Hard to make a living.

[Ben Lahnger]

BTW, just for the record, I was not complaining in my last post. As I've stated earlier, I keep the fact that average annual income for wage earners on this planet is $7000 in my mind all the time. And I am grateful for what I have, for what so many of us here in this land of plenty take for granted.

[Daywalker]

Amen brother.

[Daywalker]

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

BTW, just for the record, I was not complaining in my last post. As I've stated earlier, I keep the fact that average annual income for wage earners on this planet is $7000 in my mind all the time. And I am grateful for what I have, for what so many of us here in this land of plenty take for granted.

Ha man I just what to tell you i got a lot of respect for you man. Your are doing what you need to and making the best out of things.Your an inspiration to me. God bless you man.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by JCC

And who are they? Those people don't exist, they're convenient apparitions you dreamed up to blame for the problems you don't understand. You can't pay the bills because of the leeches, the poor people with their hands in your back pocket. The country is running at a deficit because it's taking care of the leeches, the poor people with their hands in your back pocket. Social medicine won't work because of the leeches, the poor people with their hands in your back pocket. They're just the new n.igger, the new kike, the new paki, the new spic, an appeal to worthless emotional reactions that wraps all problems into a neat little bundle so that you can make scapegoats of the people feeling the strain the most.

JCC ++

Amunet, I thought you learned this lesson the last time. Stop basing your world-view on ridiculous stereotypes.

[Amunet]

I don't know how to be any plainer with my words guys.

I don't view anyone who is working or trying as lower class people.
I view them as middle class hardworking individuals that are struggling in life which are the people who get the shit end of the stick.

I get pissed at the people who take the governments money and use it for their drug habits, or alcoholism, etc.... and don't contribute anything to society. Those are the types that I view as lower class individuals.

It doesn't matter how much you gross a year, its about how you live and from what I see, the working class is suffering more than anyone. Its obvious.
I don't know how my words get twisted to mean something else, I'm not stereotyping, its the truth.

So I think maybe this is a misunderstanding, because never was I talking about people who fit into an income bracket. I'm talking lifestyle. I thought that was obvious and I apologize if it wasn't.

As Ben noted, I'm going to gracefully bow out now because I never intended this fight, I thought I was merely stating how frustrating it is that people who work so hard to survive and live as close to the straight and narrow as they can, end up getting so beat up by life, while the people who are just wasting space and causing problems have things handed to them on silver platter.

furthermore JCC, I never made those people up, they are real, I see them everyday, and I know a few as well. I think it's wrong. Please don't assume that I could make up these kinds of people because I have no desire to.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Amunet

I don't view anyone who is working or trying as lower class people.
I view them as middle class hardworking individuals that are struggling in life which are the people who get the shit end of the stick.

So someone that earns two bucks a day is just middle class in tough shit?

[Apathy's_Child]

Originally Posted by Amunet

I don't know how to be any plainer with my words guys.

The problem isn't that your point is obtuse or esoteric, it's that you don't understand the definitions of middle or working-class, and are refusing to admit that what you're actually complaining about bears, at most, an incidental relationship to class.

[Despanan]

Shit, If "Class" is just a synonym for righteousness to you, Maybe it was for the best that you have removed yourself from politics.

[Underwater Ophelia]

It's weird. I mean, it's really obvious that Amunet is ignorant of politics in entirety, and is under the impression that there are no real "terms" per se, just words used to communicate personal opinions, however misinformed they may be.

Knowing this, why can you folk just walk away from this?

[Ben Lahnger]

Originally Posted by Underwater Ophelia

Knowing this, why can you folk just walk away from this?

Did you mean "can't" as in "why can't you folk just walk away from this?" Because that is exactly what I did when I saw that Amunet refused to see that she was altering established terms away from their dictionary definitions to fit her opinions despite many people here trying to correct her misconception.

But first I looked up lower class and middle class at dictionary.com just to be sure I was using the terms correctly myself. I was.

Then I searched on the internet for the average annual income per wage earner in the United States. There are multiple possible sources for that kind of statistic and you can get some variance but I settled on THIS chart from the World Bank showing the Gross national income per capita for 2008 for the major countries of the world. That chart states the average gross income per capita in the United States in 2008 was about $47,000. So by definition that would be the average for the middle class.

(Thank goodness no one here has to contemplate an existence like the citizens of Liberia, where annual income is valued at between $170 and $300.)

So after looking that information up and confirming for myself that Amunet was denying the facts and the true definitions of the terms she was using to defend her opinion as being more valid than those definitions, I gave up all pretense of trying to convince her otherwise.

I will say this though: according to that World Bank chart, anyone who makes about $39,000 or above would be considered wealthy in contrast to average incomes around the globe. I think all of us here should spend less time complaining about how hard things are and focus on how good we really have it.

[Underwater Ophelia]

Yeah, I meant "can't."

[Verdog]

Originally Posted by opie

I'm so tired of going to work everyday to find myself standing around, waiting for a broken car to come in. It's so dead at work. I'm a mechanic, and I get paid on commission. If I'm not fixing a car, I'm not getting paid. Its been so slow around my area the past several months. It's making it real hard to raise my two boys. I'm ready to get creative with supplementary income! Frustration and depression are setting in, and bills are stacking up.

Start fucking up all of the cars in your area that you can.

I'm sure a few will come to where you're at.

(I'm not joking.)

[emeraldlonewoulf]

to the OP: hey there, I've been a mechanic on commission before, and it does suck in bad times. aside from a little moon lighting here and there, here's what you do, you flip cars.

start on craigslist, under free, or cars and trucks with the price set at 500 or lower. sell a couple things out of your tool box you don't use frequently for the cash if need be, or downgrade your box for the start up cash, if you have to.

get a small economy car of a popular model, that needs work, but the people don't want to take the time or money to fix. buy it broke (you can lowball the hell out of it, because people need cash and want to get rid of a non-running vehicle).

haul it home, or if your boss is willing, the back of the shop. in between customers' vehicles, work on your project. when you get it fixed, clean the hell out of it, I mean get every bit of dirt and dust out, use some armor all, put some seat covers in it if the interior is shot, . put a 1000 dollar price in the window ( or on craigslist, the local bulletin board, etc), and you've made some cash.

you can scrounge for parts, in junkyards, etc., and make money on a cheap vehicle because everybody needs transportation to work.

if you keep the title in the first owner's name until transfer, you can flip as many cars as you want in a year. a lot of states want you to get a dealer's license if you flip more than five cars a year, but that's only if the titles are in your name.

talk to the towing companies for cheap wheels, too.


I have come across cars hella cheap that just needed something stupid, like an alternator or starter, sometimes vehicles that have all the parts there, somebody took the shit apart and didn't take the time to re-assemble.

Focus on cheap small economy vehicles, because they will sell like hotcakes in times like these.

hope this helps, good luck.

[Shadowagony]

Yes, it most certainly is hard to make a living in this day and age. I've got a seasonal job for six months out of the year that pays $8.00 per hour, charges me a cheap rent (about $400 a month), and gives me no medical benefits at all. Once the job closes for the season it's unemployment benefits and a cheap hotel room unless I am able to find something permanent. I have a bachelors and I am fighting like hell everyday to land something better and long-term so that I don't have to leach off of the system, but it is really hard. My step mother used to give me shit coming out of college about finding an elite job, now she hasn't earned one red penny since april 2008 after being laid off, has no prospects whatsoever, and she holds a masters in social work. I've heard the figure of something like 6.3 million people unemployed for 27 months or more. A whole lot of us are struggling out here, and most of us are only one paycheck away from being homeless. It's not that we are not trying, or just being lazy and living off of the system. It's just the reality of the current economic situation. I have done everything from clean people's houses to walk their dogs and clean up the poop just to get some money, and it was pure luck that I landed my seasonal job. Now I'm hoping that my little six-month gig stays around because it gives me something for at least half the year while continuing to fight to improve my situation in life.