Happy New Year! Perhaps in all the holiday madness, you failed to notice the Economic Policy Institute’s December report on the gap between rich and poor in the United States. The upshot? Said gap is at its largest since the survey began in 1962. Notably, the richest one percent of American households has 225 times as much money as the average household. Back in the 1960s, the figure was a mere 125 times.
Life isn’t all peaches and cream at the top, however. The global recession has had some impact on the wealthy: in 2009, the richest one percent had an average wealth of only 14 million dollars — 27 percent less than in 2007.
Now, it’s true that the average household was hit harder, experiencing a financial worth decrease of 41 percent. But let’s be honest. How many people really have the wherewithal to be among the truly wealthy? If you deserved to be rich, then you probably would be. And really, your life is so much simpler because you’re not. Oh, sure, everyone whines about not being able to pay their bills or take their kid to the endodontist, but what you don’t hear much about are all the ways in which being impoverished can improve one’s life.
Top 13 Most Awesome Things About Being Poor
1. Easier choices: Decision-making is stressful! Should you buy the chevre or the asiago? The Danskos or the Uggs? The Prius or the Passport? With no money, you can’t buy anything, so you’re spared those tough decisions. Hence, less stress!
2. Health: Most Americans are overweight. With so little money for food and even less for car repair, you’ll find yourself eating less and walking more — just what the doctor ordered! Not that you’ll be able to see a doctor, which brings us to …
3. Your time is your own: No dealing with the annoying wait in the doctor’s office. Think of all the hours saved by not having to fill out those invasive questions on all those pages of medical forms. No sitting around in cold, sterile rooms wearing paper robes. That’s for suckers.
4: On a related note: no dentists! I mean, have you seen Little Shop of Horrors? When your teeth get bad enough, you can just have them yanked out old-school-style — whiskey and pliers. Hey, if it was good enough for our forebears, the very people who created America and Liberty, it should be good enough for you. You ever hear of George Washington complaining? Our troops aren’t fighing for freedom so that you can eat solid foods.
5. Less obligation: Without funds for birthday, anniversary and holiday gifts, you’re sailing almost obligation-free! No more wondering what to get for that friend who has everything (answer: nothing!) or finding just the right something for that special someone. Forget about flowers and chocolates. In fact, while you’re at it, best to forget about having friends and lovers (aka “moochers”) altogether.
6. Family closeness: Since you can’t go on any vacations and have jettisoned your friends, you’ll be able to spend all your time with your family at home. Get crafty! Invent your own “bored” games with old photos and flattened cardboard boxes. Bottle caps make great backgammon pieces. If the kids complain, remind them that children in Africa don’t even have families.
7. Improved sex life: After the cable and Internet get cut due to lack of payment, you’ll have little else to do but take pleasure in the age-old refuge of poor people. You’ve already lost your stature in society, now lose your inhibitions! Did you know the Humboldt County Library stocks The Complete Kama Sutra? You do now! (Note: Planned Parenthood offers vasectomies and other forms of birth control for free or cheap, so get on that before getting it on.)
8. Environmental superiority: You’re not buying stuff, so you’re not contributing to global warming or the garbage problem. Go ahead, lord your betterness over others. It’s pretty much your only shot at being righteous. Well, outside of getting religion …
9. Religious awakening! Get all “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” on everybody’s ass. Did Jesus own a Kindle? No. Clearly he was not a douchebag and neither are you. Also, church suppers.
10. Artistic credibility: If inviting Our Lord and Savior into your life is still too much for you, instead assert your identity as an art purist. Ill-fitting clothes sporting holes and stains say you’re not concerned with shallow presentation of self. Nay! You seek authenticity. You need only your own blood and sweat to create! (Because you can’t afford paints and brushes.)
11. Musical opportunity: Everyone expects rock musicians to be slovenly assholes. Exploit your impoverished appearance and explore the worst parts of your personality at the same time. If you’re not actually in a band, no worries. Just walk around with a guitar case on your back — given the number of transients with instruments, they must not be that hard to come by. Another bonus: You know the difference between a total scuzzbag and a rock star? One gets laid.
12. Enlightenment: With such a bleak past and hopeless future, your only hope for sanity is living in the moment. Which just happens to be, like, totally Zen! Carpe diem!
13. The Simple Life, O.G. edition: Henry David Thoreau — embraced nature, practiced thoughtful reflection, sucked the marrow out of life. Paris Hilton — embraced diamond-clad chihuahuas, practiced pouty face, just sucks.
This article appears in Search and Suspend.
Ya hoo! Jennifer you are too much and I revel in your affirming my daily life experiences. As j. Hendrix sang, “I’m gonna live today!” Although I will use “old timey family photos for a “bored game” of family roots or some such. I enjoy your articles every time with much laughter and feel like you understand all that I go through. Carry on and spread the truth and giggles!
Is sarcasm what we’re really missing, or is this a requirement to circumvent today’s widespread media self-censorship ?
Please tell your friends to read Barbara Ehrenrich’s latest book, “Bright-Sided”.
When the depths of our New Gilded Age become common-topic, as the Vietnam war had, the outrage required to respond will have a chance to grow.
While Europeans riot against their New Gilded Age, maybe the other half of Americans will begin to register to vote!?
Not if our “free-press” has its way.
You set your parameters too low!
According to Forbes 2010 Billionaires list, their average net worth of $3.5 billion increased by $500 million in 12 months!
AND there are 208 more of them!
In India, the number of billionaires doubled in 2010!
Like India, American’s cast-markings are clearly evident each time we smile.
Very good call, Not So Fast…although I can’t get myself to throw any negativity toward Jennifer Savage, I totally understand what you’re saying and agree completely. And just about nobody wants to talk about it. “Positive psychology”…creating mantras for the impoverished masses. Point-and-click activism, etc. while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in broad daylight.
Choke on your money Jennifer savage and your surfboard, you write garbage and come off as a spoiled materialistic valley girl. I guess you go to the soup kitchen every week yourself to get your free meal and shower….your sarcasm or whatever your giant ego thinks its doing in this article doesn’t help the reality of what the folks who really are struggling are going through. Enjoy your nice two story home and cars—I wish I could be as “poor” as your bitch-ass! You missed #14 which is how lucky us poor folk are to die sooner—due to how awesomely lucky we are to have no health care. Can’t wait to high five the next person I meet dying from a toothache and tell them how lucky they are to not be able to see a dentist! Do your children walk 10 miles or so each way to collect water so you can better help them relate to the poor people in Africa?
You missed #14 which is how lucky us poor folk are to die sooner…
Well, we’ll miss ya!
Sheesh, lighten up, Francis! A sense of humor is required in today’s dreary world. Nice to now the country that I was told as a child was starving so I better eat my broccoli is now producing prodigious amounts of billionaires. Capitalism works!
Jennifer, great writing! Fun stuff and nice point.
Can’t fault Hank for protecting his own.
Personalities aside, this story illustrates the abysmal failure of “community media” to reflect public despair and outrage over our New Gilded Age, (see, capitalism works…), the 6th largest extinction event in life’s history on Earth, or to follow up on your own stories revealing local political domination by the development community…maintaining massive public subsidies for their big boxes and sprawl while our schools close, streets and sewers decay and homeless fill the streets.
Shall I be grateful for the sarcasm?
Very, very sad.
Great piece!
@Not So Fast: What’s sad (y’know, aside from America’s obliterated middle class) is how egregiously you missed the point of Jen’s tone. The “despair and outrage” you seek is in there if you read it correctly.
Jennifer,
You know what I thought of the piece. Here’s my public kudos. Agree with Joel and Ryan. Keep writing.
Ryan, there’s nothing egregious in calling-out sarcasm when clear, honest outrage is overdue, especially amid an era of unprecedented self-censorship in the newsroom, at work, and on campus.
There are books written on this subject.
I would be first to laugh if the reality was also being reported.
America’s researchers and most lucid speakers on our society are effectively banned from mainstream media, while our own small town “community” rags haven’t even the guts for a phone interview of an HSU sociologist, social psychologist, historian, statistician, or political scientist.
I like Jennifer too, but sarcasm is no substitute for the plethora of facts that aren’t seeing the GD light of day.
JENNSUCKS,
Have you ever been arrested?
The above comment to JENNSUCKS was posted by me. Hey Hank, your code seems a little off. (For the record, Jen doesn’t suck.)
@Not So Fast:
“…an era of unprecedented self-censorship”
What exactly are we supposedly censoring? And why?
“…the plethora of facts that aren’t seeing the GD light of day.”
Lay a few on us. Hell, blow this sumbitch wide open. These days you don’t need a printing press. So go ahead: drop some reality on our self-censoring asses.
Ryan, whether or not you put empty glass containers in a bin to be recycled wouldn’t warrant blaming you for problems related to industry. You didn’t even create the containers in the first place. The activity en masse, however, demonstrates a portion of a bigger picture. Same thing…this is funny haha, but there’s a reason not too many articles like this are being written by people who’ve actually had the bottom fall out from under them. The commercial machine knows how to appeal to us as individuals, on behalf of a fake smile over the collective population. And their methods are working very well. If you or Jennifer Savage take it personally, that’s your trip to explore.
How can I take it personally when I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about?
It looks as though Yep has taken a ” trip to explore” outside the “machine” of standard English.
Thank for reading! Have a beautiful day!
this article was tasteless not funny at all and besides ms savage hope u can do more than write cause newspapers r going out of business so be careful what u write u might be poor in a minute yourself this article was tasteless who makes fun of the less fortuante
Ryan, you can’t be THAT naive about fear, favor and censorship in the newsroom, it permeates the culture, Sonoma State University has been publishing the “Top 25 Censored Stories” every year since the 1980’s!
You demanded examples, yet you ignored the one I provided you in the same post, above!?
Are you just playing the fool to bait an anonymous critic?
OK
l will never forget Pulitzer Prize winning
reporter (and former NCJ writer) George Ringwald, explaining his exasperation trying to get his story on HSU published in the NCJ for 6 months in 2001. He blamed the NCJ’s ties to HSU. Since then, the NCJ remains timid about HSU, avoiding its professionals, avoiding tough questions or criticism, and the legal imbroglios filed in California courts.
There are numerous individuals with advanced degrees at HSU who understand our New Gilded Age, and the extent and statistics of suffering taking place that’s NOT being reported. Don’t the 8,000 daily foreclosures since Jan. 2009, sound as newsworthy to headline as a kid suspended at the High School? No wonder Arcata parents are stashing barbiturates with their recreational pot, how many are one illness away from foreclosure!?
We’re living amid the sixth largest extinction event in Earth’s history but there’s no “environmental section” in any “community” newspaper?! We work half our waking life, but there’s no “labor section”? There’s a “rural lifestyle” movement/revolt taking place, but no demands for low-impact codification or even water capacity studies? Are you kidding me? Where’s the outrage? Are there no reporters that recall this world’s SoCal’s and how water sources and wildlife disappear, over and over, and over again?
In addition to the occasional NCJ interview of a homeless family (thank you) how about a story on what’s making them poor and keeping them that way…it’s a huge local industry!
What happened to the NCJ reporter who broke the story about local political domination by the development community (kudos!)? NOT ONE REPORTER asked local 2010 candidates to name their source for claiming that another big box or that more subdivisions will improve our economy…(THE CANDIDATE’S PRIMARY PLATFORM!).
Do you honestly believe that U.S. imperialism, 800 foreign military bases and two illegal wars have no local, reportable impacts? And yet, they’ve been disappeared by local and national media, along with AIDS, the looting of the Treasury (so kind of you to also call it a “bailout”), Katrina, the cost of a “public” education, (in violation of the U.S. Education Act of 1965), and a host of other uncomfortable truths. Is it any wonder that half the eligible voters are not registered? Why do we NEVER interview this “other majority” of non-participants?
I waited 35 years to read about who (OBVIOUSLY) dominates local campaign funding. I anxiously await the NCJ’s follow up and election-time reminders.
“No censorship”, indeed! Is that what they’re teaching now?
@Not So Fast:
Thanks for the heartfelt comment. I could write a long, defensive rebuttal to your complaints, pointing out, for example, that this reporter wrote about troubles at HSU in his very first cover story, or — returning to the original topic — that Jennifer Savage’s column above expresses plenty of outrage (brilliantly, IMO) if you just read between the lines. But such a retort would merely continue antagonism where I suspect none is required.
Check it out: You are clearly a passionate, well-informed and demanding consumer of news. In short, you’re our ideal reader. We LOVE you! And we want you to love us. (Or, failing that, hate will suffice. It’s better than outright dismissal, so thanks for caring enough to complain.)
You list the shortcomings of the NCJ as a community paper, which is cool. Like I said, we prefer that to being ignored. But if I could humbly suggest a plus: We’re right here. (Hiya.) We answer our phones and respond to e-mails. Occasionally we emerge from our offices seeking caffeine or foodstuffs. If you’d like to have a human conversation rather than, say, anonymously accusing us of complicity in some “New Gilded Age” power-cowed conspiracy (or whatever), you might discover that we care about the same things you care about, more or less. (Though I should warn you, our eyes tend to glaze over during abstract discussions of U.S. imperialism and foreign wars.)
Take the title of Jen’s column this week to heart, then call us up with a specific, focused story idea. It will be more productive, I promise you.
Let’s be friends, Not So Fast.
Jennifer, I rather enjoy the humor of your article albeit “sarcastic” but it is reality for many of us and we do like to laugh. I must say while raising my children on very modest pay I have experienced #1, 2, 3 and yes #4 having had a tooth yanked out to save $ it would cost to have a crown. #6, #7 “kill your TV” as the bumper stickers say. #8 who needs more junk? #9, #10 dress thrift store it’s been stylish since along time ago. #11 play music, sing, drum. #12 No need to stress about being poor (take action). What is it so many people have said from other countries? “You Americans live like Kings.”
So don’t forget to laugh but keep talking friends and put some action behind your words, continue getting educated and share with others.
Thanks, Karin. All that satire is based on my own experiences, which include raising three kids on cash aid and food stamps, depending on Medi-Cal and Open Door, often working multiple part-time jobs to patch together income that still failed to pay the bills, all while getting a college education. And don’t get me started on cars breaking down always at the worst possible time. Constant financial struggling wears a person down.
But somehow all that hard work and being nice paid off (even if it didn’t always pay) and I’m lucky enough to be in this beautiful place surrounded by people I love. Having survived — still surviving — I do my best to share, inform, advise and entertain as much as possible; I’m grateful for the opportunity to do in the Journal.
If you missed them, more straightforward columns, those encouraging action and education, here.
First, I personally like both Ryan and Jen, but I shouldn’t have to “come down to the office” for an honest response to the self-censorship issue and examples I already provided. I shouldn’t have to “call up” to get a response to the specific story ideas I already offered.
Ryan and Jen used plenty of space (above) for a relevant response. For God’s sakes peeps, the fundamental and uncomfortable truths about our society, economy and environment are indeed “abstract” precisely due to being routinely censored!
No, I don’t want to discourage you from continuing as you are, I agree with the heartfelt sentiments expressed in Jen’s link…the editorials are well written and entertaining, they have that safe, snappy brevity characteristic of what’s required for publication today. (It’s not your fault, we need employment, but we all have the responsibility to admit our complicity…you might require some anonymity to do so…and keep your jobs). In the 70’s such writing skill would have plastered daily body-counts on their front pages…or taken down a U.S.president by demanding the same questions over and over again.
Look no further than the two editorials in the Times Standard today by Rosso and Stancliff; more irrelevant and sarcastic reporting on the environment and homelessness that soft-peddles the reality by wrapping it in a brief, snappy human-interest story and “end of the world” entertainment.
Apparently, Stancliff didn’t watch KEET-TV’s recent documentary on the world’s disappearing amphibians, too bad, because once you miss the story…it may not reappear for decades! The toxins permeating our food chain are wreaking havoc on immune systems everywhere, but it’s not “news” so poor Dave missed the most important part of his own editorial! (Yes, Dave’s a nice guy too…).
Please don’t let that happen to John Osborn’s NCJ story “Interested Parties”!!
Ryan, everyone knows there’s “Troubles at HSU”. Dig a little deeper, as Ringwald had, and good luck at the NCJ. Ringwald suggested that all reporters keep a copy of “The Reporters Handbook” for investigative resources…not much use today, however…
“Friends” keep friends dispassionate about the truth and the outrage lacking.
Absolutely Right On.
No Hair. No teeth, No Hope…
But still enjoy an intelligent woman with a sense of humor. God Bless and Good Luck to all as unfortunate as myself to be at the end of their live’s and have to watch the end of the world “as we know it”. To all of you that still have hope, Good for you. I remember…
very well said, not so fast. (I thought you weren’t going to write a long, defensive rebuttal, ryan@10:11…nyuk nyuk…)
Prior to reading this, I’ve never heard the term New Guilded Age…but common sense and maintaining the broadest scope possible clearly paints the picture that we are in some sort of “forever now” as far as first world consciousness is concerned. Even in the art world, after all history’s art-eras successively decrease in lenght, we’ve gone from post-modern to…modern. Forever modern. It’s terminology, but still…there’s no indication the status quo will change beyond its own model during impending environmental collapse we are now very really experiencing. In fact, the proprietors of the status quo are gaining strenght, largely through psychological means that people just don’t care to acknowledge or wake up to…or something…enough to stand out among the croud and, at the very least, speak up about it. Crisis will precipitate change, nothing less.
Also, certain people are way too emotionally invested in internet correspondence to recognize there’s no need for formalities or pleasantries within this mode of communication, as it is so often demanded to be taken…seriously???
Thanks YEP…
Looks like Ryan will not respond to contemporary media self-censorship…as if my “failure” to show my face at their office or on their phone is more to the point…???
I provided good examples of self-censorship and missed stories. Look at the comments on today’s cover story…another example of the endless chain of “dots”, dutifully reported with ZERO effort to connect them!
“The United States is the only nation on Earth to go from barbarism to decadence without civilization”.
George B. Shaw.
When I checked my email the other day, one of the news highlights was something like “secrets of how supermarkets get you to spend more”…so I watched it, having done a bunch of digging on the matter earlier last year when it was announced that all the major grocery chains were introducing facial recognition software into their security cameras to literally study who looks where when buying what, etc…
So the video article, a national news broadcast mind you, consisted of an “expert” on the matter presenting the sneaky ways grocery stores throw more options in front of buyers than necesarry. He focused entirely on product placement on shelves and aisle arrangement. NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of the newly incorporated factial recognition technology and programs like Safeway’s Just For U, which literally identifies and studies individual buyers…with their unsuspecting permission signed on the dotted line.
To make the science fiction horror even more bizarre but true, I immediately went to dig up the same articles I’d read earlier in the year about how companies like safeway in particular were going to do this…and for the life of me they just don’t come up whatsoever in any search engine using the exact same keywords I used before. At best you can find articles from as late as 2008 saying grocers were going to introduce the technology, but it stops there.
Next time you’re in a big box store or major grocery store, take notice of all the dome cameras all the frack over the place, and know that they’re literally picking and choosing customers to follow from camera to camera through the store and study. Safeway has so many cameras now compared to five years ago it’s outright spooky in itself.
Sheeple is the word of the new millenia.
Great reporting YEP!
Makes you wonder how the word “conspiracy” got its bad rap when every human being’s sphere of influence, to some degree, is a conspiracy! Just watch kids on a playground…eventually a group will conspire against another group or individual.
Illustrating the depths of today’s poverty via sarcasm is fun to write and fun to read. Who, more than advertisers, understands the importance of keeping consumers “positive” with more fun to consume?
But sarcasm is no substitute for the actual statistics rarely cited.
Interviewing the local experts, citing the facts, routinely following up, and expressing editorial outrage, was the journalism of America’s past.
The icecaps are melting, wildlife and clean water are disappearing, every creature has varieties of PCB’s, Dioxin, and pthalates in their blood, unemployment rivals the Great Depression, income disparity rivals the Gilded Age, the captains of industry flooded markets with higher-profit products that appealed to the wealthy, (bigger cars, bigger homes, and bigger medical tests), then, the banks made a bundle financing it! Average Americans who couldn’t afford these products were handed the bill when our “commie-capitalists” looted the U.S. Treasury! (So little has changed since the time of kings who required the public’s wealth to maintain the lavish lifestyle…for now, the worst brutality is shifted to the third-world).
In an era when every measurable economic, social, and environmental indicator is in record decline, it is astounding how the rare and mild dissent by today’s media passes for moral acuity.
We are all complicit in this charade, we all have the responsibility to be outraged and to call it out!!! Most everyone in media already knows this, but irrational fear is the ultimate arbiter.
Hmmm, after reading the article and the responses, I’m still pretty offended. I, too, can’t afford to go to the dentist or the doctor and it certainly doesn’t make my life any better. I guess I could joke about it, and I do, but I don’t think that is what your job as a reporter is. When there are so many real, relevant issues to report on, and you decide to write a piece like this, it just says that you don’t really care about your audience. I didn’t read any initial warning that this was a funny piece, so I took most of it to heart. Makes me sad.