Posted on 08/26/2005 5:55:38 AM PDT by grundle
The working poor also have a tenuous relationship with the big-screen. Conservative critics might see the presence of a big-screen in a dilapidated tract house as a product of misguided spending; for liberals, it could merely represent inchoate class longings. In a heartbreaking example that would satisfy both camps, the Los Angeles Times profiled a family of four—total income: $19,000—who had driven themselves to the brink of insolvency by buying a big-screen TV. In 1998, a Business Week writer described his amazement upon entering the house of a down-at-heels Massachusetts woman: "I beheld the trappings of upper-middle-class comfort. The big-screen TV and VCR. The crush of name-brand toys. And outside, the fairly new Lincoln Town Car—for which she was several months behind on payments."
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
Reminds me of the time I was visiting my daughter, who lived in an older apartment complex that was near the low end of the economic scale, and as we walked along with my grandson I passed an open doorway with a 56" big-screen and about $2000 worth of sound equipment playing.
That was about a year's rent sitting in the living room.
Further, the effort to classify children as learning disabled means social security supplements every month.
I never bought a big screen TV. A 32 inch Sony CRT is the largest I have ever had.
I just love supporting people who have more nice stuff than I do. It makes me feel so good if could just crap.
Yes, "Slick" told them they were entitled, but unfortunately, GWB has done little to dissuade them from the belief.
My brother owned an apartment building in downtown Buffalo. This article rings true.
He had 4 consecutive instanses of people moving in and paying the first month rent- then never paying again. It tok him months to get them out, and then they left with TV's VCR's etc etc...
When the 5th one refused to hand over welfare rental assistance payment (claiming she wasnt getting them) my brother went there on the 1st of the month when the mailman arrived.
The first 4 tenants were lined up waiting for the checks they were still receiving at that address to arrive.
Don't you love these bleeding heart newspapaer articles about stupid people? The paper must have a readership that is only just less stupid to think this is more pathos than bathos.
Reminds me of a local news about a family that hadn't fixed their furnace because they had no money, but when the camera panned around the living room, there, larger than life was a plasma screen tv. (If that's what those flat screen thingy's that hang on the wall are called?)
That made an impression on our local populace who mailed the tv station to that effect.
How can I be out of money? I still have checks left? BUMP
Anyone remember the days of "Welfare Cadillac"?
My favorite story about how I became a conservative.
When I was in school, I lived with my mother in a small 2 bedroom apartment. She worked two jobs to make ends meet. She never wanted me to work, citing school was more important.
She worked at a welfare office, assisting clients with aid. She was told once that a client could not come to an interview because the pool man was coming that day to clean their pool.
I will say no more.
I remember my dad saying that poverty was in many cases the inability of people to postpone gratification...
So does thsi liberal author think we should increase the amount of their welfare payments?
I once read a piece by Dinesh D'Souza (sp?!) in which he said that someone from his native India was convinced of the great wealth of America by observing that here poor people are fat.
Even if the liberals are right about the "inchoate class longings," the conservatives are right that it is the "product of misguided spending."
I have had the opportunity to help families in my congregation that have gotten into financial problems. In almost all cases, their troubles can be traced to excessive spending. They want things they cannot afford: expensive clothing, big-screen TVs, stereo systems, cell phones, vacations, automobiles. They are willing to go into debt to get them. When they are sad, they go to the mall for a little "retail therapy." When they are happy, they do the same.
In short, they get into trouble because they are greedy.
I don't think it has to do with keeping up with the Joneses. I think perhaps it has more to do with the inability of the lower middle classes to think of anything else to do.
...about a year's rent sitting in the living room.
***
In today's America, the majority who live in poverty are in those circumstances because of such poor choices.
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