The rich get richer and...well, ain't the story always the same, in different eras and places and among different kinds of people?The struggles of the long-suffering and the newly-made poor aren't stories for entertainment or validation of national greatness. It's tough out there. Maybe it always has been.
The top guys at Goldman-Sachs and Fannie Mae made hundreds of millions of dollars in personal profits by devising schemes they knew would probably ruin the lives of many - many people who only wanted to fulfill a dream of owning their own home. These guys remain unpunished and in fact retain their seats at the table of government regulators.
I spend 50 bucks at the grocery store and come home with little to show for it and I wonder how my daughter will make it out there.
I sometimes work for millionaires who quibble over the price of my work, even though it pales in comparison to other baubles - like the $5000.00 built-in coffee maker.
Recession or Depression or Compression or Transgression...it's tough out there.
photos by Ben Shann and Dorothea Lange
I'm old enough to remember some of the stories my parents and grandparents told about the "dirty thirties". It taught them work ethic, conservation, persistence and helped to form them into the tough survivors that they were. I'm not seeing all that much evidence these days of people suffering like they did back then. Things are tight but, perhaps, not desperate. Not yet.
ReplyDeleteWell, yer probably right. We are a spoiled bunch we are. Still, many of us live check to check on the edge of who knows what and I think it is the worry about that desperation that is the current ethos.
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