Comments on: A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class

By: ScottXYZ

ScottXYZ — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 06:54:49 +0000

If we’re trying to figure out who or what to blame for this tragedy – try taking a look at how much money is made by the CEOs and shareholders of Walmart and Tambrands who paid Caroline Payne less than 7 dollars an hour for 20 years – and take a look at the bank that held the $90,000 mortgage on Caroline Payne’s $37,000 house. (Also try looking at the callousness of the Tambrands managers who couldn’t adjust her schedule to allow her to take care of her own children – and the idiot spineless doctors and caseworkers who couldn’t bring up this simple suggestion.) Do the math. An “economy” isn’t going to function if the paper-pushers get millions dollars while the people who do the real work get $200 a week. There’s plenty of money to go around. It just isn’t going around anymore – it’s all in a few people’s bank accounts now. Pay everyone ten bucks an hour to do what they do best. Couldn’t work much worse than the current mess called “capitalism”.

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:26:46 +0000

“Why on Earth, in ninety-something comments, has nobody pointed out the abject lunacy of a regulatory system that allows someone who’s never earned $30k in a year to rack up $30k in credit-card debt?” Because there’s no lunacy I can see in a “regulatory system” that fails to treat those over 18 as children. There shouldn’t be any agency with the power to “allow” or “disallow” people over 18 to borrow money from a willing lender and legally obligate himself to pay it back. Next, I suppose you’re going to tell me that people over 18 should have an agency with the power to forbid them, for their own good, to… (jeez, I’m running out of examples that haven’t already been implemented or seriously considered! What’s wrong with this country?) Obviously, there are a few people out there that really aren’t able to handle the demands and responsibilities of adulthood. Maybe we should allow people to petition DCFS to revoke their adulthood and place them with foster parents…

By: visitor

visitor — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 17:09:45 +0000

Caroline Payne’s poverty only exists relatively. She’s apparently lived and is living a long life, has had multiple children — one of whom is relatively healthy and safe despite a mental handicap, can provide for her basic needs, has shelter, and has many things to look forward to. The major cause of her suffering is that she lives her life in the shadow of the most obscenely wealthy people in history. Permanently surrounded by gratuitous displays of wealth, health, and comfort, she is constantly reminded that her life does not add up. That doesn’t mean that her suffering doesn’t exist, or that good people shouldn’t try to ameliorate it. It means that her suffering isn’t assuaged by giving her more money. And even if it were, the proper route would by no means be an anonymous budgetary leviathan. Well, I personally take time to try to ameliorate suffering, spend my own money on it, and teach it to my children. Sigh, I’m also one of those damnable conservatives. But I do believe that compassionate action means time and money from your own pocket as well as serving in groups and tax funds. I just dislike people swearing at me because I disagree over the structure that gets people to the least suffering. At least I put my time and money into what I believe.

By: Felix Gant

Felix Gant — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:54:01 +0000

Dear dear … I’m in the middle – this case is an indictment of us all, poverty is relative, and we should do what we can to save ourselves AS WELL AS to save others … and what a lot of personal abuse is flying past me in both directions. Calling each other names generates heat, but little light.

By: Sebastian holsclaw

Sebastian holsclaw — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 20:45:00 +0000

There is bankruptcy. Hey an area where I think government regulation is ok. And I might even be willing to admit that the 5 year ago ‘crack-down’ on bankruptcy was ill-advised.

By: SGL

SGL — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 20:00:57 +0000

Tom, that’s an excellent point. The reason it doesn’t get regulated adequately, of course, is that both the big credit-card companies and the lowlifes who operate subprime lending companies spend a lot of money on lobbying and campaign contributions.

By: Tom Womack

Tom Womack — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 19:27:21 +0000

Why on Earth, in ninety-something comments, has nobody pointed out the abject lunacy of a regulatory system that allows someone who’s never earned $30k in a year to rack up $30k in credit-card debt? Or is it absolutely axiomatic that you can’t regulate private agencies handing out credit on extortionate terms?

By: SGL

SGL — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 18:06:09 +0000

“If mental health is part of the picture in this particular case, then the best response to situations like this might be something other than changes to economic structures.” Well, duh. Good to see somebody gets it.

By: ohshenandoah

ohshenandoah — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:47:17 +0000

I am an advocate of Quality Child Care. A friend from Finland once told me that “it is morally wrong to stay home and raise your children, when the professionals do a much better job!” (Of course the Scandinavians still believe in the social contract, that we jointly surrender 40% of our salary to raise everyone’s living standard.) Carolyn could not get child care for her retarded daughter when she was put on shift work. The plant rotated workers between three shifts. “The social workers never considered asking the factory to keep Carolyn on day shift” and Carolyn left the best paying job she ever had, because she could not get child care. People with poor emotional intelligence do not understand that they are making choices; they lack impulse control and they are driven to replicate emotionally charged relationships from their childhood. Carolyn Payne “never had enough love as a child” and she’ll take any love that is offered, even if it is toxic. Is there an equation that compares the cost of laundromat to cost of owning washing machine? When you have children? When you have a uniform that you have to wash 2-3 times a week? Finally, credit card debt: When I got out of college, I was working in a prestigious museum. I had good health care, but I was charging groceries on my credit card. The deficit between my cost of living and my salary was costing me 15% interest.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:36:36 +0000

“Ken, allow me to summarize: “the poor must suffer today to help the middle class of tomorrow!” Note: also applies to the prescription drug investment arguments.” Yup, the left returns to its silly, unfounded tropes. Wealth does not in itself require exploitation of the poor. And the existance of poverty does nothing to indicate that exploitation created it.

By: Odd Ray of Hope

Odd Ray of Hope — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 21:45:15 +0000

Perhaps Ms. Payne has been held back in part by mental/emotional health issues? The episode with the removal of her teeth seems very, very odd. It seems her parents neglected her emotionally, and know she married early into a bad marriage and later into an abusive one, so there is some reason to wonder about the emotional grounding she received as a child. She has had some (meager) opportunities, but lost the benefit of them with some questionable and hard to understand decisions. If mental health is part of the picture in this particular case, then the best response to situations like this might be something other than changes to economic structures.

By: Davis X. Machina

Davis X. Machina — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:54:09 +0000

“How best can we work to reduce the suffering of the Caroline Paynes of the world?” Thanks, Dan Simon, I just wanted to see that again.

By: D�beln

D�beln — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:54:02 +0000

“the 1890s etc. so your argument is that every major improvement for working people and the middle classes since then has been due to technological growth or the unimpeded market and owes nothing at all to various welfare interventions?” For a sizable majority that is probably the case. After all, the reason that most of the world was dirt poor 150 years or so ago (We had our last famine here in Sweden around then…) was hardly due to a lack of redistributive effort… Still, for the 10-15% of the population that’s on the bottom of the ladder, the welfare state has most likely meant a large improvement, as well as an efficiency gain in certain areas. (Risk management in health care, etc.) Regards, Döbeln -Stabil som fan!

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:17:24 +0000

Then let me introduce a fourth argument: even if the policies favored by our friends on the left succeed in improving the situation of the poor, our favored policies of minimal interference in the marketplace will lead to improvements in the kind and in the cost of available products and services that improve the lot of everyone, including those of modest and less than modest means, more effectively, and enable continued improvements over time without limit. Historically speaking, I think the evidence would show that without these policies from the Left and some from the paternalist Conservative right, that this would not be the case. However, the argument is not that no improvement would occur in absolute terms; but that it would be greater than the policy packages which don’t abandon everything to the marketplace or that they would somehow lead to a net reduction in benefits on an aggregate basis. Needless to say, I don’t think there is a decisive case either way; which is why so many of these debates are ideologically driven rather than purely technically so. Re: the 1890s etc. so your argument is that every major improvement for working people and the middle classes since then has been due to technological growth or the unimpeded market and owes nothing at all to various welfare interventions? If this is a correct interpretation of your point, I think it is well sort of misguided to say the least.

By: Jason McCullough

Jason McCullough — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:09:49 +0000

Ken, allow me to summarize: “the poor must suffer today to help the middle class of tomorrow!” Note: also applies to the prescription drug investment arguments.