Hey, it stopped raining! And the sun came out!

Maybe the game won't be rained out, after all.

I just do not even get the argument. Sure lots of people in poverty make poor financial decisions, it is why it is so hard for some of them to make any headway out of poverty. BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT (not a huge butt like my ass) they have monumentally fewer choices and opportunities. They almost never have family to help them or friends to chip in. They have almost never seen any example of fiscal resposibility, so have nothing to model.

Sure it is easy for me over here to say, no haircuts for women or girls - wear it long and in a pony tail. Boys hair is buzz cut and done at home. No cable, no internet, 1 cell phone per adult. Kids share rooms and families share homes if it is feasible. No pets. and on and on because it is the stuff I would do or have done when the budget no longer balanced.

If I weren't on my phone I'd cut and paste the status I just posted, reframing that godawful status to which sj is referring. Makes my brain burn, it does.

Thank you for that link, JZ! Am totally sharing on fb.

Why would anyone vote for the guy?

I don't get the impression that many people are actually all that excited about Romney. I think it's really more of anybody-but-Obama. If the economy was strong, I think the election would be like Clinton's 1996 run.

I think people do stop trying eventually. Because small economies like you describe might not fix the whole mess, people get discouraged. Even I do. And look for dumb little ways to comfort themselves, etc.

If the economy was strong, I think the election would be like Clinton's 1996 run.

I think so, too. And it drives me batshit crazy that people are going to vote for that horrific piece of shit Romney because Obama couldn't work a goddamn miracle and turn around a truly terrifying economy in less than 4 years (while dealing with a Congress whose majority has the stated purpose to obstruct him at every turn).

BUT THOSE PEOPLE ALWAYS HAVE iPHONES AND DRIVE NEW CARS AND HAVE BRAND NEW SNEAKERS!!

And according to certain relatives of mine on facebook, who are currently blocked, they spend all of that money on smoking, drinking, getting tattoos, getting cable TV, getting manicures, and doing drugs.

AND they buy strawberries and steak and birthday cake with their foodstamps!

It is also true that the human brain has a limited capacity to make decisions. If you are constantly faced with hard choices every minute of the day, your decision making skills will deteriorate. I'm on my dying computer, so it would be too much work to link to the peer reviewed literature, but it can be googled. Basically you have a limit on the number of good decisions you can make in a day, say n, so when you have to make decision n+1 you probably wont exercise great choices. Why routine and rules of thumb are so important. Non-routine decisions,decisions you cannot make automatically or semi-automatically are spoons, spoons you can run out of like any other spoons. (Maybe we should add "spoons" the FAQ?)

Also, I just read "Off the Books", which was a study on a particular Chicago neighborhood, and how there is a whole second shadow economy going on in poor city neighborhoods that was varying degrees of "shady". I wanted to read it because after I started taking the bus and interacting with a really wide range of people, I noticed how hard some people were working just to make a few dollars-- selling DVD's, selling pies, selling lunch, running day cares, selling cigarettes by the each, doing odd jobs, collecting cans and bottles, selling their bus passes and food stamps etc, etc. There are people working all day just to scrape by, with or without assistance, and I would not call them lazy. Now, I am not sure they would all want a "regular day job", because it really takes a lot of energy in my city to use the bus to be on time for a job- I am lucky, my job is more flexible if the bus is late. But not really lazy!

ETA: Seriously-- taking the bus is one of the best decisions I ever made-- I love seeing all different people instead of just the same people all the time, and although I was a far left leaning person in the first place, and I think I understood "country" poverty, this has helped me understand "city" poverty and working class-ness.

Hey, it stopped raining! And the sun came out!

Right? It was a torrential downpour when I took Emmett to school this morning.