patrick.net

I'm not sure I follow you. I actually think most Americans simply suffer from low expectations. I don't know why that is...complacency? Mass sedation? Impoverished imaginations? What is it?

You should write TRN with your thesis, Captain. Paul Jay states at the end that he will interview you on the program if you can write something which adds to the discussion.

Your assumptions are incorrect Jody, and again, anyone who does not believe me is welcome to take a walk with me through downtown Los Angeles.

California state disability is around $1100/mo. At this income level, you will qualify for $550/mo rent in units that were tastefully renovated less than 4 years ago. There are 3 of these buildings downtown, plus others that are residential hotels and are in worse shape but cheaper. If you were homeless you probably have SRO housing that is as low as $50 a month, many of which are brand spanking new buildings.

You will qualify for EBT also. If one is dilligent, at this income level you can afford all the groceries you need plus a trip to Subway every now and then.

Theres a rail system where as a disabled person you will get a heavily subidized pass. You do not need a car. There is 4 subway stops downtown for the red line subway. This will take you to Koreatown, Hollywood, and North Hollywood. It also connects to the Gold Line(Pasadena, East LA, Montebello, eventually Glendora/San Dimas), the Purple line(Koreatown and eventually miracle mile, Beverly Hills, and West LA), the Blue Line(Long Beach), the Silver Bus line(South Bay), Orange Line(All SFV), and the Expo Line(LA Live, USC/museum/exposition park, Culver City).

There is food and entertainment options all over....free concerts in summer at Pershing Square and in the Financial District, a gorgeous city park in the civic center, historic and new eateries. There is even a bus that goes from Union Station to Dodger Stadium, where the cheap seats cost...I forget...its either $2 or $3 for the top deck as a season seat. Theres a movie theatre at LA Live where a discounted movie is still under $10. There are amazing fantastic happy hours all over downtown from as early as 3pm to as late as 9pm. 2 fantastic drinks and a stomach full of great food will set you back less than $20, tax and tip included. $8 tax and tip included will get you an import beer and a couple tacos at one place I know.

In short, your fixed costs are:

$575 or less rent.
$30 or less monthly metro pass
$80 cell phone

And thats it. $685 a month. Gives you $415 a month to play with. Yes food cost, but thats taken care of by EBT.

There are variations of this for women with kids where the father pays no support. Their life is rougher and I would not want it. But they aren't gonna uprise. Who do they uprise against? The Fed Govt thats paying their housing and food?

FWIW, this is the web page of the Alexandria:

http://www.thealexandria.net/renovation.html

Not only is the above lifestyle a very good one, its very far from poverty.

So I guess the bottom line answer is that there isn't anyone in the United States living in poverty except by choice.

JodyChunder says

I actually think most Americans simply suffer from low expectations.

Well yeah, that's the point.
I have a group of guys in their mid to low 20's that I jam with and have hung out with them some. I would be like the Geezer bitching about how much better things were back in the good ole days.
For the most part they have no idea what in the hell I'm talking about unless I'm describing some epic classic rock concert. Then you would think I'm some wise sage as they hung on every word.
One day Sam says to me, you know you keep talking about how great things used to be. This is our reality, when Bush got elected in 2000 we were like 12 to 15.

We grew up with how things are, to us anything else would be strange.

dodgerfanjohn says

In short, your fixed costs are:

$575 or less rent.

$30 or less monthly metro pass

$80 cell phone

And thats it. $685 a month. Gives you $415 a month to play with

What about food stamps ? Is that included in the disability payment ? Also, Net10 has unlimited cell phone service at $45 a month.

adarmiento says

dodgerfanjohn says

In short, your fixed costs are:

$575 or less rent.

$30 or less monthly metro pass

$80 cell phone

And thats it. $685 a month. Gives you $415 a month to play with

What about food stamps ? Is that included in the disability payment ? Also, Net10 has unlimited cell phone service at $45 a month.

AFAIK food stamps are a separate program administered by the county whereas state disability is administered by the state of California.

http://www.ladpss.org/dpss/calfresh/eligibility.cfm

Also, theres different situation if you are on SSI disability, but thats a significant amount more of money I believe....and you may have too high an income to qualify for food stamps as an individual....not sure.

dodgerfanjohn says

Not only is the above lifestyle a very good one, its very far from poverty.

So I guess the bottom line answer is that there isn't anyone in the United States living in poverty except by choice.

Yes, of course. Half the population of America chooses to be and stay poor, because it's surprisingly more plush in the slums than it appears at first blush.

I think you're making some hasty misapprehensions of the reality you perceive around you, as well as human behavior in general; but I'll let that pass for now. I'll just agree to disagree. I won't even launch into any polemics laden with hackneyed sports analogies about playing fields and moving goal posts. Suffice it to say, the resources of this nation have been purloined and leached from by a very few at the expense of the rest of the less-connected, less-conniving people of this country, and surprisingly few seem to be too bothered by it.

CaptainShuddup says

We grew up with how things are, to us anything else would be strange.

The general idea here seems to be that if you're born with a dick in your ass, you'll never really be bothered by it. I just don't agree with that premise at all.

Well, when such a huge chunk of the country is on some sort of welfare -it is tough to rise up and bite the hand that feeds them.

In the old days beofre the welfare street, the govt didn't help and so if it did something stupid and corrupt-like shift all jobs offshore and allow the finished goods to come in with no restricitons -people would rise up. Now you get all sorts of benefits-so why bother?

Especially CA, with 12% of the population and 33% of the welfare cases of the nation.

lostand confused says

Now you get all sorts of benefits-so why bother?

I don't buy it. Those benefits aren't enough to support oneself, let alone a family with anything approaching even a pauper's dignity. It's a vestigial safety net at best...if anything, I might buy the argument that people are crippled by the inertia of debasement and stigma, but not because the welfare benefits are so plush.

JodyChunder says

CaptainShuddup says

We grew up with how things are, to us anything else would be strange.

The general idea here seems to be that if you're born with a dick in your ass, you'll never really be bothered by it. I just don't agree with that premise at all.

I don't either, but that's what's going on with the Young.
And they vote like they don't know the difference between sodomy and pleasure as well.

dodgerfanjohn says

FWIW, this is the web page of the Alexandria:

http://www.thealexandria.net/renovation.html

Not only is the above lifestyle a very good one, its very far from poverty.

It may or may not be better than poverty, but from what I have seen, this building is a den of blackguards and rogues, filthy and falling apart even after the "renovation." Wussy hipsters for some reason always compare it to the hotel in 'The Shining.' Walking just one block from the parking garage to this place is a true gauntlet of homeless crazies and skid row thuggery. We eat at The Gorbals with some regularity, and the last two times I had to bring a stack of dollars to throw at them to keep my person protected, draped as it was in furs and jewels.

dodgerfanjohn says

So I guess the bottom line answer is that there isn't anyone in the United States living in poverty except by choice.

The waiting lists for housing are outrageous.

SSI doesn't pay much at all, altho at least one qualifies for Medicaid if they've got ssi.

JodyChunder says

What is it?

Chem trails. ..

http://aircrap.org/category/chemtrail-photos/

Neurotoxicity from excess brain exposure to aluminium (Al) is well-documented, from both clinical observations and animal experiments, to impair learning, memory and cognition.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=aluminum%20salts%20memory%20impairment

Philistine says

dodgerfanjohn says

FWIW, this is the web page of the Alexandria:

http://www.thealexandria.net/renovation.html

Not only is the above lifestyle a very good one, its very far from poverty.

It may or may not be better than poverty, but from what I have seen, this building is a den of blackguards and rogues, filthy and falling apart even after the "renovation." Wussy hipsters for some reason always compare it to the hotel in 'The Shining.' Walking just one block from the parking garage to this place is a true gauntlet of homeless crazies and skid row thuggery. We eat at The Gorbals with some regularity, and the last two times I had to bring a stack of dollars to throw at them to keep my person protected, draped as it was in furs and jewels.

I'm a pleasantly plump 40 year old white dude from a middle class suburban background.

I walk by there every single weekday and weeknight. Often on weekends. While definitely an urban environment filled with a few too many street hustlers, you're not gonna get killed robbed shot or stabbed there unless you do stupid things.

If you have always been poor, and if your friends and family have been, it is difficult to believe that you are special enough to be different. Poverty and a lack education are linked.

Why aren't the middle class folks revolting?

lostand confused says

Well, when such a huge chunk of the country is on some sort of welfare -it is tough to rise up and bite the hand that feeds them.

That's the way the rentier class wants it. Give the peons just enough to keep them from rising up and taking back the ill-gotten gains the oligarchy has stolen.

Blurtman says

Poverty and a lack education are linked.

More elitist crap.

Poverty and lack of enlightenment go hand in hand. But you certainly don't have to get a classic education to be enlightened to the point where you want better in life, and recognize your strengths and skills, and how to market them.

The Brightest richest men in America are all either High school or College drop outs.

CaptainShuddup says

Blurtman says

Poverty and a lack education are linked.

More elitist crap.

Poverty and lack of enlightenment go hand in hand. But you certainly don't have to get a classic education to be enlightened to the point where you want better in life, and recognize your strengths and skills, and how to market them.

The Brightest richest men in America are all either High school or College drop outs.

Many from well off, educated families.

Blurtman says

Many from well off, educated families.

Now you're just moving the narrative to suit you're illusion.
So which is it, is it Education or Environment, that is responsible for people's outcome?
Since people's free will, ambition and drive, are so damn frivolous and mean nothing.

CaptainShuddup says

Blurtman says

Many from well off, educated families.

Now you're just moving the narrative to suit you're illusion.
So which is it, is it Education or Environment, that is responsible for people's outcome?
Since people's free will, ambition and drive, are so damn frivolous and mean nothing.

Both nature and nurture. Genes and environment. No surprise there. Drive without the capability to chart a practical path forward due to either innate intelligence, education, or direct help from your family, or indirect help, by virtue of being in an environment where folks do achieve what you desire, only goes so far.

Personal example: My father did not attend high school. Being the oldest of 12 siblings, with a father disabled in an industrial accident. he had to become the breadwinner. My parents mandated that my brother and I attend college. I was always the smart kid. A lot of that is nature. The nucleic acids recombined to award me with intelleigence. I am a millionaire+ now. My brother worked for the post office for a considerable period of his career. Yes, with a college degree. Not a great student.

Also, I had to contend with a government that tried to hold me back by raising the bar on admission criteria to graduate schools versus the low bar for wealthier minority classmates of mine.

Without innate intelligence, I would not be where I am now. Without drive, also. And without parents who mandated education. It is a combination of factors. My peers that I grew up with are in a similar economic group as my brother. It is hard to make it out of your class, in general. Not impossible.

I could speculate as to why I ended up doing as well as I have.
Being one of the premier software writers for the convoluted Accreditation Outcome effectiveness. So complex and convoluted that if you read what Universities around the country have to say about it. They just repeat and rehash a few undetailed paragraphs about Rubric grading systems.

I certainly didn't get it from environment a dysfunctional family with a Father who was retired from the Merchant marines by time I was 6. He lived for the 3rd of every month, at which point he would buy a bottle of V.O. and proceed to work him self into a wicked abusive stupor. I dropped out in the tenth grade and worked a trade from the time I was 18 though out all of my twenties.

My kids were born and I decided, I wasn't going to raise them, in the hand to mouth, feast or famine manor that a life in a trade industry provides in South Florida. So I decided to teach my self how to be a computer programmer. It was a Greek to me as if it was all written in Chinese Characters.

I was not even the kind of person who was savvy at programming the VCR or retrieving Voice messages from the answering machine. To this day I refuse to fiddle with a complex office phone. And if anyone in the company want's to communicate with my by phone, then they know they can call my cell phone, I don't' even answer my desk phone.

But I was determined to learn all I could about computer technologies.
For the most part Windows from client to server and all in between technologies, then Internet technologies various scripting and client and server side processing, and SQL server technologies.

I wont dare to speculate how I managed to do what I did. I just know why I did.
I got tired of every time a special event rolled around like a holiday or kids birthday, as luck would have it, I didn't work one single day that week doing a carpet or tile job.
I was driven to make damn sure I provided my family with more than that.

Right. But a lot of folks will settle, and will not dare to believe, and not dare to try, and will not dare to continue through adversity. Rich and poor folks both. So why do some?

Why aren't the 50% proesting in the streets? Well to answer your question lets take a looks at what happened when the 99% did just that.

A big fat NOTHING.

If the 99% can be sucessfully put on ignore the 50% have even less chance of success. Hell a protest might even be used as justification to repeal the Posse Comitatus Act. A lot of Americans would welcome the elimination of "troublemakers" especially when its pointed out that's would leave more money in the pot for medicare.

Blurtman says

Why aren't the middle class folks revolting?

Because they have just enough of a buffer between themselves and the next gradient or two down.

Blurtman says

I am a millionaire+ now.

Me too, but I'm a dumbfuck.

There is an overemphasis on the money/success framework in the West. I sincerely believe that most people - no matter how enlightened they fancy themselves - cannot accept the premise that anyone can be really truly bright if they aren't also truly wealthy.

CaptainShuddup says

But I was determined to learn all I could about computer technologies.

It's one of the last vestiges of a dying American middle class. Your gig in tech today was yesterday's job in the John Deere foundry; just a good-paying blue collar job...baby blue, but blue nevertheless.

That's probably true. People tend to identify with their perceived peer group and their relative position in it.

A study once asked a group of Harvard graduates if they would accept a certain amount (let's say 100,000 dollars a year for life) as long as their peer graduates got (let's say130,000 for life), or would they rather have (let's say 80,000 for life) as long a their peer graduates got only (let's say 50,000 for life, I don't have the exact figures). The majority chose to get less as long as their peers got even less than they did.

Status and wealthy perception are often relative within groups. If you think you are doing all right compared to your friends/relatives, you probably will not be that unhappy with what you have.

Class warfare is usually more about your own class and your attempt to do better than about a pie in the sky class you don't identify with.

There were actually people in poor communities during the Great Depression who thought they had happy childhoods, because everybody they knew was poor but they had a positive sense of community. They didn't even know they were poor until they went to cities to see that there were actually very wealthy people, and the poor there were treated badly.

Ceffer says

The majority chose to get less as long as their peers got even less than they did.

I'm familiar with that study. There's a correlating Russian proverb that goes something like: a magic genie agrees to grant an abject pauper any one wish he chooses, on the condition that the pauper's neighbor gets twice the amount; the pauper then wishes for the genie to gouge out one of his eyes.

JodyChunder says

Blurtman says

I am a millionaire+ now.

Me too, but I'm a dumbfuck.

There is an overemphasis on the money/success framework in the West. I sincerely believe that most people - no matter how enlightened they fancy themselves - cannot accept the premise that anyone can be really truly bright if they aren't also truly wealthy.

I agree with you on all counts.

JodyChunder says

Blurtman says

I am a millionaire+ now.

Me too, but I'm a dumbfuck.

There is an overemphasis on the money/success framework in the West. I sincerely believe that most people - no matter how enlightened they fancy themselves - cannot accept the premise that anyone can be really truly bright if they aren't also truly wealthy.

Except this - having a couple of million is not being wealthy. Recall that Mr. Drysdale from the Beverly Hillbillies was a millionaire in the 60's when that meant something. If they did the show today, he'd be a billionaire.

Being a millionaire today is being middle class, or what middle class should be. Except people have been pissed down on so long they don't know it.

Blurtman says

having a couple of million is not being wealthy.

sure it is. wealth is being well, and having no unmet needs.

Blurtman says

Being a millionaire today is being middle class, or what middle class should be.

middle class is having to actually work -- personally create goods or services -- for a living, while upper class is having your assets work for you.

$1M in assets throws off $20,000 in income if put into 10 year treasuries.

$1M distributed in say 25 $200,000 rental properties throws off a lot more than that.

$1M in cash is 25 years of middle-class income essentially. Halfway to the upper class lifestyle of not having to work at all.

Ceffer says

A study once asked a group of Harvard graduates if they would accept a certain amount (let's say 100,000 dollars a year for life) as long as their peer graduates got (let's say130,000 for life), or would they rather have (let's say 80,000 for life) as long a their peer graduates got only (let's say 50,000 for life, I don't have the exact figures). The majority chose to get less as long as their peers got even less than they did.

this is actually rational since so much of life's scarce essentials and luxuries is sold on the bid.

We find this in housing. Double area salaries and area home prices will skyrocket, too.

Life is a treadmill, as structured, thanks to all the rent-seeking going on.

finehoe says

That's the way the rentier class wants it. Give the peons just enough to keep them from rising up and taking back the ill-gotten gains the oligarchy has stolen.

The 1% collect all the welfare in the end. Just follow the money!

JodyChunder says

I actually think most Americans simply suffer from low expectations. I don't know why that is...complacency? Mass sedation? Impoverished imaginations? What is it?

We're all monkeys, and imprisoned by monkey-see monkey-do thinking.

This is a pretty good nation for getting ahead still, but you've got to see an angle and be able to capitalize on it.

All this takes figuring out how the world actually works, something that is not taught in public schools all that well.

But there are millions of people in the underground economy with the can-do attitude you speak of.

Hell, a rented meth house blew up not too far from me last year. The immigrant mexican stirring the batch got messed up pretty bad, but he did show the initiative it takes to be a productive citizen here -- find a need and fulfill it.

But it all comes down to capital wealth. Capital is that which assists in the production of end goods and services. The wealthier you are the more access to business capital you have, more connections to people who know WTF they're doing, and the more chances you can mess up before succeeding.

Major problem though is simply the masses are running out of money. No paying customers no business! Too much money is flowing up the pyramid and out of the paycheck economy, via housing rents, high healthcare costs, our $500B/yr trade deficit, and our corporatocratic economy.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CP

Like I say, the wealthy have a million ways to beat money out of the poors. The poors only have two, and one is a felony.

The housing boom/bubble of 2002-2007 was an immense stealth stimulus that distributed $7T or so of spending money into the paycheck economy. It was why things recovered from the dotcom recession, and papered over the bigger problems in the economy -- said trade deficit and collapse of local economies due to the rise of big box retailing.

Bellingham Bill says

Blurtman says

having a couple of million is not being wealthy.

sure it is. wealth is being well, and having no unmet needs.

Blurtman says

Being a millionaire today is being middle class, or what middle class should be.

middle class is having to actually work -- personally create goods or services -- for a living, while upper class is having your assets work for you.

$1M in assets throws off $20,000 in income if put into 10 year treasuries.

$1M distributed in say 25 $200,000 rental properties throws off a lot more than that.

$1M in cash is 25 years of middle-class income essentially. Halfway to the upper class lifestyle of not having to work at all.

$20,000 a year is poverty level income.

Blurtman says

$20,000 a year is poverty level income.

172% of poverty level for a single person.

Poverty is having unmet needs.

$20,000/yr -- $1600/mo -- with ObamaCare is workable I think.

PPACA exchange subsidies will reduce my health insurance premiums to $80/mo, 1/4 what they are now.

So health is taken care of.

Food? $200/mo tops.

Shelter? $100/mo prop tax, $100/mo insurance, $200/mo utilities, $200/mo maintenance set-aside.

Up to $900/mo, leaving $700/mo for other stuff.

Lease a Nissan Leaf for $200/mo, +$50/mo insurance.

Down to around $500/mo for everything else.

Not poverty.

Bellingham Bill says

Blurtman says

$20,000 a year is poverty level income.

172% of poverty level for a single person.

Poverty is having unmet needs.

$20,000/yr -- $1600/mo -- with ObamaCare is workable I think.

PPACA exchange subsidies will reduce my health insurance premiums to $80/mo, 1/4 what they are now.

So health is taken care of.

Food? $200/mo tops.

Shelter? $100/mo prop tax, $100/mo insurance, $200/mo utilities, $200/mo maintenance set-aside.

Up to $900/mo, leaving $700/mo for other stuff.

Lease a Nissan Leaf for $200/mo, +$50/mo insurance.

Down to around $500/mo for everything else.

Not poverty.

Your housing expenses are only workable if you have a paid off mortgage. Which means that you will need to have assets other than $1 million that's generating bond income.

for those of you that don't believe how good folks are living on govt benefits, keep working even harder with your head in the sand too busy slaving away to notice that those on the dole have it better than most working people. How do you think maury povich fills his audience seats every day with hooters and hollers. oh, i forgot, your too busy working to watch daytime tv.

JodyChunder says

Your gig in tech today was yesterday's job in the John Deere foundry; just a good-paying blue collar job...baby blue, but blue nevertheless.

100% Agreed!
Just 10 to 15 years ago, the wages I make now would have been enough to consider my self upper upper middle class. I could have considered Waterfront property near the beach.

To day it's just barely enough to keep afloat with a Ranchero Brubdale house, with lower middle class wants and needs.

Today my wife(who has never worked a day in the 20 years we've been married) would have to get a job and make what I make. For us to realize the same finances, that just my income alone would have made 10 years ago.

I'm making almost double now, but it seemed we had more disposable income when I only made 60K year, that was just before the bubble kicked in last decade.

CaptainShuddup says

To day it's just barely enough to keep afloat with a Ranchero Brubdale house, with lower middle class wants and needs.

What part of California are you in? You'd be sitting pretty with your salary out this way whereabouts I am.