tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6867343265106830137.post434497575319087795..comments2023-07-19T05:26:41.766-07:00Comments on RYviewpoint: The Unhappy RichRYviewpointhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06689453255540643963noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6867343265106830137.post-10972160912575562802010-09-20T18:56:31.718-07:002010-09-20T18:56:31.718-07:00Thomas: I can understand the complaints of the ric...Thomas: I can understand the complaints of the rich. For a brief few months in my early 20s I had a girlfriend who was the son of a banker and a university professor. She was unhappy, and she would go on and on about her cousins and friends. All of them struck me as neurotic. I told her that the poor had no time to make these complaints. The poor are too busy finding money for the next meal. The real are unhappy for many reasons: partly because they envy those yet higher on the social scale, partly because they have more leisure time to navel gaze and develop weltschmertz, partly because they learn to expect the world handed to them on a platter and are not well equipped for setbacks.<br /><br />I enjoyed the Bob Herbert article. He's got it right in saying that the rich are oblivious to the pains of those devastated by the Great Recession.<br /><br />One of the experiences of my youth that left a deep impression on me was going with a church group to "help" some migrant workers. As kids we weren't expected to do anything except play with these poor kids. We played baseball and one of these migrant kids slid into home plate where a shard of glass gave him a really nasty deep cut. The church women were all aflutter and pulled out a thing called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phisohex" rel="nofollow">Phisohex</a>. The kid had never seen this stuff before (neither had I). He wanted to just rub his hand on his britches and get back to playing but the church women clustered around him and worked on disinfecting his hand and bandaging him. He was amazed at all the attention. I was amazed at how tough and indifferent that kid was to pain.<br /><br />You can't feel somebody else's pain if you never cross paths with them, never take the time to talk to them or exchange experiences. The ultra-rich in the US (and the rest of the world) wall themselves off from the "little people" so they have no clue about how rough life is.<br /><br />I always laugh at how the rich get incensed about the state mandating a minimum wage. They roll out philosophical arguments about liberties, unhindered business, and oppressive government. But a rich person could never imagine how to live on a minimum wage, how to find a job with no telephone, how to shop with no car, how to feed a family when you get one cheque a month.<br /><br />A good place to start to get an idea of what it is like to be working minimum wage is to read Barbara Ehrenreich's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed" rel="nofollow">Nickle and Dimed</a>.<br /><br />I wish more people were writing articles like Bob Herbert.RYviewpointhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06689453255540643963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6867343265106830137.post-46233231533276208042010-09-20T18:18:27.849-07:002010-09-20T18:18:27.849-07:00It is incredible to me that they can complain, but...It is incredible to me that they can complain, but I see how they can when it is explained to me which way they look or who they are looking at.. These people live in a different world and can't understand those that live on far less than they do. Sort of along these lines, Bob Herbert writes <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/opinion/18herbert.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss" rel="nofollow">this one</a> about these two worlds and how they are separated.. I think it goes along with your post's subject quite well.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18066585661702469034noreply@blogger.com