Comments on: America's new poor
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- You think its exciting being poor? You must be delusional. I am so poor that it isnt even funny, if it wasnt for section 8 I would be living on the street and you just dont know how hard it is trying to make ends meet. I have been looking for a job for months. its almost xmas and I am flat broke. I dont even have shampoo or soap or nothing.so basically I am screwed. My dream is that one day I will wake up and this will just have been a bad nightmare and I will have a job and get to have xmas like everyone else. but thats just a dream.In reality I always wake up on xmas morning by myself with tears running down my face because I feel so left out on xmas. No one gives anyone a job who has teeth like mine, I look like a jack o lantern because dentists dont fix teeth for free. My xmas wish is for implants and 2 fixed bridges for my teeth. And I wish I could see my son also, I havent seen him in 5 years.I am 51 years old. If there is a santa out there who can grant me a xmas wish you can write to me at: kayerobinson1@yahoo.com I am in the tacoma, wa area 12/04/2012
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- I'm in the UK where cleaners have acrylic nails. Infact those who have jobs where I am are on UK's minimum wage which is £6 an hour.
We still have cockle pickers who stand in the sea and risk their lives for £1.00 an hour.
I just watched a documentary showing how loads of top finance guys were in on the destruction of the US economy. ALL those guys felt totally justified. They all walked away from the wreckage with job titles and massive payoffs intact. Some of them are still on a payroll somewhere near you. Some of them are on the Obama admistration, I suppose they pull his strings so he just has to keep dancing even though it hurts.
Our government are very closley linked to yours and basically are just the poorer relatives always steps behind so when we catch up we feel the pain too.
Here in the UK we rarely use the term Great Britian (that used to be a geographical term for the counties that make up what we also refer to as United Kingdom. To say Great Britian sounds so stupid and just as embarrasing as having to go to a soup kitchen or be seen in a charity shop. The gap between rich and poor is getting as wide in the top European countries as it is in say places like India. I've not visited a pantry (that's just a matter of time) however I see the stuff going on in the US and it makes me shudder. I am part of a one income family, as so many of my family and friends are these days. I live in Slough, near London and there are loads of single or no income families. I don't know how they afford to run a car and still go on holiday.
I bought a home just before the crash and it is in one of the poorest areas of my country despite the fact that there are loads of global corporations on the doorstep.
Nails, hair, dental care, you name it has been scrapped.
I will put dental work on my card because I figure the cost of not looking after my teeth is way bigger than the cost of maintaining what I have.
I see more people just going around with gaps rather than having dental work, they just have em yanked out.
If I want my nails done I get them done by my friend who is a part-time laser clinic worker. I take care of her son and she repays me with a treatment or a lift or some other favour. In fact I could maintain them myself, I really do not need to be bothered with such vanities when people are having to accept hand outs.
We have only just started to feel the real pain which has spread to just about every corner of this planet. Many people will leave school and never get work just like their parents who have been existing on low or below legal wages.
In the UK kids are studying to be actors, TV presenters, Media gurus, etc. No one can actually MAKE anything, we rely on China and India for EVERYTHING. I am forced to repair and make do as my partner is busting his gut as a waiter on 60 - 80hr weeks. Hwe sees customers sipping champagne but wonders how long that will go on. I ALWAYS eat in, the powers that be will keep feeding us the lies about how our economy is on the upturn. Some people here talk about going into a recession, it's like they didn't realise we never actually came out of the last one. - Reply to this comment
- The problem is people got over their heads with wanting the biggest house with space they do not even need, a new car every 2 years, big flat screen T.V in every room, borrowing against their house to pay for useless material things and the list goes on. I think most kids need to be taught in school about managing their finances and be thrifty and mostly people spend money they do not have !!! I would think I would feed my kids before I do my nails but most people have their priorities wrong !! Why bother people will give you free food, free Christmas presents.....
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- newster,yer history lesson is right on..The American Indians don't like white people..I can understand why..They have told me to leave America..Sure their lands were ripped from them..Our forebears..Sure the people knew America had its people here. Yes the founding faters were British subjucts of the crown --that is right..
Did ye know the only reason they landed in America was they ran out of beer--true..
Us that were born and raised in New Endland learnt the hisory of the area..It was King Charles that named the state of Maine,,I am a Mainer . It was not right the way the Indians were treated..Ye know yer history well.. - Reply to this comment
- Most people do not know what poor is ...we live in a growing society of everyone thinking that someone should take care of them when times get hard. Save the money you are spending on extras like nails or nail supplies and feed your family. Sell your high heels, get rid of your gas guzzling limited suv. I cant believ how many people on here are supporting this. True people in need arent driving BMW's. This whole story makes me ill. If your truly in need then I have no problem giving. Nails at home or nails in a salon it all costs money that should be spent on FOOD!
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- Yes, they do have nice cars. The story is about people in an upscale area receiving food assistance after losing their jobs. They're probably close to losing those cars and/or having to use their food budgets to pay their car payments. What if they get their cars repossessed and can't go look for work? What if they trade their car in for a junker? How can they get to work? Just stop and think a minute before you jump on these people. My guess is that the nails are done at home. They don't look that good. Unfortunate? Yes.
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- I couldn't help but notice that Alexa Price, the pregnant wife of the wounded soldier, was wiping her tears away with a hand adourned with acrylic nails. I have nothing against acrylic nails. I have them, and mine cost about $50 a month to maintain. If my family were on verge of financial disaster, the nails would be the first thing to go. I wonder if Mrs. Price has considered this.
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- vsmit post Quote:
"It's not "wall street", it's people like me who are buying short sales and foreclosures for what they sold for 20 years ago.
All thanks to people who overextended themselves so at the first sign of trouble bills went behind."
So vsmit- you are saying that suddenly hundreds of thousands of US Citizens just went completely insane and overextended themselves? After 200 years of doing what the banks and corporations told them to do to gain the 'American Dream'?
I suppose that is what you vultures need to tell yourselves to sleep well at night- or tell other people so you don't 'look' like a carcass picking buzzard to friends and neighbors.
Yea - easier to tell yourself that your victims all committed suicide - all at the same time - rather than they were run over by a truckload of fraudulent BS handed them by the Banks, isn't that right?
Sleep well friend. - Reply to this comment
- by -LiftingSkirts- November 21, 2011 1:16 AM EST
I can give examples for days. The more debt, leveraged financial vehicles, the more the rewards.
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And the less cash in the bank which is what keeps you out of bradlines in tough times, not your foreclosed house or repossesed car...... - Reply to this comment
- Americans has had the same problem as congress for years. Buy now and worry about paying later. Well! like those huge credit card bills, our governments huge debt is due. Many citizens used one credit card to pay another and the government kept printing more and more money. Unfortunately, we pay are required our governments debt with an untold number of taxes. our government continues to increase in size and more programs are added raising our debt even more. 59% of Americans depends on the government for some type of assistance. " Bad government comes from too much government." Thomas Jefferson.
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