Hey Joe,
Regarding the letter "The masses have become lazy, fat and stupid": Oh to be 27 again, having accomplished graduation and pulled oneself up from nothing, master of all one surveys. Now Kelly and her $75,000 a year income are faced with choices. Let's pretend Kelly is an average heterosexual woman, and she marries a man who makes, say $100,000 a year for a round number. Now, Mr. and Mrs. Kelly will earn $175,000 a year for a couple of years. Then they might want to have kids. Kelly will have to decide what to do.
Will Kelly keep working at her $75,000 a year job and put her kids in daycare? There goes $25,000 a year or so.
Will the Kelly's buy a house? A couple unquestionably-necessary cars? Now they'll have about $300,000 in debt, and kids in daycare. And don't forget the cost of furnishing the house.
If Kelly sends her kids to public schools like I do, they will receive a rotten education augmented by the occasional caring, hardworking teacher who either burns out or, like my youngest son's, commits suicide after being laid off for the third summer in a row.
If Kelly sends her kids to private school, there goes another chunk of that $175,000 a year.
But what if Kelly wants to stay home with her kids? Well, there goes $75,000 a year, although of course you're saving on daycare. Now the family is trying to get by on $100,000 a year. Did you buy that house thinking you were going to be living on two incomes, or one?
And then Mr. Kelly's job is outsourced to India. Or he is replaced by some kid graduating from college, who works for half of what Mr. Kelly demands. Suddenly the two-income family is the no-income family -- good thing Kelly knows how to live cheap.
Or, heaven forefend, what if Mr. Kelly gets sick, dies, or decides to run off with his secretary? How's life now?
When you're 27 years old standing on top of more money in a year than your whole family earned in five, it seems pretty heady. I know -- I was there. My parents earned about $20,000 a year when my dad was working.
But as Tevye said, "Life obliges us with hardships," and I hate to tell you Kelly, but there's no safety net. Sure, if nothing goes wrong you've got a nice suburban life of smug self-righteousness ahead of you, but how many plans go off without a hitch?
I make a good living, Kelly -- better than the one I've described here for you as a matter of fact. And you know what? I am not comfortable. I'm not confident. I know that my manager could turn the corner and see me typing this and tell me "get out," and then I and my family would be right where you started from -- ripped jeans and stained T-shirts and all.
Worse, I know that Joe Bageant is right: our culture is the Titanic, sailing through icy waters, and the people in charge have already appropriated all the lifeboats for themselves. And you and I, Kelly, with our five- or low-six-figure incomes? We're in steerage. And even if you can swim, the waters are COLD.
Don't get to smug, Kelly, or too judgmental -- that stuff can come back to bite you. Instead appreciate what you have, and try to keep an eye out for the icebergs in your life. Remember, the danger is from the 90% that you can't see.
Robert
