cycles. You wait until Monday afternoon, when the laundromat is most likely to be empty, and you put all of that laundry from four kids into four heaps, bundle it in sheets, load a cart and drag it to the corner.
We had a laundry room in our apartment complex. Even if there weren’t one, there was a laundromat nearby, which Linda used on occasion. We found out that even the laundry room in our apartment complex had to be watched or other tenants would steal your clothes. Our problem was that it became impossible to take the kids, so one of us (usually Linda) would go do the laundry while the other watched the kids. Even then it was a 2 to 3 hour job, which left plenty of time for reading (oh gasp, how horrible).
A lot of the complaints in the article revolve around the lack of a car. But cars are not that expensive. If memory serves me correctly my first car cost around $500, and when it started going bad I was able to trade it plus a couple-a-hundred bucks for one in better shape. We used our EIC eventually to buy a minivan, but that wasn’t until we had three kids. The point is, in most economies you can get a functional car for about the price of a month’s rent. If you can pay rent, then you should be able to get a car.
The poor pay more in hassle: the calls from the bill collectors, the landlord, the utility company. So they spend money to avoid the hassle. The poor pay for caller identification because it gives them peace of mind to weed out calls from bill collectors.
You know how to stop bill collectors from pestering you? Pay your bills. On $10,000 a year, we were able to pay our bills because we were diligent in our spending. We had few luxuries other than the best one of having a family.
And getting caller ID for your phone is a simple as buying the thing at Wal-Mart for $5. Wow, big expense there.
The rich have direct deposit for their paychecks. The poor have check-cashing and payday loan joints, which cost time and money. Payday advance companies say they are providing an essential service to people who most need them. Their critics say they are preying on people who are the most "economically vulnerable."
So the only options are direct deposit and check cashing? Is this reporter an idiot or what? Even the poor have direct deposit. We didn’t have insurance until Linda was finally able to get a job at Whirlpool. Even then our income didn’t increase by much. We still were at or below the poverty level, but guess what—Whirlpool insisted on direct deposit. Even then we’d had a bank account all along.
The article whines at length about the inconvenience of using check cashers, but never give a valid explanation of why normal people, even normal poor people, would need to use one. We never did. The reporter vaguely tells how some people she spoke to couldn’t get bank accounts, but that was through their own stupidity, not from being poor. Being stupid and being poor are not the same thing, but apparently rich, Liberals think so.
[Marie Nicholas, 35,] says she makes $15 an hour working as a certified nursing assistant. She pays $850 for rent for a one-bedroom that she shares with her boyfriend and child. She went looking for a two-bedroom unit recently and found it would cost her $1,400.
Do you know what determines housing prices in low income neighborhoods? Not the free market, if that were so rent would be much, much less. What determines prices is subsidized housing. Whatever the government decides the “fair rate” should be, becomes the minimum. Those not on government assistance must then cough up rent to cover the artificially inflated prices created by the government. Did the author bother to mention that? No, because it would demonstrate that the real cause of most of the suffering by the poor is caused by the government as well as bigotry—the bigotry that produces voluntarily-segregated neighborhoods.
The government helps you if you can demonstrate that your helpless, and guess what, people suddenly become helpless.
Posted by Danny Carlton at May 19, 2009 7:58 AM
Excellent article, right on the mark. When my wife and I first got married we had one car and a very small house we could afford in a rural area. Which meant I used the car for work and my wife stayed home with our daughter. We save up for a very used second car after a year. I used that car to get back and forth to work. It did not have a heater and I used to use blankets to keep me warm while I drove to work.
That is one of many things we did in our marriage to keep our family together. Each year, by watching our spending, things got better. It can be done. It only takes the willingness of a person to take on the responsibility for their life. Great article, I plan on passing the url around to some friends.
Posted by: richnj at May 22, 2009 7:30 AM
While it's really easy to adopt the "bootstrap" mentality and criticize others for not working hard enough to get out of bad situations, it's not always reality. What is it with you and this Liberal/Conservative duality and your over inflated, haughty sense of self-worth. While some people chose their realities, others are forced into them by the poor decisions of their parents and haven't been taught the life skills necessary to make it our of their own plight.
Everyone choses to self-segregate... even though humans are social creatures we like to socialize with those whom we can identify with (just like you like to keep company with those who share your unique life perspective). A car may cost $500 but the maintenance, insurance, and operating cost are up around $5000 in many areas. Some areas may have grocery stores within walking distance, but it's a proven fact that some urban areas only have pricey bodegas or convenience stores. Your reflection on the article presents a harsh over-generalization and doesn't account for the realities that some people are limited by their surroundings. What about those who truly are helpless? Should we just cast them to the side to prevent scamming from the vultures that will pretend for a free ride?
No political ideology is absolute and to keep hopping up on that Conservative soap box really causes you to lose site of the fact that we are all in this thing together. Certainly I worked my way out of a less than ideal situation, but I am not going to condemn others because I found a path out. Perhaps energy would be better spent making sure that people can get the skills necessary for social mobility. Scoffing to your conservative colleagues that there is in fact a way out isn't really helping the situation, especially when you are not helping others find that path.
Posted by: Josh at May 22, 2009 6:17 PM
I couldn't believe the article when I first read it. The problem with these so called victims is their absolute lack of priorities. You will often see an overwhelming majority of lower class people with $150 shoes but not a day's worth of savings in account. The orginal article is really the best way to sum up many of these people's M.O., excuses.
Poor people can virtually go to college for free with the available government assistance. They can't get a job to cover the cost of books? Rubbish.
You either do or don't in life and many of these people refuse to try. I love the sentence that makes the food store seem like Columbus' journey to America.
If you are more worried about going to the club than feeding your kids, you are right where you should be in life.
The people who deem the lazy as victims are liberals. They will give money out to anyone as long as you don't deserve it.
Posted by: Dave at May 22, 2009 7:30 PM
I couldn't believe the article when I first read it. The problem with these so called victims is their absolute lack of priorities. You will often see an overwhelming majority of lower class people with $150 shoes but not a day's worth of savings in account. The orginal article is really the best way to sum up many of these people's M.O., excuses.
Poor people can virtually go to college for free with the available government assistance. They can't get a job to cover the cost of books? Rubbish.
You either do or don't in life and many of these people refuse to try. I love the sentence that makes the food store seem like Columbus' journey to America.
If you are more worried about going to the club than feeding your kids, you are right where you should be in life.
The people who deem the lazy as victims are liberals. They will give money out to anyone as long as you don't deserve it.
Posted by: Dave at May 22, 2009 7:31 PM
Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.
Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.
Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they’re what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there’s not an $800 car in America that’s worth a damn.
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends’ houses but never has friends over to yours.
Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won’t hear you say “I get free lunch” when you get to the cashier.
Being poor is living next to the freeway.
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn’t mind when you ask for help.
Being poor is off-brand toys.
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
Being poor is knowing you can’t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
Being poor is hoping your kids don’t have a growth spurt.
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn’t have make dinner tonight because you’re not hungry anyway.
Being poor is Goodwill underwear.
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
Being poor is your kid’s school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.
Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.
Being poor is relying on people who don’t give a damn about you.
Being poor is an overnight shift under fluorescent lights.
Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.
Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.
Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger’s trash.
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a difference.
Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.
Being poor is not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids.
Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.
Being poor is not talking to that girl because she’ll probably just laugh at your clothes.
Being poor is hoping you’ll be invited for dinner.
Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.
Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.
Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually stupid.
Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn’t bought first.
Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that’s two extra packages for every dollar.
Being poor is having to live with choices you didn’t know you made when you were 14 years old.
Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.
Being poor is knowing you’re being judged.
Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.
Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.
Being poor is deciding that it’s all right to base a relationship on shelter.
Being poor is knowing you really shouldn’t spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.
Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.
Being poor is a cough that doesn’t go away.
Being poor is making sure you don’t spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.
Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.
Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.
Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
Being poor is running in place.
Being poor is people wondering why you didn’t leave.
from http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
Being poor is only a poor circumstance or wrong decision away.
Posted by: Josh at May 22, 2009 7:56 PM
Josh......all you have done is prove the point of this article. You are good at handing out excuses on why a person will fail. What your last post tells the poor is to give up and realize that you have no responsibility to try and improve your lot. It is the fault of what? The Government? The Church? The rich. For their status. Grow up Josh. Teach them to handle their life and help improve their children's lives. That is how 90% of Americans have gotten to the middle class and higher. My Grandparents were definetly on the poor side. They came from Europe with nothing but instilled in my parents the will to achieve. The realization that in this Country you can make a better life for yourself. That is what is not being taught by you do gooders.
Posted by: richnj at May 23, 2009 9:15 AM
Being poor is living in the back of a pickup truck while traveling to where there is work.
Being poor is staying home to study algebra while the rest of neighborhood goes out drinking.
Being poor is showing up at construction sites at dawn wearing work boots, jean and a hat looking for any work available.
Being poor is shopping at yard sales to buy baby clothes.
Being poor is hotwiring your own car through a toggle switch and the windshield washer because you can't afford a new ingnition switch.
All these are things I have done, but guess what! Even though I still work the night shift under florecent lights I am no longer poor.
Posted by: Warren at May 23, 2009 10:29 AM
Rich, I didn't assign fault to anything. Somethings just are. There is a difference between an excuse and a reason. A reason is something that has a direct correlation to some effect. While it's all well and good to quote this America is the land of opportunity rhetoric, it's not 100% true. Occasionally people do need help and we shouldn't fault them for it. Yeah pretty much everyone's grandparents were on the poor side of things at some point or another, but circumstances change greatly through generations (the current generation is the first generation to actually make less than their parents leaving some heavy implications for social mobility). I agree that this country has a lot of opportunity for social mobility, but I disagree with this argument that everyone should just pull themselves up out of their own hole and forget where they just came from.
So I am supposed to feel bad because I have empathy and compassion for others and understand that some things are systematic and create bad situations for people. This argument that the poor are just too lazy to fix their situation is false and cruel. Some of it really does have to do with the fact that they haven't been taught how to use the tools to free them of their plight. Yeah, I am a horrible do-gooder for thinking that somehow I bear a certain responsibility to show someone how they can get into school or how to fill out a FAFSA form for federal aid it's really horrible that I am willing to think that it might be necessary to offer someone a chance at a job. There are certain educational components to life that not everyone is offered (you know like kids that come up without a dad or people whose parents just really didn't care about them enough), I think it's just basic humanity to be willing to give people a hand up. I'm not talking giving them hand outs, but I have no qualms showing someone the path I took to get where I got. Sometimes that's all it takes and I am sure that somewhere in your life, people took some pity on you and helped you out. I know I would be nothing if it weren't for the kindness and compassion of others. Assuming the worst in people just sets you up to have your assumptions met. Sometimes if you have a little bit of faith in the intentions of others, you might just give them the boost that they need.
Also Warren great, I am glad you are no longer poor, the thing is, I am sure that you wouldn't have wanted people holding judgment against your character when you were poor solely based on your financial status. Judgments are great but they don't hold a candle to helping those being judged to fix their problems.
Posted by: Josh at May 23, 2009 2:28 PM
Josh...I can agree with some of your last comments but I think were we differ is on the role of government. I too have spent time assisting others that needed help. Building a ramp for an someone now in a wheelchair that could not afford to hire someone to build it for them. I spent 10 years ringing the bell for the Salvation Army, offering my services to Habitat for Humanity. Plus numerous other groups. I did all of this through a service group made up of local business men. All wanting to do the same thing. Assist other people when they need it. We also gave out monies for medical/educational needs. Most of members of this group owned their own business. I also did this because I feel that everyone should spend time doing community service. In my opinion it is not the job of the government to provide all of the assistance that they now do. All they are doing is teaching people to rely on them. Which again, IMO is exactly what some politicians want. They enjoy nothing better than handing out money and patting themselves on the back. Letting you know how wonderful they are. It aggravates the hell out of me. People should take care of people and that includes the various religions helping. NOT THE government. Hell, they cannot even run their own cafeterias on a profitable basis and you expect them to actually assist someone?
And Josh, there is nothing wrong with having empathy or compassion for someone in need. Just make sure the assistance you are giving them is helping them. Not just making you feel good. That can sometimes be a hard line to follow. But in the end, the old Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." really is true. Something this old cranky bastard does not believe can be accomplished by government.
Posted by: richnj at May 23, 2009 10:02 PM
"Being poor is knowing you can’t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around." Josh
Guess what Josh? Just because I was poor didn't mean my friends were thieves. This is exactly the problem with liberals, you make up some Dicken's version of poverty because you've sure never experienced it. We have been incredibly poor and I haven't ever had the experiences you laboriously wrote out for us. Here were some of my experiences:
Being poor meant that the nurse brought us three baby bags from other rooms in the hospital filled with diapers and hospital goodies that others had left behind just because she knew we might need them!
Being poor meant making a firm family decision not to accept help from the government while we were getting our education.
Being poor meant that my co-workers collected nearly $1k in a baby shower for me and my boss went to the wall with her boss to get extra benefits for me even though I was working part time.
Being poor meant appreciating every single gift and toy I was given.
Being poor meant an entire apartment complex who kept a box in the laundrymat that said "Help yourself: used kid's clothes" and hanging out around a coffee table with friends on Friday night eating mac n cheese or spaghetti while exchanging long work week stories.
Being poor meant getting an ovation from all the clerks in the local store when I finally managed to save more than 70% using coupons and having a grocery store clerk at the same store ask me to wait at the counter so she could try to find me a bigger free turkey at Thanksgiving (aaah the dead double coupon days...).
Being poor meant having family members who scrimped to give my kids Christmas presents.
Being poor meant making friends that I am still close to eight years later.
Being poor meant having an apartment manager check up on us and make sure we had everything running after the baby was born.
Being poor meant KNOWING I was expected to make something out of myself and give back from the generousity that I myself was given. Trust me, I have taken this last statement only TOO seriously. I'm sorry that some people fall in with bad crowds and make lousy decisions. I know from first hand experience that there's nothing inherently bad about being poor in the US and our amazing country has provided every single thing a person who makes good life decisions can use to get themselves out of poverty.
Posted by: Carolynp at May 26, 2009 7:25 PM
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://jacklewis.net/weblog/nav-commenters.gif)