posted on Apr, 7 2011 @ 10:58 AM
I've read most of this thread and found the variety of points interesting.
So here are a couple of counter points & my opinion of why the food lines are growing......
-to those who say "sell the house" & move into an apartment. Well, that is easier said than done. With the housing market as it is right now, most
homeowners in the middle class find they could not sell their home for what is still owed on it..(mortgage deficit) Then with credit checks at most
decent apartment buildings, good luck renting if you have even the slightest ding on your credit report.
-to those who said stop paying on the credit cards, well, that bank will sue to get their money & with a judgement, they will go after your paycheck.
Add in the new legal fee's the bank tacks on & you have a $1,000 credit card debt turning into $4-5,000.
IMO, the middle class family of several years ago live a decent life. They managed to pay their bills, maybe have a night out with the family once or
twice a month & even had a little vacation once a year. They did okay & worked with what they had. They were never going to be rich, but they also
never really had to worry about being able to met the basic needs of their family.
Fast forward to today. Many of those families are without incomes, or incomes cut in half by job loss. At first, they probably managed to tighten
their spending enough to get by, but anything extra went away along with the small nestegg they managed to build. As time went on, taxes and prices
continued to go up. The family cuts even more, hoping to make it through the economic downturn. They are wrong. The first time they are faced with a
major car repair, home repair, the bottom drops for them & they can't seem to recover. Every month now they try to catch up when in reality, they are
still sinking. It is a cycle they will be stuck in for years to come.
This is the problem IMO, the middle class family has felt a great deal of burden from this economic turmoil & the government has created a cycle that
the middle class family can't break out of. The government keeps taking more money from them to cover the massive number of social programs for the
poor and to throw money at problems with no real results. The problem with this is way of thinking is that eventually a point will come where the
government will have taken so much that the middle class family will have nothing left to give. When that happens, they will be poor themselves & the
number of people requiring the services of social programs grow higher, increasing the burden on a shrinking number of middle class families.
Eventually, the cycle will end, but so will the middle class.
How do we fix it? The government needs to take a hard look at their budget just like the average American family. When we faced less income coming
into the household, we adjusted our budget & eliminated things that were not essential. It is time that the government do the same. I won't get into
the specifics of what cuts should be made because that would off topic, but it is high time the federal government learns what its true purpose is.