[Tokhtamish]

Lelio, you've heard the expression "chump change" ? It is how an underpaid person contemptuously describes his salary.

Do you know where it came from ? As deindustrialization hit urban America, legitamite job opportunities in the ghetto dried up. They seemed puny and next to the much larger sums that could be gotten dealing drugs. To a drug dealer, an honest salary was "chump change".

That is the kind of social demoralization that deindustrialization triggered, where honest labor was for underpaid "chumps" and law abiding people and values could not hold their own against hustling street culture.

I keep pointing out that consequence of deindustrialization to free traitor types but they never answer me. They don't because they can't.

[dennisw]

Do you know where it came from ? As deindustrialization hit urban America, legitamite job opportunities in the ghetto dried up. They seemed puny and next to the much larger sums that could be gotten dealing drugs. To a drug dealer, an honest salary was "chump change".

Truth!!! Urban areas in the NorthEast used to be full of light industry that employed people of all races. On the highway to Manhattan you saw the huge neon sign for Swingline staplers etc. etc.  My dad owned a light industry. Sheet metal.

[snopercod]

In my depressed area of NC, it's entirely possible to make more doing day labor for $10 per hour (cash) than working at the available "legitimate" jobs.