The economic war…

Cross posted to lefttake.com
 
Well, the war on the little man continues apace, and I am, yet again, a frontline causality.
I’ve been laid off, canned, sacked, dumped, made redundant, downsized even.  They told me last Thurs., but I have to work till the end of the month.
Good news for the robber barons that are running us into the ground, my unemployment statistic won’t show in the official numbers.  I, like all the others that have gone before, can’t collect unemployment.  Working for a non-profit sucks like that.
The good news is, my garden is doing very well and I have 26 voluntary tomato plants.
I’m busily trying to think of some way of making a living without going back into the corporate system.  My most likely avenues of employment are retail and fast food.  Which are the low end of the corporate totem pole.
But I’m right where I should be, looking at holding down multiple part-time jobs just to keep a roof over my head and food on the table.  Ain’t America grand?
And I just marvel at my 'superiors', who think that life is peachy keen and hunky dory.  I marvel that they can be so blind.
About a year back my supervisor’s, supervisor was asking me about the work on the house.  He told me all about the new hardwood and marble, I think it was marble, that they’d just had put in and described the work they had done on the kitchen.  He asked me what I was going to put down on the floor.  When I answered with the truth, ‘what ever is cheapest at Becky and Wanda’s carpet and tile center,’ he looked at me like I had grown a second head.  (For those of you not from this area, Becky and Wanda are the princess and queen of carpet and tile.  They’ve had ads running on local TV for decades.  Cept I think Becky did a hostile take over cuz’ it’s just Becky’s carpet and tile now.)
And all I wanted to say, and all of me wanted to say it, and it’s not often that we all agree, was…
‘You KNOW how much you pay me, what do you expect?’
I mean, did he honestly expect that I was going to have hardwood installed?  On what I make?
Between him and his wife they have to be pulling in at least $100,000.  I make, made, less $30,000.
Do people really not understand what that means?  Don’t you get that I pay out more than half my yearly salary for the basics? 
If I were making $30,000 even low balling basic things like rent and food and gas I have a whopping $11,000 left over at the end of the year.  Now let’s talk about things like medical costs and repairs on the car or house.  What about cloths?  Shoes?  Etc….
Think I’m gonna be jettin off to Jamaica anytime soon?
Even if I hadn’t just lost my job, that’s not a likely possibility.
I haven’t even done the floors yet.