Read this...pretty shocking

http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/35-million-homeless-and-185-million-va

Interesting that these People can't take a job to keep Thier houses, even if it's picking up trash or flipping burgers. There are jobs out there, plenty. People won't "stoop beneath themselves" to survive. Sad.

Because their "F****** lazy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. I read that the 1st generation plants the seed,the 2nd generation grows the garden and the 3rd generation spends the profit !!!! their now finishing every sentence with the word "but"..

As someone who works frontline in the healthcare-The stories would break your heart..Even people with insurance-all it takes is one castrophic illness, injury or disablity-and next thing you know your filing bankruptcy...and downhill from there.
The untreated mentally ill, familes living in shelters (who once were solid middle-class and didnt live above there means)The people on social security who have to decide between paying bills or buying meds..I could go on and on...
And here in Cali-we got all kinds of over-qualified people who would to love to flip burgers to get a paycheck-but there are NO jobs...
Even in my field-the medical field-where one could pick and chose where one would work-Not anymore...People in my field looking allover the country for jobs-and even then its taken some months or more...
Yes-many people have dug their own hole-and so no surprise when they're sitting there in it ...But more people than ever who have done everything right are also in that hole-and there just seems no kind of saftey net or tow-rope of help out there..
Gets pretty scary when the unemployment (if you were lucky to get that)runs out, your emergency savings is gone, family cant help anymore, the rent is coming along with other bills ,their car is now gone (cant afford ins,gas,repairs)so even just to go out and look for a job is even more difficult..and then if you or a fmaily member gets ill or injured....

Lets hope 2012 is a better world for all....

Thats alot of responsiblity Ras....and I can defintely see your side of the coin..
Much respect...

well, I have, like many, "made it", and I also lost it. couple of times. or gave it away is probably a better way to put it. Matthew 19:21 and all that.

more than ever, I'd like to just point out that whereas before a lot of effort and hard work tended to pay off over time, now you need a lot of luck. and if life hits you with a whammy, it's tougher and tougher to get back on your feet. I've got a lot of friends who are swimming in this wreckage.

wages are suppressed, profit margins are forced to increase more and more, revenues and the ownership and control of those streams tends to collect- generally speaking- and that squeezes out the middle class not to mention what it does to the needed work populations to maintain the consumption of goods- entire towns and populations are practically enslaved.

90% of all corporations have predatory business models and rather than breed competition they tend to squeeze it out or swallow it up. that does allow for opportunity after the predation period phases into slowdown, but it's really rough out there.

I admire some of the rhetoric which OWS has introduced into the ether, god knows I'll take anything over those mouthbreathing idiots who usually dominate the political ether, and it's hard to deny what is at the core of the OWS message. Most people do not vote for their own self interests but for a false set of interests that if you thought about it, they couldn't really defend except by way of being irrational. with some people, how can you have a rational discussion about say, tax equity when they think man and dinosaur cohabitated or deny the foundation of many modern medical miracles as a 'theory'.

what most people in this country fail to come to grips with is that the system is rigged, and there are any number of things which some people have going for them, which others simply do not. we still live in a day and age when if your name doesn't sound right, you are less likely to get a call back for an interview, your access to housing, and lots of other things many people take for granted, is severely compromised. it takes a woman some ridiculous amount of time to reach wage equity with a male counterpart- like an extra year and some months. to this day. those are just the facts of life. on top of that, you have a 'representative' system of government, in which the people who ostensibly are supposed to represent you, have nothing in common with the average citizen, and indeed, are getting their beaks wet in the rigged system. Not taking anything away from say, Bush, for example, but people really believed he was this regular guy from a mom and pop farm in texas- when nothing could be further from the truth. You look at all the insider trading that goes on in congress, legally too, and it's no wonder income disparity is trending the way it is. it's all smoke and mirrors anyway, it's not like there's anything really backing our money up. during the second bail out on NPR the sec of treasury was asked literally how the bailout worked, he was like, you know, do they just type in a bunch of zeros and hit send and he was like, well, basically, yes....but people have short ass memories and they trust corporations to guard their own profit motives and keep them ethical. is there anything more crazy than that. Yet history continually repeats itself with many of the same crooks and liars.

sadly these days, if you are "making it", it has less to do with hard work, and more to do with being very lucky. sad to say.

SMDH - good link Monk.

December 26, 2011

The American Lie
Esquire: "There are some truths so hard to face, so ugly and so at odds with how we imagine the world should be, that nobody can accept them. Here's one: It is obvious that a class system has arrived in America -- a recent study of the thirty-four countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that only Italy and Great Britain have less social mobility. But nobody wants to admit: If your daddy was rich, you're gonna stay rich, and if your daddy was poor, you're gonna stay poor. Every instinct in the American gut, every institution, every national symbol, runs on the idea that anybody can make it; the only limits are your own limits. Which is an amazing idea, a gift to the world -- just no longer true. Culturally, and in their daily lives, Americans continue to glide through a ghostly land of opportunity they can't bear to tell themselves isn't real. It's the most dangerous lie the country tells itself."

I enjoyed reading the comments after this

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/12/26/the_american_lie.html

When I quit school at 14 to work on a fishing boat my mother said "you will have to work very hard" and I did.I was 14 working with men.We started the middle of April and finished in late Dec ,when the ice came.And I mean EVERYDAY !!! My mother told me that I will have to work at atleast 7 jobs in my life time.The winter came so I had to do something so I learned how to read.I learned to read English as well,I wanted to be able to know what was going on in the rest of the world.The next year was just the same,starting mid April and finishing in Dec.That winter I went and worked on a construction site as a labourer and at dinner time I got scrap metal and learned how to weld with the help of the welders themselves.Towards the spring I took a welding test and passed,I'm a welder now I said to myself.Well as soon as the water unfroze it called my name and off I went.This was a pattern EXCEPT I learned I had to travel to make aliving welding.That year I became a father of twin girls.The next couple of years my mother held out her hand and gave me a chance to learn how to be a parent.off to Jamaica (how ironic) then after almost 3 years back to Canada.I now was a full time parent with NO BABY MOTHER !!! Work and pay babysitters etc but was starting to get ahead.Then I bought a fishing gear and licences ,I am now a Captain at age 21.That winter I went to school to start to get papers so I had more than just being a Capt of my own vessel.Skipping ahead I now have 5 kids ALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! worked in my boat for atleast 1 year and I pounded the importance of education and work ethic into their heads.Go to where you have to go,do what you have to do,learn what you have to learn and never finish a sentence with the word "but".It worked. I have a lawyer,school principal,an international rep for a major hotel co,a geoleogyist(sp) and a hockey player (Ohio State Buckeye) turned pro and then started working in the HVAC world.PHEW !!!! It took me 43 years to have a real vacation !!! Working hard ain't for sissy's !!!! Answer that knock on the door,it might be oppurtunity coming,that light at the end of the tunnel,hmmmmm check it out,it might not be a train.The harder a person tries the luckier they get,eh.I loved my work,I loved my kids,I never thought of anything as a sacrefice(sp) but only as a helping hand to help them become useful citizens and parents themselves (10 grandchildren).Sometimes people are leaning on a fence ,looking off into the distance for the answer BUT !!! there it is right by their feet.I'm now old and tired and it's time to pass the torch.What a GREAT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bunch of people you guys are !!!!!!!!! and never lose sight of that !!!!!!

Thank you very much Tammy.THAT !!!!! means alot coming from you !!!!! I was just talking to Mr ABS.I told him about this thread.He told me to tell you I was a f****** task master....but I love you dad just the same !!!