Top 5 Misconceptions About People Struggling Economically Today

Great thread here and I have enjoyed reading all the reply's from around the globe.
I have to agree that Community College is the answer, here in our city it is a no brainer.
Very cheap and it specializes in what is local and requires knowledge.
One example is the firefighting course, they have the best results in all of Canada and almost a 100% hire rate.
Another is the nursing program, almost all grads from this get jobs from the get go.
Chemical engineering you got the job when you graduate.
Electronic Technology , your into big bucks and take your pick of employers.
The list goes on and on here, It is not expensive, but it is a commitment but my wife included has really done well going to a community college and no loans involved at all.
However they do lack the Ivy league star dust.
Regards, Iwinder

Originally posted by veetwindfw
I have been lurking for a bit but I saw this thread and it's dear and near to my heart. Having been through the economic strife of the 70's 80's and now at present, I can tell you that folks blame the same things, and have the same habits. The only difference is the present day issue of personal debt. When I grew up in the projects in the 70's, no one had a credit card. Everyone had a tab at their favorite grocer and if they wanted a high ticket item it was layaway.

Parents didn't cave into little Jimmy for that $299 XBOX at $60 per game, and little Sally certanly didn't get the $450 dollar iPhone. Us kids were taking jobs as baggers at the grocers for tip money. Hell if we would had McDonald's all of us would have worked there. None of us got allowances. I didn't have the latest Baby Phat or FUBU clothes, but my mom always made sure my clothes were cleaned and pressed.
I guess since I was a kid I was instilled with the point that you made your own breaks, no one was going to do it for you. I grew around kids who were living in rent control yet their parents had lincolns and nice Oldsmobiles. At least 70% were on food stamps and welfare. Their parents would sit on the stoop and drink 40's and play dominos all day. My dad would point to them and tell me, you don't want to be like that because once Papi Sam was feeding you, you become too lazy to help yourself and you grow to like it. That was the 70's...sound familiar? We also had 'community organizers' that would just tell everyone that they should complain for more 'benefits"...again sound familiar?

Fast forward now..I worked hard, picked my shots, made some whopper mistakes but I blamed myself for them..not the goverment, not wall street, not Target or Apple, I did the research and picked a career that would always evolve [electronic engineering], I went to community schools always, never asked the goverment for any help, not ever a minoirty grant. If I didn't have the cash for something, I just didn't buy it or I saved until I could. I make a comfortable living. I only buy used lease return cars and keep them for at least 10 years. My cell phone is three years old. My wife went to community, took her while but she went to university and got a Master's, loan free. My kid is going to the local community college, has a 20+ hour a week job and has a Virgin Mobile pre-pay phone. I didn't suggest any of that, it was her decision.
I have a very nice house, I only bought what I could afford and moved to whre I could afford it, with a big down payment after saving for 10 years.

In summary, if you make your own decisions, you only have youself to praise/blame for your own success/failures.
Learn how to express yourself in full comprehensive language with no 'you kno wha- am sayin?" thrown in every three or four words. Look people in the eye when you speak to them. That shows pride in yourself as well as determination. This economic panic happens every 10-20 years, but it's the same folks that level things off again.

If you're mad at corporations? Stop paying for iTunes. Stop buying those $140 reebocks on foot locker credit.Do you really need the MWIII game? The economy is supposed to be really bad, yet Best Buy is packed today!
I was visiting home in lower east side a couple of weeks ago[I'm from Baruch Housing]NYC and went to see OWS,there were alot of folks with $4 Starbucks and iPods. More sleeping than protesting [it was 11AM]Nuff said on that observation.

If you're reading this and you don't have a job and it's between 9AM-5PM on a Monday..ask yourself if you shouldn't be somewhere else. Maybe volunteering at a school or taking some free webinars on technology?

Gratz on your hard work and the resulting condition. I'm assuming your post was more so in reply to other posts in the thread but just in case it was a reply to the original post I want to clarify something. I also worked hard, earned my bachelors degree and now have a job in a field that is in high demand, web developer. The original post was not an attempt to blame anyone as no one individual or group is soley respondible. You are very correct about it being important to blame yourself for not working hard enough and/or making mistakes but I think a lot of the people struggling are already doing that. This isn't as simplistic as many think/wish. There will always be scum bags but this post isn't referring to the constants that we all know, it's referring to a new variable type that people are throwing into the scum bag category undeservingly.

Originally posted by Infrasilent
While I do have a great deal of sympathy for those struggling financially, I make a small exception for those trying to get out from under student loans. This is why:

In high school, I got excellent grades, had a job working 20 hours a week, and still managed to complete nearly a years worth of college coursework (Advanced Placement) before I ever applied to a university.

My peers derided me endlessly for my decision to attend a Cal State institution, because I grew up in an affluent area and no one could understand the fact that I wasn't going to spend in the tens of thousands of dollars per year simply for tuition. (I was generally considered one of the smart kids in school and apparently my decision did not sit well with them.) The deal with my parents basically was: we can pay for you to go to a cal state and anything else is on you.

I CHOSE to go to a cheaper, less "prestigious" (whatever that means anyway...) university because I could get a free ride, and if anything were to happen to my parents or their ability to pay I could conceivably support myself and continue my education.

At the end of the day, STUDENT LOANS ARE A CHOICE. No one forced anyone to get them. "SOCIETY" has nothing to do with it. Anyone who took them sure as hell made it harder on the rest of us though, because their retarded acceptance of ever-more ridiculous amounts of debt increased the cost of education for EVERYONE.

That said, I don't think the government has a right to hound people until the end of their days about these loans. If the economy has changed in such a way that one can't ever expect to pay, there should eventually be some way out from under them (like bankruptcy and settlement).

These loans are nothing but enslavement of the intellectual.

Student loans AREN'T a choice for many people that actually pull student loans. This statement is blasphemy.

I can either work a McJob for the rest of my life, or I could go to school.

I cannot afford to go to school.

I do not have anyone to pay for me. I'm 25, I never had a scholarship. My high school life period was quite tough, parents divorced, people dying, moving cross country -- regardless, I graduated 2 years early (I was just turning 16) and was given an ultimatum by my guardian. Go to school or get a job.

I went to school -- got approved for grants -- got into an accident, broke my hand in numerous places and had it casted -- failed a typing class (for obvious reasons) -- had unforeseen complications with my hand during the opening of the next semester was forced to withdraw, thrown on academic suspension (for the failure and withdrawals) was denied the grants, had to pay back the money I already received from the grants (Upwards of $2,000) all while attending Edison Community College (about the cheapest of cheap schools) on top of the medical expenses (that actually lay unpaid as of today.)

Got a job, got laid off, got another job, got laid off again, got another job, got laid off again, and am currently still unemployed. Laid off, not fired. Business couldn't afford the workers and trimmed us. 3x in a row.

So pray tell, how does one have a choice here? Sure. There is a choice. The choice is, be poor for the rest of my life and have an impossibly hard time finding a low dollar job, or take loans and go to school in hopes that it enables me to learn a particular set of skills I can potentially start my own business with.

Is that really much of a choice?

It's damned if you do, damned it you don't.

I don't care about you. I don't care about what a whiz you were in high school. I do care about your blatant blasphemous statement. It's a gaff an intelligent person wouldn't actually make and is actually up there on the OPs 1-5 list.

You are projecting YOUR situation on others, as if others couldn't possibly have complications you didn't have.

P.S.

There was a metric ton of things that acted as a money sink in my life as well. From broken down cars to busted tires and the city forcing city water (and demanding and collecting money up front) to being sick and needing to purchase medicines etc.


Too many to list. But clearly, I don't have a choice. If I want to continue my education, loans are my only option. And this isn't because of laziness or irresponsibility... This is because of random things going wrong/accidents/life happening as it were.

Please pull your head out of your anus next time, thanks.

Sidenote:

You don't see me around here anymore because my life is literally lived fighting against the grain. I don't have any time to myself, and certainly not much time to peruse forums anymore either. It's become work, to find work.

But you would know anything about that?

Originally posted by Propulsion
I call it living to ones means. People want their cake and eat it too. Can’t have everything in life because someone else has it. If you want something, than do what it takes to obtain it. Don’t expect anyone to give it to you for free. I so dislike the pity trips! Stand up and take control of your life! I went from an I.S. position that paid me 90k a year to a warehouse position unloading trailers for close to nothing. I don’t run around pouting like a baby! I had 130k in student loans. Paid them all off! There was a time in my life where I was down and out living on streets! I chose not to be there and made changes! In my opinion, some people are just too lazy! And then they cry about it when things don’t work out the way they want them too! I know everyone is not the same, but I also know everyone can do or be anything they want in life! My grandmother made a career change when she turned 62 years old. She hated her prior work and wanted to find happiness. She has no regrets...

edit on 19-11-2011 by Propulsion because: (no reason given)

Another blasphemous statement. See the above post. Also, not everyone is of the same intelligence -- therefore, some people cannot do what others can do.

Your equation doesn't take in account for unforeseen events, accidents, emergencies, luck, job availability (There is no way you could of paid off 130k in student loans if you DIDN'T have that 90k a year job), etc to infinity.

You got lucky. You also didn't get off the street because you "wanted" to. You got off the streets because someone helped you. Period.

If you didn't have a place to live or a place to shower or someone to feed you, you would have to beg for sustenance/never get a job (Because who is going to hire someone without a phone/car/house who can't even shower or wash his clothes for work when there are plenty of people NOT homeless who have phones and a reliable way to commute who don't have jobs?)


You are just a lucky idiot or a liar. Flat out. Yes, I went there.

Originally posted by SmArTbEaTz

Originally posted by Infrasilent
While I do have a great deal of sympathy for those struggling financially, I make a small exception for those trying to get out from under student loans. This is why:

In high school, I got excellent grades, had a job working 20 hours a week, and still managed to complete nearly a years worth of college coursework (Advanced Placement) before I ever applied to a university.

My peers derided me endlessly for my decision to attend a Cal State institution, because I grew up in an affluent area and no one could understand the fact that I wasn't going to spend in the tens of thousands of dollars per year simply for tuition. (I was generally considered one of the smart kids in school and apparently my decision did not sit well with them.) The deal with my parents basically was: we can pay for you to go to a cal state and anything else is on you.




I CHOSE to go to a cheaper, less "prestigious" (whatever that means anyway...) university because I could get a free ride, and if anything were to happen to my parents or their ability to pay I could conceivably support myself and continue my education.

At the end of the day, STUDENT LOANS ARE A CHOICE. No one forced anyone to get them. "SOCIETY" has nothing to do with it. Anyone who took them sure as hell made it harder on the rest of us though, because their retarded acceptance of ever-more ridiculous amounts of debt increased the cost of education for EVERYONE.

That said, I don't think the government has a right to hound people until the end of their days about these loans. If the economy has changed in such a way that one can't ever expect to pay, there should eventually be some way out from under them (like bankruptcy and settlement).

These loans are nothing but enslavement of the intellectual.

Okay that's good for you brainy smurf but not everyone is "advanced" and if we want an education we have to subside to taking a student loan. My mom was a college professor, EMT, ER nurse, volunteer fireperson and a paramedic, and she STILL could not afford to send me to school because she was raising me and my sister on her own. So for an "educated/advanced" dimwit like yourself to call people who want to better themselves retarded is way out of line.

Who cares that your parents said they would pay for you. Not everyone has the same opportunities as everyone else. I believe that is what the OP was trying to get across before you put your 2 cents in. You can't force people to understand things and make them smart. Some people just get things better than others. It's no one's fault. It's life. Yeah loans are slavery but so are credit cards and working 40 hrs a week.

The cliche of work hard to get where you want to be doesn't apply to everyone... some of my friends work 80-90 hrs a week and have no life. How can we live if we are working to work every minute of our lives?

Walk a mile in the other man's shoes before you cast down your judgement... At least then you can speak from experience instead of out of your @$$...

No, working 40 hours a week is not slavery-- it's life. Even "rich" people work 40 hour weeks. 80-90 hours a week IS slavery, but no one needs to work that long on minimum wage to get by-- UNLESS you have a great deal of debts to pay, children to feed, or are saving for a better future. In any case, that is a CHOICE.

Also, I happen to attend a university that is very affordable. You might have to have loans to attend, but unless you took a ridiculous degree they would be manageable. I have many friends that are working/borrowing their way through with plenty of success. I understand that some people need a loan to get through school. HOWEVER, it is up to the individual to decide if a loan is manageable or not. If you took a loan to attend a university that you can't afford, that is no one's fault but your own.

Further, I understand that people like you are in a difficult spot. But I know tons of people that come from the same background that I do that somehow managed-- in spite of their supposed intelligence-- to borrow themselves into oblivion. You'll probably see them getting beat up in front of UC Berkeley in the coming days...

reply to post by IblisLucifer


People are lazy in general, the fact is some are just better "Tom Sawyer" then others


That of course is true. It has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. I find myself becoming more irritated with you who suggest things clearly not relevant than those who argue nonsense.

reply to post by Infrasilent


I so wish I could have given you 100 stars cos if I could have I would have.

My own son chose a path similar to yours and managed to graduate college in three years instead of the average ~5 years.

But the thing that really drove me to respond to your specific post is that I agree with you 100% on your assessment of the cost of college and it being driven by students willing to take on ever more debt to get their degrees from "prestigious", or as prestigious as they can get into, colleges and universities. You are spot on (IMHO).

Never confuse a corrupt system with those who choose not to participate.
Choose sides! I have.

reply to post by Geeky_Bubbe

This has nothing to do with our kids and how well they can jump through the hoops. It's about the hoops. "WE" either know our "leaders" are liars...or we are dumb. Honestly, I know some who aren't learned...not many dumb ones though. So...WE parents are responsible for allowing a corrupt agenda driven system to educate our kids?

reply to post by tinker9917


Good point, but society has led kids to believe that an education is a valuable thing to have and will pay for itself later. That was more true than not at one time, but it's a big, fat lie these days. As tuition fees double, and double again, the quality of university instruction has sunk to the bottom of the outhouse along with the value of those diplomas stained with it, not the worst situation if you could get a decent price for dung, but you can't. So can you blame these kids for being duped? I don't know. My parents stabbed me in the back, so I paid for mine by volunteering for Vietnam in the 60s, no PELL grants then, only GI Bill. I put in 8 years of science/math at a tough university, graduating 3.84 gpa in the masters, 4.00 in major, $150/month Veteran's check ending at $175, also put my wife through after picking her off the street and paying off her gov loans because her parents had ripped her off blind and left her high and dry. My career was shot down a year later, with two infants, because I refused to embezzle subsidies from the USDA, drink and pimp my wife out. Even so, I'd do it all over just for the personal worth, but only a fool floats loans to fund an education, so pass it on.

reply to post by Laokin


I'm sorry for your bad luck. At the end of the day though, what do you propose we do about it? It isn't anyone's fault that those things happened to you, and no amount of apologizing or monetary disbursement is going to fix them.

Also, you need to understand that a university education won't automatically improve your life or even your financial security. That attitude has locked plenty of people into de facto slavery. If you're smart, you can be successful just about anywhere. You honestly think the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world needed to go to Harvard to succeed? College is just a place to help you cram a bunch of knowledge into your head quickly-- what you do with that knowledge is up to you-- and you can always get it other places. For example, in many states it is possible to become a lawyer simply by being a slave to one for a couple years-- That's a lot cheaper than many law schools.

You seem to be stuck in the paradigm that our government created-- that you MUST go to college or you're doomed to be a bag checker forever. That simply is not the case, and on some level you know it. You're simply holding onto hope that a piece of paper is going to change your life forever.

Whether you know it or not, you're under mind control right now. If your public school was anything like mine, they told you college was the ONLY way, and that if you didn't get into the top name university you were DOOMED. They also tried to to tell you that everyone is created equal, that you owe allegiance to an object, that drugs will unequivocally destroy you, that the Vietnam conflict had some sort of merit, and that public entities actually give a crap what happens to you.

They lied.

I reckon about half of the people on welfare/dole payments actually need it. In Australia, the government decided to pay a "baby" bonus of $5000 to every baby born. That upped the teenage pregnancy rate and a lot of children have been born to parents who just wanted to get the money. Great for the economy, lots of flat screen tv's and other luxury devices were purchased with the tax payer's money. There are generations of dole bludgers out there who drive nice cars and have everything the struggling worker has. It all comes down to ethics. If you really want a job, you can bloody well go out and get one.

Originally posted by IblisLucifer
reply to post by Infrasilent

 

Mark my words the next bubble is student loans if you think the home mortgage industry was shady then you don't know much about student loans which follow you beyond the grave and bankruptcy cannot eliminate it. This with the fact that higher education which is for the most part basically a party kids just out of high school who are accumulating vast amounts of debt for a bachelor degree that may as well be a high school diploma because their are people with masters degrees working at Starbucks. More defaults will happen and erode the system with larger firms (like Goldman Sachs) taking over smaller one and making a killing betting against the bubble.

I agree with you. This is one of the places where they really stick it to the students, especially those who are not financially literate. When my parents forced me to go they basically brush over what would happen if I couldn't pay. Capitalized interest didn't mean much to me then. If things are still the same, I feel sorry for the students who will not be able to pay when they get out.

I had a $17,000 loan I had to pay when I got out of college, but life happened. Through the years I treid to pay, but many times couldn't. I took all the reliefe I could through forbarences and everything else you could think of.

Due to caplizied interest, my loan grew from $17,000 to $43,000 over the years. With the loan growing, the payments kept growing. When I got to the point I thought I could start making payments again, I kept finding out the payments doubled or tripled.

I keep thinking the new income based repayment plan (IBR) is a step in the right direction. What they really need to do is to cap the interest, and quit capitalizing it. I would be able to pay my loan back if they would slash all that extra interest off of it. Exactly what is interest? Money made out of thin air, and a way to keep us slaves.

That is where many people get hurt when they have to take a deferemnets and forbarences. Going into college, I never thought the loan would baloon that much. Eventhough college students are adults, many still don't have the slightest clue about loans, interest, credit cards and how it can hurt them until it is too late. Many of those college kids are using credit cards to buy the books and other things they need for college. They are racking debt upon debt even before they get out of college.

As you said people with masters degrees are working for Starbucks. The service jobs are drying up. Not too long ago I heard about McDonald's saying they would be hiring 50,000 people, and over a million applied. Along with employers deliberately not hiring unemployed people, the amount of defaults is just going to increase. I know when I attended one of those workshops that try to help you find a job, they out right said the longer you are unemployed the harder it will be for you to find a job.

The one I hear around here is:

I don't understand why everyone says the economy is bad, when I go out to eat, I have to wait in line! The stores are full!


Well, they are right. They absolutely are!
But of course if you ignore the fact that 5 years ago there were 6x more stores and restaurants open- We used to have 8 grocery stores- now we have 2. lol

SO yeah, you're right. Hope it makes you feel better. The few people with money are filling the remaining businesses up. Looks like business is good. Just ignore all the vacant stores everywhere. The fact that the mall is down to 10 stores when it used to have 50? Just ignore that.

I get so frustrated when I hear people talk about their own fortunate circumstance and expect everyone else in the world to be able to do the same.

The problem lies in the environment people are born into. It's really that simple. People don't start out as lazy. It's not human nature to be lazy. Something happened in the course of that person's life, often at an early age, that corrupted their development.

Personal responsibility is a bit of a paradox. Those familiar with philosophy and the ideas about free will know what I'm talking about. But here's something that I don't think is debatable. Children are much more dependent on their environment than they are on themselves. And the younger they are the more dependent they are. And unfortunately there are too many children at the mercy of a horrible environment. So answer me this: Based on that fact, how can we expect people to develop if we don't figure out a way to improve the environment these children are living in?

People can spend half their day talking about how lazy people create poverty, but it's not going to do a damn thing to solve the problem. Sometimes I think people like to ridicule people that are struggling in life because in some twisted way it makes them feel good about themselves.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by whaaa

 

You seemed to be under the impression that corporations are expressly set up to hurt working men. For a product to sell at a reasonable, profitable market price, all the costs of production have to be taken into account, such as the cost of raw materials, electric required to power machines, etc. If the business fails, the product may not have been priced to sell competitively, or there may be other factors. When the cost of raw materials goes up, so must the cost to produce an item. When the cost of labor goes up, so does the product. Now, suddenly prices at the grocery store goes up.

Here is how the system and corporations is hurting the working man. This does not pertain to small businesses who try to help their employees. Corporations set them selves up to pay $500,000, million, or more to the top executives. They look out for the interest of their investors first before anyone else. If they incur any extra costs, they cut their employees pay in one way or another. It could be firing a higher paid employee, and hiring someone else to do the same job for less pay to cutting back on hours and making sure on one works overtime. There is the current practice of laying off one person, and expecting their co-worker to take over that job. They will do this, and raising prices before thinking about cutting back on top level pay or giving the investor any less money. It is all about profit. The system was manipulated by the corporations to give themselves big tax breaks and possibly even a refund even when they show huge profits.

The labor costs could easily go down while the pay goes up by manipulation also. Through capping salaries. Changing the stock market so it is not a pyramid scheme where investors are limited to what they can make off of their stocks, and limited in their voting and demanding on making a certain profit. Corporations actually start looking at their employees as people and not just throw away numbers.

The system could be changed in that tax deduction in that the current tax deductions are thrown away. Tax deductions are given for hiring more people, raising their pay, and reducing the price of the product significantly from the previous year. If the government can pay farmers not to produce crops, then they can do this as well.

Actually the entire money system needs to change. How are businesses suppose to stay in business and hire people, if the people can't get hired by those businesses with enough pay to be able to buy their products?

Originally posted by FrenchOsage
reply to post by IblisLucifer

 

People are lazy in general, the fact is some are just better "Tom Sawyer" then others


That of course is true. It has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. I find myself becoming more irritated with you who suggest things clearly not relevant than those who argue nonsense.

Whats Relevant is relative to ones own sense of nonsense
Since its not of good sense to choose a side in battle where your adversary is playing both sides for themselves against everyone else making the only correct side that which has no sides

But let Coolio tell you what its all about


Its clearly not relevant to you, but its hard to argue with me that

We've been spending most my life in a Gangsta's Paradise
To much tell-a-vision watching got me chasing dreams
I'm an Educated man with money on my mind
Power and the Money; Money and the Power
minute after minute, hour after hour.
Everybody's runnin, but half of them ain't lookin
It's goin on in the kitchen, but I dont know what's cookin
They say I got ta learn, but nobody's here to teach me
If they cant understand it, how can they reach me?
I guess they cain't -- I guess they won't
I guess they frontin; that's why I know my life is outta luck, fool

So
Tell me why are we -- so blind to see
That the ones we hurt -- are you and me?

cause We've been spending most our lives
Living in the Gangsta's Paradise
and that goes for everyone
your part of a corrupt system
whether or not your one of those who choose not to participate
there is no escaping it, fool

No, working 40 hours a week is not slavery-- it's life. Even "rich" people work 40 hour weeks. 80-90 hours a week IS slavery, but no one needs to work that long on minimum wage to get by-- UNLESS you have a great deal of debts to pay, children to feed, or are saving for a better future. In any case, that is a CHOICE.

I'm sorry, but working 40 hours a week is not life. It's a life unfortunately too many of us choose and its a huge reason for a lot of physical and mental sickness. It is a form of slavery, but a kind of voluntary slavery.

There's no good reason anyone should work 40 hours a week to survive, considering the state of technology. We need to value projects, not jobs and the 40 hour work week. And realize how to survive outside of the corporate grip. That to me is genuine freedom.

Technology is taking jobs too- but only the company owners are benefiting from it- remember when everyone in management had a secretary? Now everyone has to type their own stuff.
You used to have an IT guy that set up accounts and access, then they hired someone to write a script that automated it- small cost, one day's salary for an Indian national. Another job gone. No one else's salaries went up.

The minimum wage being livable is a joke. Let's get real:

A worker makes an $8.25 minimum wage. That amounts to $330.00/week prior to taxes for a 40 hour week. Most service workers can't get full time work, however. Companies like to keep the majority of workers part time to avoid paying benefits. But let's say this worker is full time for ease of figuring. They are single supporting a child.

$330.00 x 4= $1320.00 Let's take out $30.00/week for taxes, etc. So we have:

$1200.00
450.00 rent
150.00 electric bill
50.00 water/sewer
____________________
$550.00 A large chunk of your money is gone and you haven't even bought groceries yet!
Let's figure modestly for these, say $50.00/week
. -200.00
________________
$350.00 You have to have a way to work too. So a modest, used car and insurance is
necessary. Let's go with a $150.00 car payment and $125.00 liability insurance.
- 275.00
________________
$75.00 This is what is left after living very modestly.

I low-balled most of these figures. Most people working this way in my area would not qualify for much if any help if they are being honest with public aid. While $75.00 left over isn't bad, it won't be of a lot of help if that car breaks down or the unexpected happens. This is where a lot of people start their financial hardships. They are doing ok, getting by and something goes wrong. They either take out a loan to get through the hardship or rob Peter to pay Paul. Then they start the cycle. I really don't believe that too many people go through life trying to get into serious financial problems. It's too stressful.

Our society has a lot to do with what we feel we need to live. We have no cable or satallite tv in our home and we pick up nothing on our ancient tv with a smart antenna. People look at us like we are crazy when we tell them we don't watch tv. We don't have cell phones either and get the same, "How can you live without a cell phone?" business. In this country if you don't have certain things then you are not fitting into society. We all know the reprecussions of being deemed "poor". Let's not gloss it over. If you don't have_____ , you aren't worth whatever. You are a lesser child of God to many of those who have.

For years, my family anonymously sent money to our children's school at Christmas time for poor children to shop at the Santa shop. I worked the shop helping kids pick out gifts for mom, dad, and whoever else. In my wealthier community, a lot of kids had $10-$20 dollars to spend. Elementary kids! But I was instructed that some children wouldn't have money and there was a special table for them to "shop" from. Yard sale crap people! My heart broke for them, because I had been one of them years ago. I remembered being a kid who didn't have the latest craze, wore cheap tennis shoes, and got picked on. So every year, until a new PTA leader took over who didn't follow "Santa's" wishes, I painstakingly wrote out Christmas cards from Santa in my disguised handwriting and slipped $3.00 in each along with a letter to the PTA leader to distribute them discreetly to the kids who needed them so they could choose a gift for mom, dad, and someone else. By then, they had contracted with a dollar store, so it worked out perfectly since all gifts were a dollar. No one ever knew who Santa was.

And my point is not to toot my own horn, but to show that even as children, society tells us what we need to have to fit in. I think that is why we see so many poor spending money on tv, x-box, and etc. Because it makes them feel like they fit in too and not so much like outcasts. Is it using good judgment? Not really. But as a parent whose kids have been doing without because of our own hardship lately, sometimes it's nice to see your kids smile when times are tough. Sometimes it makes life a little easier to bear for everyone. My kids are appreciative and take care of their things, because they know it won't be able to be replaced.

My daughter was frustrated recently because they had to do a "Book of Me" project at her high school for sociology and one of the girl's in her class stated that her biggest fear was that her family would run out of money and be poor. What a sad statement for our society. Unfortunately, that child's biggest fear may become a reality soon.