Of Poverty And Class Envy

"It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed." ~ Kin Hubbard

I haven't posted anything for a while. I've been on vacation for the last week with a couple of regular days off sandwiched between two half days, so it isn't as if I haven't had time to blog. I have no excuse. So, I guess it's time I wrote something.

The problem is, I don't have any fresh ideas. I don't like to write the same thoughts everyone else does. Anyone can do that, and just about everyone can write more eloquently than I, so it seems rather pointless to me to simply repeat what has already been said.

As I have often said, I prefer to offer a unique point of view. If I can't, I don't write anything.

So perhaps that explains my lack of attention to my blog, although my computer didn't forget my password. Other than that, as I said, I have no excuse.

I still don't have a subject for today's post. I guess I'll just wing it, and write whatever comes to mind.

I'll start off with some facts about me.

I doubt that either of my regular readers know this, but I am not a rich man. In fact, I am poor.

Rich and poor, of course, are relative terms. What is wealthy to me may in fact, be poor to others.

Roseanne Barr (who recently said she thinks anyone who is worth over 100 million should be re-educated or beheaded) is worth 80 million. Apparently, to her, 100 million is considered rich and 80 million is considered middle class or lower.

I read somewhere that she recently inked a contract for her own television show. I wonder -- if she earns more than 20 million more than she has now, will she behead herself?

One can only hope, I guess.

To me, $100,000.00 is wealthy. To Bill Gates, it is pocket change. As I said. Relative.

Since wealth is a relative term, allow me to define what "poor" means to me.

I recently got my annual forty cent per hour raise. At 40 hours a week (which I rarely get because my company cuts my hours to keep their profits up), and no unpaid time off due to illness etc, my recent raise takes my annual income to over $20,000, but just barely over.

I have no other income. My wife has too many medical problems to work. We exist solely on my income. My work tires me out too much for me to work another job part time. I am close to retirement age now, but, at this point, I don't see how I will ever be able to retire.

Be that as it may, It could be worse. I am grateful just to have a job at all.

I lay awake at nights worrying about how I am going to make even the most basic payments on my bills. If I suddenly disappear off the internet it (probably) won't be because I died (knock wood). It will be because I couldn't pay my cable bill and got it cut off. That could well happen any day now.

We use fuel oil for heat and hot water in this house. The fuel oil company will not even show up to pump more fuel oil into our tank if we can't pay for at least 150 gallons. At today's prices, that's about $600.00. We don't have it. Not even close. In fact, just to have enough fuel to heat our water, I've been pouring diesel fuel (Fuel oil and diesel fuel are the same thing) into our tank every two weeks. If I splurge, I can buy as much as 10 gallons diesel fuel at a time. That's about 40 dollars worth. I can't really afford that much, but we need hot water.

I don't know what we're going to do when it gets cold this year.

If I lose my job, unlike others who lose jobs, we have no emergency funds on which to rely. We would be completely destitute within two weeks, possibly even within one week. We have no savings. I recently had to withdraw my 401K money to pay a down payment on a badly needed used car. It's gone now.

Please understand, I'm not looking for sympathy. I am simply describing what being poor means to me, and how it compares with others who say they are poor. I do not feel I deserve sympathy.

I have made my own bed. It is my responsibility to sleep in it.

So my readers will understand when I have absolutely no sympathy for those whiny bleeding heart Liberal sob sisters who are currently making fools of themselves protesting Wall Street bankers. I will ceaselessly attack them for being duplicitous and hypocritical.

Have you seen pictures of these idiots?

They are camping (incidentally, where do these poor unfortunates get the money to buy tents and sleeping bags? I can't afford them) on Wall street, and various other streets in various other cities across America, bleating about how unfair it is that the wealthy have more money than they do.

Well, wah, wah, wah.

Who said life was fair?

They also recruit other miscreants, derelicts, and ne'er-do-wells to join in their cause by texting them on their Apple iPhones, iPads, and various Android devices. All of these devices aren't donated to them, I assure you. Someone pays for them, and it's not simply a one time charge, either. They have to lock themselves into a two year contract, paying a minimum of $80.00 a month (excluding FCC fees and licenses and taxes) simply for the use of those devices. Where do they get the funds for those expenses? I pay $30.00 a month for my cheap little pre-paid flip phone. I can't afford those fancy cell phones.

Ironically, I sell cell phone contracts for a living, if you can call it a living.

They wear designer clothes. They dress in the height of fashion. Being fashionable takes money.

Last week, my wife wanted to buy me two pair of pants at Walmart to wear, so I wouldn't look so seedy on the job. I accepted one pair, not both. Just can't afford more. I really can't afford one pair, truth be told. But, since it's been over two years (yes, I said two years) since I've had a new pair of pants, I allowed myself this one luxury.

I've noticed the Occupy Wall Street protesters seem to have the time and the money that it costs to drive their new Prius's into the city (some from other states) so they can march past George Soro's apartment building to do their protesting in front of greedy Republican Billionaire's houses.

On my recent vacation, I wanted to drive up to Pennsylvania, making a quick stop at Gettysburg, through Pennsylvania Dutch Lancaster County (because my wife likes to shop for that kind of stuff, even if she can't actually buy any of it), and then to Phoenixville, to visit my older brother, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. But we couldn't. We didn't have enough money to make the trip after paying for our prescriptions and groceries.

Am I bitter? You bet I am.

Am I envious? Guilty as charged.

But, here's the difference between those bitter, envious, Liberal hippie type pinko fags and me:

I don't blame my poverty on anyone else.

I have only myself to blame for my poverty.

I went to college, but I didn't finish. Like the current crop of Liberals, I spent my college years engaging in protests against the "establishment" for the exact same reasons the protesters do now. Class envy. Thinking the government owed me a living without expecting anything in return. Expecting someone else to pay for my education.

Basically, expecting something for nothing.

I didn't finish college, but that's my fault. I don't have a good job because I didn't get a degree. I didn't get a degree because I was foolish.

That isn't anyone's fault but my own.

I've made mistakes, perhaps more than most, but my mistakes and the consequences of them are my sole responsibility. My poverty is a direct result of my own bad decisions and choices.

And, an unwillingness to take chances. That, again , is on me.

Sure, I've had some bad breaks in my lifetime. So what? Everyone does. The difference between me and "them", is, instead of whining about how life treats me and blaming others and refusing to take responsibility for the actions that (most of the time) contributed to my bad luck, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and redoubled my efforts. And, I will continue to do that every time catastrophe strikes until I die.

I do complain. I have that right. But I complain while working.

These poor under-privileged protesters are complaining while begging for help from the very people they are protesting. Who do they think bankrolls their sloth?

Our boy-child President, Barry Hussein Sotero Obama, received more donations from the bankers on Wall Street than any President in history. And he says he supports the OWS protesters.

And, they support him.

How do the protesters explain this apparent dichotomy?

And Warren Buffet (Liberal) says he thinks his taxes should be raised. Well, who's stopping him from voluntarily giving whatever amount he thinks he should pay to the Government? Who's stopping any of these fat cat billionaire Liberal Obama supporters from volunteering their money to the government?

Yea, when it's their money, they are strangely Conservative.

Hey, Warren? If you want to give your money away, I could use a few bucks. (I'm not begging. I know there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that Warren Buffet would ever give anything away, certainly not to me.)

And speaking of taxes, let me explode a Conservative myth here and now:

I pay taxes. Regardless of what Rush or Hannity or all those other Conservative millionaires tell you, poor people like me pay taxes. Every paycheck I get has a healthy portion deducted for taxes, right off the top. At the first of the year, I fill out my tax return. This year, I didn't get a refund, I had to pay the government an additional $1300.00 over and above what they took directly out of my meager paycheck last year.

Even when I did get a refund, I have never - repeat - never - received more of a refund than I paid in during the course of the previous year.

So, don't give me that BS about how the poor don't pay taxes.

I am currently trying to improve my lot in life by working hard and driving my bosses crazy pushing them to promote me into the management training program. Management trainees in our company earn more than double the salary that I make now.

Class envy? Yep. But envy that is a good thing. Without envy, we have no incentive to try to attain the success of those whom we envy.

OK. That's enough of a rant for today. I'm sure I will have much more to say later.