09-17-2010, 12:32 PM
I was addressing MarkP's post.
I think there is way too much of deciding what other people should value. People who have more feel somehow entitled to tell poor people what to value and how to live.
We all pay for each other's stuff in some way or another. The poor pay in some way to enable the employed. An economy with full employment will not run. It runs because there are have nots.
It is very easy to tell people to only care about food and shelter, while we ourselves acknowledge that we have our own needs and interests. What does an iPhone symbolize? Well, assuming the person has a service contract that he/she is paying on every month whether or not there's a phone, it's a meaningless expense to have the service with a lost phone. Also lost is the ability to communicate, to network, to seek work, to be in touch with family, to arrange medical care, to make contact in case of emergency on the road, and much more. Maybe someone wants those things more than an extra sandwich ... it's their choice.
Maybe some people feel like they are less second class citizens if they have a phone, or a way of playing music. Maybe the music feeds their soul and encourages them. It's very complicated when a person falls into poverty from a middle class life.
Assuming that people one does not know are hung up on status symbols is just an unfounded assumption. You can't extrapolate to the general population from knowing one or two people and their stories -- not when it comes to something as complex as the fallout from recession.
There are forums out there where people are sharing stories, people who are losing everything and don't know what to do. Many have had very unfortunate events pile on them, one after the other. There are a few people who are mind blown because they have to cut back on consumer toys and non-necessities, but they are the exception.
I'm just making a plea for less judging, more being glad if we have enough, less blaming people who don't have because of some idea that you personally are caring for them. If you were to really know where each of your dollars goes when it leaves your pocket, I would bet that much more of it goes to support wealthy people living in luxury than goes into the welfare system.
I am not a socialist or a communist or an anarchist, but I do think it's a wonderful <sarcasm> trick that the people who control 99% of the wealth on the planet manage to get the middle class to complain about the poor people when the going gets rough.
I think there is way too much of deciding what other people should value. People who have more feel somehow entitled to tell poor people what to value and how to live.
We all pay for each other's stuff in some way or another. The poor pay in some way to enable the employed. An economy with full employment will not run. It runs because there are have nots.
It is very easy to tell people to only care about food and shelter, while we ourselves acknowledge that we have our own needs and interests. What does an iPhone symbolize? Well, assuming the person has a service contract that he/she is paying on every month whether or not there's a phone, it's a meaningless expense to have the service with a lost phone. Also lost is the ability to communicate, to network, to seek work, to be in touch with family, to arrange medical care, to make contact in case of emergency on the road, and much more. Maybe someone wants those things more than an extra sandwich ... it's their choice.
Maybe some people feel like they are less second class citizens if they have a phone, or a way of playing music. Maybe the music feeds their soul and encourages them. It's very complicated when a person falls into poverty from a middle class life.
Assuming that people one does not know are hung up on status symbols is just an unfounded assumption. You can't extrapolate to the general population from knowing one or two people and their stories -- not when it comes to something as complex as the fallout from recession.
There are forums out there where people are sharing stories, people who are losing everything and don't know what to do. Many have had very unfortunate events pile on them, one after the other. There are a few people who are mind blown because they have to cut back on consumer toys and non-necessities, but they are the exception.
I'm just making a plea for less judging, more being glad if we have enough, less blaming people who don't have because of some idea that you personally are caring for them. If you were to really know where each of your dollars goes when it leaves your pocket, I would bet that much more of it goes to support wealthy people living in luxury than goes into the welfare system.
I am not a socialist or a communist or an anarchist, but I do think it's a wonderful <sarcasm> trick that the people who control 99% of the wealth on the planet manage to get the middle class to complain about the poor people when the going gets rough.