RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] speaking of apocalyptic horsemen...

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> Are you a family of four?  Do you have childcare expenses?  Why is your
> $1500 coming after insurance and taxes?  I find your argument rather
> unconvincing.  $1500 per month for a family of four only works if
> everything goes well, you have no childcare expenses, and don't go to
> school.  Or, if you do without a car.  The year my wife and I were the
> very poorest we ever got (3rd year of grad school for me; her last year of
> college), the easy choice to make (since we lived in a city) was to do
> without the car.

Even in the city I've found not owning a car can make it hard to find
work. Of course some cities have better public transit than others. Big
cities are better than a small place like Columbia but still can be rough
on people without cars. If you have to walk, get a ride, or take public
transit it can be really hard to get to work on time consistantly unless
you go in 1-2 hours in advance (more if you live far away or the weather
or traffic is bad). If your already busy that makes life even harder. In a
rural area not owning a car is just instant death to finding work.

It's possible to live off shit wages for a while.. even to live pretty
well if you are careful with your money and don't have kids. Go through a
single 6 month stint of unemployment though and things get thrown out of
whack that you owe so much money that on your wage you can never catch up
and interest and charges pile on top of each other and just get worse and
worse. Then your bad credit makes everything cost more and makes it harder
to get better jobs or go to school. It's something of a snowball effect.

If I could have my wish for some sort of anti-poverty program it'd be
garenteed education and garenteed work. Anybody should be able to work
towards a better paying job and they should have some sort of job they can
always find. Instead of giving (healthy) people free welfare money why not
give them a job? Even if it's just mowing grass or picking up liter. It'd
sure be nice to have that to fall back on when a more desirable job isn't
available. Some sort of welfare for people that are sick or elderly etc
should exist too of course.. but that should be only for people who really
can't work.


I glarked the log files
of the badly glorked service.
Soon, I grokked the glitch.

Michael McGlothlin <EMAIL:PROTECTED>
http://kavlon.org/
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