That Sinking Feeling: Middle Class Incomes Fall

Do you have that sinking feeling? As in the Royal Bank of Scotland’s commercial where a fellow goes down in quicksand while his colleagues stand by, listening to their team leader’s corpo-babble about the need to remain calm and develop a strategic multi-phase plan to extricate the fellow who is rapidly disappearing into the muck? Well, it may be because you are sinking. Last week the Federal Reserve reported that family incomes fell between 2001 and 2004.

At first I hesitated to say anything about this, because a month ago New York Times columnist David Brooks chided me personally for taking “an overly negative view of reality.” As he wrote: “Barbara Ehrenreich’s books are well and good, but if you think they represent the broader society, you’ll get America wrong.”

Leaving aside the mystery of how my books could be both “good” and false, I began to worry that perhaps I have been exiled from the prosperous “broader society” and living in my own little miserable subculture where people struggle to make rent, sweat about threatened lay-offs, and agonize over health insurance. Note to “broader society:” Please let me back in!

But here it is – a bunch of bad news that even I couldn’t have seen coming. According to the Fed, average inflation-adjusted family incomes fell 2.3 percent between 2001 and 2004, to $70,700. The median family income (the point which half the families are above) rose only slightly, to $43,200, and the big difference between the median and average reflects how skewed the income distribution is.

Between 2001 and 2004 it became even more skewed, with – if you will pardon this bit of dog-bites-man news – the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. To quote the Associated Press’s report on the Fed’s study:

The top 10 percent of households saw their net worth rise by 6.1 percent to an average of $3.11 million while the bottom 25 percent suffered a decline from a net worth in which their assets equaled their liabilities in 2001 to owing $1,400 more than their total assets in 2004.

Now if you can recall that distant period of 01 to 04, this was a time of “recovery” from the bottoming out in 01, with rising economic growth and productivity. So why did family incomes fall while other economic indicators rose? According to Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (visit them at www.epinet.org), the problem is that wages are not growing. Now I’m no economist, but if the economy is growing and wages are not, the money must be going somewhere, and the obvious place to look is up.

Way up. In fact, if you want to follow the money you’re going to have to strain your neck. Another New York Times columnist, economist Paul Krugman, has just reported (2/27) on a study showing that those in the top 10 percent of the income distribution have been seeing income gains of only about 1 percent a year, or a total of 34 percent between between 1972 and 2001. In that same period, those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution saw a gain of 87 percent, and those in the top .01 percent registered a gain of 497 percent. That’s right: four hundred and ninety seven percent.

Reading Krugman’s column, I see I have been guilty of the opposite sin from that which Brooks accused me of –what Krugman calls “the 80-20 fallacy.” I’d been bright-siding the economy by assuming, as you may have as well, that the top 20 percent of the income distribution, which includes most college-educated workers, was doing fairly well. But the 2006 Economic Report of the President – yes, this president – reveals that the real earning of college graduates actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004.

Could you New York Times guys please get together? I’m beginning to suffer from a little whiplash here.

But when you read Brooks’ January column carefully, with a calculator in hand, you see there may be no inconsistency at all. Brooks cheerily reports that “only” 19 percent of American males and 27 percent of females are in poverty – a percentage that (and here he’s quoting economist Stephen Rose) is “probably much smaller than most progressive commentators would estimate.” Now if you average 19 and 27 percent, weighting for a 51 female population, you get an overall poverty rate of 23 percent. The poverty estimate I always give, based on numerous studies, is 25 percent. So, yeah, if Brooks’s numbers are right, I have been taking “an overly negative view” – by 2 percentage points.

Let’s not quibble. A 23 percent poverty rate is totally outrageous, especially when compared to the federal government’s faux poverty rate of about 13 percent. So are falling incomes for the college-educated middle class and mounting plunder for the plutocrats at the top. Maybe I’ve been living in the “broader society” after all.

Comments

[HSS]

I think that one of the biggest problems here is that our government does not want to face these issues. They choose to ignore them or try to explain them away. They choose to help those that they deem to be worthy of their help. The rest of the population, they ignore. Let me tell you a true story. It may help to paint a better picture for you of why so many Americans keep falling to that poverty level and cannot seem to get out.

I have a sister who is twenty-five years old. She has no college education, although she was an honors student in high school. She also has three children. Twin boys age eight and a three year old daughter and she is divorced. She has always worked. Many of her jobs have been the sort that you worked in your book "Nickel and Dimed". After her divorce from her boys' father, she met who she thought to be a very nice young man. He filled her with hope and promises of how he would take care of her and her boys. When she became pregnant, he bolted. He told her he wanted nothing to do with the child and that she should get rid of it. Well, once you have had a child, it becomes nearly impossible to give one up. She figured she could handle being a sigle parent to one more child. She knew it would be hard. For two years she tried to make ends meet on her own. She thought that while it was this man's choice to be not be a part of his child's life, he should still have to assume some financial responsibility. So, she filed a petition for child support with the Juvenille and Domestic Relations Court. She received a summons to appear for a support hearing right around the time she was to move into an apartment. This being a rent controled apartment, she had been on a waiting list. The morning of her court date, she awoke to her then two year old throwing up. Not only did she not have a phone hooked up yet, that being a luxury for a sigle mother of three in her income bracket, but she would have to find someone at the last minute to watch her sick child since we all know daycare centers will not take a child when they are throwing up. Somehow, while borrowing a neighbor's phone and calling everyone she knew to watch her child, it slipped her mind to call the court. Needless to say, she found no babysitter and the court appointment came and went.

A couple of days later once the dust had settled and she was able to plan more time off of work, (The restaurant she is employed in has a very strict policy, every absence is one point. Six points in a year and you loose your job.), she called the court to get another hearing. She was informed by the court clerk's office that she had been charged with failure to appear. Her punishment, $188.00 fine and 10 hours of community service.

Now, I can understand that the courts are clogged with cases. Many of them useless and at times unnecessary. However, most of the people in court seeking child support are there because they cannot afford and attorney to handle all the paperwork for them and the majority of them are women. I don't know any women who can afford to raise three children without child support. What burns me the most about this is the way the government continues to push Americans at this income level further and further down. $188.00 is a large chunk of change for a lot of people. It is two weeks worth of groceries to a single mother of three.

[MissAnneThrope]

and let's not forget when we cheerily report that “only” 19 percent of American males and 27 percent of females are in poverty that the current definition of poverty dates back to 1969 http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/defs/poverty.html

[Hattie]

HSS: What a story! I see a woman I know going the same way. Once she can no longer make a living taking care of my mother in law I honestly don't know what she's going to do. She is pregnant with her third child by a man I don't trust to stick around. She has bought him a truck and has taken on extra hours to pay for it. She makes no claims on him, because she is afraid he will leave if she does. Her other two kids are doomed, already floundering in school and one with major health problems. I do what I can for her. But the class barrier is there; also she is very pious. She regards me as hard-hearted: would never consider getting an abortion or getting her tubes tied,and yet she does not feel she can ask a guy to be careful. She is not dumb, has some college, is very competent, but she can't get ahead. I really fear for her.

[Victoria]

"HSS: What a story! I see a woman I know going the same way. Once she can no longer make a living taking care of my mother in law I honestly don't know what she's going to do. She is pregnant with her third child by a man I don't trust to stick around. She has bought him a truck and has taken on extra hours to pay for it. She makes no claims on him, because she is afraid he will leave if she does. Her other two kids are doomed, already floundering in school and one with major health problems. I do what I can for her. But the class barrier is there; also she is very pious. She regards me as hard-hearted: would never consider getting an abortion or getting her tubes tied,and yet she does not feel she can ask a guy to be careful. She is not dumb, has some college, is very competent, but she can't get ahead. I really fear for her "

Okay - she's having economic difficulty. I understand that she's struggling, but, in your account, she refuses to use birth control or abstain from sex - she's on her third child, and is also struggling to raise her other two children. Perhaps, however, this is the coup de gras: SHE BOUGHT A MAN A TRUCK AND HAS TAKEN ON EXTA HOURS TO PAY FOR IT...
And you honestly wonder why she "can't" get ahead. Whether or not she had college or whether or not she's 'smart' really doesn't matter; the woman is making bad choices, when clearly, she could make better choices(i.e. DONT HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX, AS IT PRODUCES MORE CHILDREN). Please, explain to me, how is it the responsibility of the rich, or the responsibility of say, someone who makes more constructive choices to look out for her? How, in any way, do her irresponsible choices have anything to do with the 'class barrier'?

And, if you take the popular standpoint, that people are entirely helpless and did nothing to contribute to the conditions of their lives, its as silly to put her economic burden on anyone else as those who are prosperous were equally helpless in aquiring their wealth.

To empathize with this woman would be no less than slapping myself in the face for the hours I to work in order to put myself through college and gain financial independence. And, even if I must work a menial job after college, as there's a flux of college-graduate workers on the market, I'll do so gladly, knowing that I am acting in my fullest capacity to support myself,
and not relying upon the alms or pity of other people.

[Hattie]

Oh, I can see why she can't get ahead, no problem there. And naturally as a good American I understand that there is no class system in this country. I also understand that people should be able to get along without love and happiness. (heavy sarcasm)It's lucky that so many of us are damn near perfect, isn't it.

[HSS]

RE: Comments from Victoria

First of all, I never said that my sister was having unprotected sex or being careless. She was married when she got pregnant with her TWIN boys. As far as her second pregnancy, accidents happen. If she had been married with the second pregnancy, no one would call it careless and chide her for having unprotected sex. Do you know what it is like to be alone and raising young children working menial jobs and going nowhere in your life. Obviously not. Sometimes you let your guard down due to the desparate feelings that wash over you an a daily basis and the wrong people get in. There are men in the world who prey upon women in this situation. People who live in desparation tend to make destructive choises; drinking, drugging, sex. They have nothing in their lives that makes them feel good so they go for the temporary "feel good". I am NOT saying this is an excuse nor am I saying that the "rich" should take responsibility for them. But, the "rich should not ignore them either. I think that our government should begin to look at the way they contribute the widening economic gap in our society. My sister's plight while trying to obtain child support is just a small instance of how the poor are kept poor. That was one of the many things that continue to happen to her. Beleive me, I could write a book.

Our government seems to think that if they focus on the wealthiest Americans that these Americans will invest in our country and the economy will be good. Well, that is obviously not working, or the gap would not be continuing to grow.

[Hattie]

HSS: Well said. We need impassioned advocates for the poor. They are so easy to blame.
Alms or pity. Hmm. I haven't seen too much of that going in the direction of poor people lately.

[MissAnneThrope]

I think the real issue here is one of entitlement, and we are all, to one degree or another, a product of entitlement. If you are an American, you have grown up with greater entitlement than a third world citizen. If you are white in America, you have grown up with more entitlement than a person of color, and if you are white and male, you have grown up with more entitlement than most of the people working for you or under you. It’s a fact, and no matter how many hard-hearted, ignorant in their bliss people rant about how hard they have worked for what they have, it does not change the long-term and residual effects of poverty. People who have not grown up in poverty rarely get it. Instead, they vote Republican and continue to believe that the things they have, the positions they have acquired and their place in this world are predominantly a product of their own good choices.

[HSS]

I agree, but it goes beyond the fact that these people think they have made good choises. I work at a very large state university and I see this on a daily basis. I see young woman, not much younger than my sister, making some very bad choises. I can go out to dinner in the community surrounding this university on any Friday and Saturday night and the behavior that is exhibited is appalingly bad. The difference, in my opinion, is that these young woman have the economic resources available to them that keep them from having to feel the effects of their bad choices. They don't feel alone, they don't feel worthless because they have to stand in line at the grocery store and put food back because they do not have enough money left on their food stamp card. They don't feel embarrased by the fact that people they went to high shcool with now see them moping floors in a fast food restaurant while those people are on their lunch break from their high paying bank job. When you have experienced things like this, you have no sense of entitlement.

[MissAnneThrope]

The things you cite are some of the residual effects of poverty I am referring to...and yes, young college women with questionable morals are often insulated from the effects of their bad behavior by their economic status. It's reminiscent of the way we treat people arrested for drunk driving. The poor face much more devastating consequences for their bad behavior and choices. The amount of fines they pay, and the cost of the corporate sponsored educational programs they must attend in order to have their license reinstated are felt much more acutely by the poor than they are by the privileged whose parents are often paying for their bad behavior. Justice, American style, is quickly devolving into an income-based reality that marches comfortably right alongside our income-based experience of health care, or lack thereof.

[Victoria]

" It’s a fact, and no matter how many hard-hearted, ignorant in their bliss people rant about how hard they have worked for what they have, it does not change the long-term and residual effects of poverty. People who have not grown up in poverty rarely get it. Instead, they vote Republican and continue to believe that the things they have, the positions they have acquired and their place in this world are predominantly a product of their own good choices."

Well, what if you do grow up in poverty, and you say to yourself, 'Gee, I really don't want to make bad choices or continue to live like this. I suppose I should do something, perhaps get a job after school so that I can save up for college, and then I can dually support myself financially, and, if I feel so obligated to the community which presented to me a slough of unfavorable conditions, perhaps, with my income, I'll give money to programs and do some good..."

You people love to tell stories - well here's a story for you - its the story of a young woman who works fifty hours a week during college, who's worked fifty hours a week during high school - because she had to; this woman does not complain, she doesn't make irresponsible choices. She 's doing what she has to do to get by, and she WILL get by, because she's chosen to do so. Tell me, what should she have to care about poverty? In fact, to say that she's a moral, or a civic duty to care is somewhat ridiculous - isn't it somewhat analagous to saying, 'Hey, it is imperative that you work to change conditions that you're working to extricate yourself from?'.

Oh, and I would 'chide' anyone who is going through with a pregnancy she cannot afford, be they married, single, widowed, or otherwise. Certainly, accidents DO happen, as do SOLUTIONS.

Note:simply because a person cares about her labor and her effort, that does not necessitate that the person votes 'Republican'. In fact, anybody who values capitalism, really, anybody that values freedom, would certainly steer clear of any ideology that abnegates the rational basis and justification of capitalism and freedom. Currently, Republicanism is strongly rooted in faith, which, essentially, requires a negation of reality as we perceive it.

[Hattie]

Well, I think this is all getting off the point. But it does make one thing clear to me: in the current economy, people are turning against each other in the battle for scarce resources.

[Victoria]

Regardless of class or distribution, some resources, simply because of their natural state (i.e. nonrenewable resources) are always going to incur shortages and scarcities - however, it is the advent of technological developments that allows for resources to be produced in greater quantities(the agricultural revolution allowed for the production of massive amounts of food at lower costs...). However, the only manner through which further advents can develop, consequently lowering the prices by increasing the quantity of goods, is if there exists enough free-flowing capital in a market so that corporations can actually invest in R/D(research and development). Simply, an economy NEEDS wealthy people, who have enough income to spend both on consumer goods and investment, in order for that economy to grow. Hence, wealth is more beneficial to a capitalist, or quasi-capitalist(the mixed economy hailed by liberals/statists...) than say, a more equal distribution of wealth, as the latter would result in less consumer spending/R&D. If we were all weakened, sorry, equalized by social reforms, and say, brought to the average income level of this country, we'd incur a severe loss of jobs, as there wouldn't be enough cash to fuel the consumer industry.

As far as turning against each other - we're not quite at the point where we're brandishing sticks, but certainly, things will become primal if we're forced to sacrifice logic for emotionalism.

[theresa]

We've already turned on each other with sticksand emotionalism -- read this article on Bullying in the workplace and see how the least competent and most aggressive have turned work into a nightmare,and may be behind 90% of the stories on the madness the interview process has become.

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A157689

[MissAnneThrope]

Ahhh, Victoria…I’ll see your three and raise you five. I know a woman who raised six children on her own after her quasi-Christian Republican capitalism-loving husband abandoned her and his children. She worked plenty of long hours, raised her children alone, couldn’t EVER count on the child support check, and put herself through college and graduate school… magna cum laude my dear. She remains, to this day, one of those bleeding heart liberals who continue to annoy people with that sappy empathy for the poor you are so distressed by…in spite of the fact that she worked hard and eschewed the bad choices. As for your mini-eulogy on economics, there are some serious holes in your logic…presuppositions that are incapable of holding the edifice you are striving to defend. Your “the only manner through which further advents can develop, consequently lowering the prices by increasing the quantity of goods, is if there exists enough free-flowing capital in a market so that corporations can actually invest in R/D(research and development)...an economy NEEDS wealthy people, who have enough income to spend both on consumer goods and investment, in order for that economy to grow” is textbook economics, to be sure, but hardly the truth. Propaganda, yes, but economics….sadly no. Just because they tell you this is true does not make it true, and the lion’s share of the research and development going on out there is being funded by the government, not corporations. Your sophomoric attempt at explaining away greed under the guise of a necessary evil for survival is pathetic and ignorant. Defending the humanity of the poor just doesn’t fit into your equation does it? I might remind you that theories of economics are just that….theories.

[A3K]

Just thought I'd put in a comment so Hattie could e-mail me on the side to tell me what a terrible person I am.

Again.

BTW, MAT, somehow your example was a Republican, but it's well established that marriage rates are much higher among Republicans than Democrats. And the stay-togetherness of couples who are married is much higher than those who aren't, so just as a guess would you suppose there are more Republican men out there not supporting their children or more Democrat men out there not supporting their children?

Just hazard a guess.

[A3K]

"the lion’s share of the research and development going on out there is being funded by the government, not corporations."

Citation, please.

[Ted]

>"the lion’s share of the research and development going on out there is being funded by the government, not corporations."

Citation, please. <
Posted by: A3K

It's a sad reflection on US media, but no surpise, that this isn't widely known:

"...the September 1997 issue of SEED pointed out that:

In 1994, AFDC and food stamps combined cost $38.2 billion. The same year direct subsidies to corporations cost $50.9 billion. Tax breaks worth an additional $53.3 billion were also given to corporations. In other words, the total cost of corporate welfare was $104.3 billion.

While these figures are certainly revealing, focusing exclusively on direct subsidies and tax breaks, the traditional terrain of "corporate welfare," does not even come close to exposing the actual depth of what Noam Chomsky calls "the transfer of public funds to deep pockets." In a video of his April 22, 1996 lecture called "Corporate Welfare in the US" available from Radio Free Maine, Chomsky discusses the major component of the transfer of tax dollars to private industry -- the Pentagon System.
The Cold War is supposedly over, but military spending remains at approximately Cold War levels. A huge proportion of our tax dollars are spent preparing for a high-tech World War III. While questions of drug lords, deterrence, "rogue states" and so forth can be debated, there are other aspects to military spending that aren't so debatable. In his talk on "the subsidy called security," Chomsky argues that the Pentagon, along with NASA, parts of the Department of Energy, and several other government institutions, were developed and are maintained at least in part to support large transnational corporations. He points to the enormous profits that corporations have made from "dual use technology," technologies that are developed with public funds under the military and space exploration system, and then handed over to corporations to be patented and sold back to the public that financed their development in the first place. Chomsky states that over fifty percent of all research and development conducted in the electronics, computer, aeronautics, metallurgy, laser and telecommunications industries has been done with the public's money. He points towards the satellites used by AT&T and the airplanes sold by Boeing as obvious examples of pieces of technology that were largely developed with taxpayers' money and are now used for private profit..."

http://www.radiofreemaine.com/rfm/chomrev03.html

[A3K]

Sorry, Ted, but nothing you posted was actually responsive to my request for a citation on the claim that government R&D spending outstrips private R&D spending.

I'd call that bait & switch on your part. Heh heh.

[A3K]

And quoting Chomsky, ostensibly a linguist whose main claim to fame so far is recreating the field of linguistics and then abandoning his recreation (without anyone really noticing), on economic matters is a stretch.

Perhaps you'd like to quote Greenspan on the sound pattern of English next.

[robinl]

attn: A3K
first, regarding your, oh so important citations, i'd like to see the source of your repubs mate for life claim. did those statistics include newt gingrich, rush limbauh, et.al??...hmmm, i wonder.

second, i'm new to this forum and have been reading posts and i find it interesting, your steadfastness in the repub ideology. point of note: unless you are among the world's .5% income holders (i won't say earner's here and note i said WORLD not country) the republicans don't give a damn about you!! i have my own sad stories of poverty, but i'll make it really personal for you. go ahead and play by the rules and vote the republican ticket your entire life. one day, odds are that life will throw you into tailspin. maybe you'll be "downsized" (thanks to Clinton's abhorant NAFTA scam) or you'll get hit with a hurricane or a wildfire like we had here in San Diego 3 years ago. If you've been downsized you may find it nearly impossible to find a job that pays what you've come accustomed to. sooner or later the cobra will run out and you'll be without health insurance. what happens if you have a heart attack or your, conceived in wedlock, child has a bicycling accident?? from personal experience i know that that hospital bill for a heart attack will be upwards of $70k. as a responsible republican (SARCASM) you'll pay immediately right?? with that handy-dandy health savings account. even if you DID have insurance, who's to say you would end up with a bill you can cover?? or as suggested, you live in gulf Mississippi and your house is blown away in a hurricane. fema's not helping. your insurance companies (flood and wind) won't pay up. now you don't have a job because the company you worked so hard for has also blown away, the insurance company's are giving you the run around and you're still responsible for the mortgage.
what happened here? you played by the rules. you worked hard. you paid your taxes. rest assured, there's nobody around to help you. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. you'll be a victim of the rampant cronism and disregard of the republican party.

[A3K]

"first, regarding your, oh so important citations, i'd like to see the source of your repubs mate for life claim. did those statistics include newt gingrich, rush limbauh, et.al??...hmmm, i wonder."

Firstly, robin1, I never claimed that "repubs mate for life". So it's not important that I address your distortion. If you'd like to re-ask the question using an actual claim I've made, feel free.

"second, i'm new to this forum and have been reading posts and i find it interesting, your steadfastness in the repub ideology. point of note: unless you are among the world's .5% income holders (i won't say earner's here and note i said WORLD not country) the republicans don't give a damn about you!!"

robin, I don't expect republicans or democrats to give a damn about me. I expect them to set rules that allow folks to go out and compete and live their lives as best they can. And I'm doing quite well, so thanks.

"i have my own sad stories of poverty, but i'll make it really personal for you."

I don't actually care about your sad story.

"go ahead and play by the rules and vote the republican ticket your entire life. one day, odds are that life will throw you into tailspin. maybe you'll be "downsized" (thanks to Clinton's abhorant NAFTA scam) or you'll get hit with a hurricane or a wildfire like we had here in San Diego 3 years ago. If you've been downsized you may find it nearly impossible to find a job that pays what you've come accustomed to."

Actually, robin1, my wife was downsized twice in one year. The first job she had been with for four years and it was a real blow to her. Since we saw the signs of distress in her employer, she'd already been looking for work and fortunately at the time she was laid off, she had three offers to decide among. I suggested she take one job that I thought would make her happy (but which paid middling) but she chose instead to take the one with the highest salary. Soon after she was hired, the company underwent a round of layoffs and since she was the only person in her department not covered by an agreement that was worked out two mergers prior, she was the only one eligible to be laid off. So she went back to the drawing board and started the job search over.

While the job I thought she'd like best had been filled, the third job, which carried a higher salary than the job she'd originally had but a lower one than the second was open again. So they hired her.

She worked there until our daughter was born. It was an agency environment and the way the agency worked, she was under high stress. So at a certain point (about a year before our daughter was born) I told her that her stress was no longer worth it and that I would help her write her resignation letter over the weekend. She did so, gave them two weeks notice and at the end of the two weeks, the agency proposed some dramatic changes in her workload to satisfy the complaints she'd laid out in her resignation letter. She worked there one more year and didn't have a single day in that time where she came home upset about work.

"sooner or later the cobra will run out and you'll be without health insurance."

Ooga booga! It's quite possible that it'll happen to me. I've been very conservative in how I've saved money and set up our lifestyle so presuming something very bad happens to us, we should have some time to react. If so, I'll deal with it at that time. But I'm not going to live my life in dread the way you pathetic folks do. Life's simply too short to be as miserable as you are.

"what happens if you have a heart attack or your, conceived in wedlock, child has a bicycling accident?? from personal experience i know that that hospital bill for a heart attack will be upwards of $70k. as a responsible republican (SARCASM) you'll pay immediately right??

Life is just a series of hypothetical disasters for you, isn't it?

"with that handy-dandy health savings account. even if you DID have insurance, who's to say you would end up with a bill you can cover??"

robin1, the purpose of a health savings account is to allow folks who couldn't otherwise afford insurance at all to finally be able to buy a high deductible policy. So in that instance, the exposure would be 4K instead of 70K. So all in all, I'll take my approach and leave you to your fear and loathing.

"or as suggested, you live in gulf Mississippi and your house is blown away in a hurricane. fema's not helping."

Oh shut up.

"your insurance companies (flood and wind) won't pay up."

Really? Is that widespread? Tell me what percentage of insurance policies in the Gulf states are denying valid claims? If you don't know, then perhaps you should either investigate or shut your pie hole.

"now you don't have a job because the company you worked so hard for has also blown away, the insurance company's are giving you the run around and you're still responsible for the mortgage.
what happened here? you played by the rules. you worked hard. you paid your taxes. rest assured, there's nobody around to help you. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. you'll be a victim of the rampant cronism and disregard of the republican party."

And what will I do when the asteroid strikes and all of the world's civilizations have been destroyed? Where will my precious Republican party be then, huh?!

[robinl]

"but it's well established that marriage rates are much higher among Republicans than Democrats. And the stay-togetherness of couples who are married is much higher than those who aren't, so just as a guess would you suppose there are more Republican men out there not supporting their children or more Democrat men out there not supporting their children?"

cite it.

i know you don't care about my sad story, which is why i didn't waste my time writing it. your holier than thou attitude like you're the only one here that works for a living is crap however. i work full time and i attend CSUSM paying my own way.
as a true republican, you don't give a damn about anyone but yourself. fine. choose to live that way. Your commander-in-cheif doesn't care either, but then he lies about it.
"People in faraway places like Washington, D.C., still hear you and care about you," he [BUSH] said in the gymnasium at St. Stanislaus College in Bay St. Louis. "I recognize there's some rough spots .... We're going to work to make them as smooth as possible." cited from "Bush Plays Booster-In-Chief in New Orleans"
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press WriterThu Jan 12

with regard to the insurance issues see: In Miss., Time Now Stands Still
Recovery Is Stagnant In Post-Katrina Towns

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 25, 2005; Page A01

i don't claim that every hypothetical will happen, but it's possible and when that time comes don't bother asking anyone for help.

[LC2]

Re the sense of entitlement of white first-world Americans: I always find this a troubling analysis. It implies that we, as residents of developed nations, should compare our expectations to those of third world/war torn/banana republic, etc. societies. Why?

Why don't we compare our society instead to the many and varied approaches of countries at similar stages of development -- Canada, to take the nearest example? It reminds me of the college professor who responded to a student's complaint that liberals simply won't confront the fact of limited resources. He drew twenty or so differently-shaped pyramids on the board to visually represent ways those resources can be allocated, while acknowledging it will never be equal. There are so many exciting and almost unimaginable ways that societies can organize themselves. Why do we persist in the absurd comparison of apples and oranges? We have nothing to learn from Scandinavia? Not a lesson or two we could glean from Japan?

[Heather]

I think you might find that what makes the statistics look better, than what they really are, is that people whose income is below a certain level or who are part of the invisible income, such as not legal in America do not show up in statistics.
Doesn't your heart just bleed and don't you want to cry lumpy custard for the top people who have only got a mere 1% gain in income 1% of what? I ask you. I bet it would be billions plus all those tax deductables or do they pay any tax anyway? What happened to the trickle down effect that was suppose to help the poorer members of society? It has just been a water spout up.
Nobody can tell me that all those people earning millions of dollars a year are worth it, nobody is, no matter how important they think they are. When they drop dead there is always someone able to fit into their shoes, ready willing and able.