Ok junior, aspiring, deputy, official and otherwise economists!
Test time!
What are the mistakes Laura and her boyfriend made that makes it so you and I and every other person who works hard get to pay higher taxes to pay for their mistakes?
Bueller?
Bueller?
I just love how the media portrays them as victims.
Quicker to list the things they (tried) to do right.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, that should really be the contest here. Spot the attempt to do the right thing.
I love the assumptions the writer makes. Yes, median income has fallen because unionization is down.
ReplyDeleteI got laid off in a crappy job market. I got a job 150 miles away. I'm not sure why people insist on only doing ONE thing, like her boyfriend who "can't find work as a landscaper". Then look for work doing something else. I'm pretty sure "landscaper" has some skills that can translate to something else.
I got laid off about the same time as a friend. We were both working as engineers. I got a real estate license and did that for a while until I got an IT manager job. He would ONLY work as an electrical engineer. I had a job within 6 months because I listed my skills and decided I don't care what they call me as long as they pay me. It took him more than 2 years of unemployment to find a job with the title of "Electrical Engineer" back in the crappy job market we got laid off in.
"I grew up going to Hawaii every summer."
ReplyDeleteHmm. Smells like somebody gained a sense of entitlement by living off the avails of her parents wealth her whole life. Then, when the "other peoples' money" runs out, she is screwed because she failed to secure her own future by educating herself in a way that would actually make her useful to society.
I just returned from two weeks in Hawaii... paid for it myself because I have a decent set of skills and a good job and I can afford it, funny how that works.
Well, they had a kid which was dumb. However, it doesn't sound like they have worthless degrees (or any degrees) and it doesn't sound like they have a house. So at least there's that going for them.
ReplyDeleteOoh oooh pick me, Pick meeeeeee!
ReplyDeleteWas it the lack of planning and saving?
or
Having children while having no job?no actual husband? while on disability?
or
Bad capitalists and republicans hoarding the entire herd of skittle pooping unicorns?
Evabody knows that the solution to grinding poverty is to make lots of babies!
ReplyDeleteI missed the unmarried bit. Real question: Is he the dad and therefore more likely to work hard to improve his child's station, or is he dating a single mom?
ReplyDeleteNo one remembers James Jay Lee? That guy who took hostages at the Discovery Channel building and had a long rant about how the downfall of the world would be the exponential creation of more and more parasitic babies?
ReplyDeleteIf he was still around, he could make a great income just travelling around to poorer communities and trying to convince people not to have babies.
Well, at least she found her baby a willing daddy, right? After all, he's apparently now willing to raise and fund someone else's child at the age of 25. And by "fund" I mean "redistribute his redistributed income".
He's just paying it forward, right?
She hasn't given the baby up for adoption.
ReplyDeleteIf she did, the whole mess would evaporate.
"Poverty is closely tied to joblessness."
ReplyDeleteAn epic "DoH! Moment"
Jeebus on a pogo stick....who knew?!!! Not earning any money means you will not have any money? I need to see the data. This is remarkable. A break through of sorts. Now all we need are......
.....wait, never mind.
1) There was no "college fund" to dry up. If there had been an actual "college fund" then she would still be in college.
ReplyDelete2) Had a baby. Apparently the bit of college she did attend didn't teach her how to prevent that.
3) Hasn't moved back in with her parents to save rent and childcaere money.
4) Aforementioned things like "get a job not as a landscaper". How about putting together some inexpensive flyers and going door to door selling yourself as a handyman/gardener/landscaper?
On the positive side it did not appear, from the pictures, that he has a face full of tattoos and piercings.
A few things I notice:
ReplyDelete-Women with visible tattoos seem to have screwed-up lives
-The dude looks like a pretty typical layabout badboy whose party has ended and now he's raking leaves for a living
-There is no law that says you're going to turn out fine just because your parents were "solidly middle class." It only takes one or two screwups to fall off the tracks on the way to success. And wealthy people, more often than not, are doing a lot of things right. Nobody wants to admit that because it would blow up their class-envy "they just got lucky" narrative.
The entire tone of the story is a plaintive, fearful cry of the reporter for "we wanted our chiiildren to have better lives than we did!"
It's actually morbidly funny - for all the bitching the press does about the "idle rich" and inherited wealth and the 1%, I keep seeing these stories pop up where reporters expect that people should just be able to inherit the stability and comfort of their middle class parents.
-Fritz had bad breaks (not her fault her parents failed in business and didn't have a secure college fund for her), but built on them with bad choices (having a kid out of wedlock while on disability)