askyermom

Even as a non-economist, I can see the very lopsided shell game that I have been participating in for my adult American life. It is obvious from my vantage point that more people are struggling and hustling, and fewer people are able to coast long enough to notice how far off their original track they may be.

Many more people are falling off their planned track and feeling little hope of getting back on again. Unintended pregnancies always have done this, but now it’s unintended job loss or break ups or any of the usual difficulties. Any rough patch can be the one that short circuits your entire life economically. One big illness will do it in a hurry.

If the United States is the richest country in the world, with the most fair economic system, then most people should be experiencing at least modest wealth. The fact that this is not the result we’re seeing tells me some part of the story is not true.

In reality, the math does not add up. Most people are stuck in strugglenomics with far more downward pressure than uplift. Bernie Sanders likes to say that 60% of households are living paycheck to paycheck. If you aren’t seeing that, you aren’t looking closely enough, or you may be in a bubble of wealth that protects you from the sight of strugglenomics. You may not agree with Bernie on much, but he’s got that right. Most people are feeling real financial pain every day.

It’s not just my opinion that there are a great many more people living outdoors than decades ago. We see things like the neighborhood food bank’s longer lines emptying the pantry faster than before. We may notice the way less desperate service providers do not push too hard in up-selling. It’s unspoken acknowledgement of the swelling ranks of folks who cannot afford whateveritis.

Medium price retailers are vanishing to be replaced by dollar stores. It’s not just because of delivery options and private equity pirates. People who shop are becoming people who shop second hand stores in tremendous numbers. When I see a storefront that sells regular garbage go out of business, it feels like another notch has slipped on our downward facing economy.

When I dipped into working in healthcare during COVID, I saw things that have changed my perspective permanently. Nearly all of the people I worked with were treading water financially, despite working arguably the most difficult and perilous duties of the time. I kept the books and saw the shocking pay stubs.

Shareholders were getting wealthier, while workers were not paid living wages. Workers were loaned out so consultants could make extra fees on questionable mandatory training, and these workers were generally treated like disposable cogs. Management told us we were family while treating us like trash.

Aside from the casual cruelty, there was an ugly zero-sum culture among the business people, as if we were hyenas on the savanna going after the same shrinking herd of unsteady prey. Someone was going to go hungry, someone was going to be the hyena without a chair when the music stopped–or something like that. Panic was a perfume.

I will never forget the lovely medical aides who were working multiple jobs in hopes that their kids wouldn’t have to do the same. Those hopes are based on a fairness that isn’t the norm. If you are following the path and getting a comfortable living, you are lucky. Luck is entirely separate from getting a fair opportunity.

We create fairness in the way we set up the game.

Fairness does not just happen. In the natural course of events, people tinker with the guidelines to get a little advantage for themselves or their allies. In skimming a bit of time or overlooking a little mistake or hiring a friend of a friend who needs a break, we nibble out our own little realm and make our own comfy nest.

I do not think it’s bad on its face that we behave this way, it is pretty natural when you are driven to survive and prepare for inevitable loss. Like so many facts of human nature, it’s not a great or a terrible drive until it gets a chance to mow down innocence and joy. At that point, it becomes a bad thing to feather your own nest with your thumbs on the scale and so on.

This entropy of bite-sized greed is the reason we have to manage resources and continually check to be sure the systems are as fair as we can make them. The systems erode over time if no one is verifying and checking the math. It’s to be expected that the unexpected will reveal shrinkage and errors. If no one ever digs below the surface, the inventory can be vastly overstated.

What if you have a mountain of peaches that are mostly ping pong balls? You could be headed for a hard, peachless season if nobody checks the inside of peach mountain.

One of the first things people in America do when they have wealth is not to hoard peaches, but to sequester themselves among the wealthy as much as possible.

No one with wealth has to hear the stories of those without. Wealthy people look around their life and say things are good. Their view is groovy. They have no reason to be curious about the persistent stories of people who have been sucked into the poverty machine. That is something that happens on the fringe, out of sight. They don’t recognize how large the fringe is becoming, even when things have been allowed to fray for decades.

Still they are uneasy. Why else would the wealthy want to join neighborhoods and clubs that restrict access and keep out riff raff? Why are they willing to pay fees that are more than a home mortgage to live in a sterile, stackable community?

What I hear most often is that they believe they are buying safety. They don’t want to get robbed or assaulted and everybody knows that poor neighborhoods have more crime, right?

A funny thing I have noticed: I have been successfully robbed only by wealthy people. Sure, they didn’t waive a weapon, but when I count wage theft, it’s a pretty large siphoning of cash over a lifetime.

I had one boss who never paid himself first, and he was the only one. All the others waited until their balances were spilling over before they felt comfortable passing on any profits and when they did, it was the minimum, for display. Rich people have cheerfully overcharged me for services and bullied me into buying things I didn’t need or want a lot more often than poor people have.

Money can’t buy safety but it can pay for some excellent illusions of safety. Money can’t really protect you from rich people, in fact it draws them like greedy moths to a burning pile of cash.

I used to be skeptical about greed as a force in the world and now I believe every cliche about greed. The love of money is the root of all evil. Check. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Check. The best things in life are free. Yep.

How can wealthy people be helped to see the truth? Portrayals of struggle may start a conversation, but how do we keep the conversation from becoming defensive? Well, I didn’t hurt anyone! I didn’t steal anyone’s land! These are valid and still irrelevant statements. People were hurt and land was stolen. What are you willing to do to avoid such collective actions?

Are you willing to pay attention to what your government is doing and is not doing to help people? Even more basic, do you think our government should help people? Should it make sure business activities are legal and fair for average citizens?

What are you willing to do? Would you relocate to have more freedom? Would you relocate to build a better life? A better life for others as well as yourself?

Do you think struggle builds character? Good character? Even if the game is rigged in favor of your own poverty? If struggle is good for you, is that true for every kind of struggle, like struggling for basic freedoms?

What if you didn’t have to fight for your basic rights and you then had that energy for creating a new life? What would you make with your life?

I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t build a huge dog rescue, like an old Hollywood starlet, and train all the dogs to eat paparazzi. Still, you could do much better than that.

What would you do with your precious, free life if you were really free?

Love,
yermom

If you want to, you can buy my book, Don’t Eat Your Children!! It’s available for borrowing on the Hoopla library app. It should be FREE, because libraries are great!!