(Part 2 of 2) RE:Excellent "real life" article touching on many economic topics
Posted 02-13-2016 at 04:00 PM by Blondebaerde
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jukesgrrl
I read the linked article on Slate magazine today. I think it's well written, interesting, and it contains information on several different topics pertinent to the American economy.
The article is called I Was a Super Bowl Concession Worker and the subtitle is "What it's like making less than $13 an hour to serve $13 beers at one of the biggest games on earth."
The article is called I Was a Super Bowl Concession Worker and the subtitle is "What it's like making less than $13 an hour to serve $13 beers at one of the biggest games on earth."
Last August, I drove a BMW GS (motorcycle) all over Cape Town for an afternoon, Day 1 of a long adventure holiday eventually leading me and my chums to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. I'd never ridden on the left side of the road before, so taught myself in Cape Town, on my own. I figured it out quick enough and caused no accidents nor hurt myself, but it was "interesting" learning.
Once over that, I looked around in-detail. There, I did see nice if not quite palatial areas behind high walls and razor wire, sometimes with armed guards. I mean the nicer kinds of condos and homes one would see in, say, Cow Hollow (SF) or Kirkland (my home, near Seattle). The Victoria Alfred (hotel) had the guards, and plenty of them seemed-like. And there are surely remarkable slums not far from town, Apartheid-era artifacts I believe though I'm no expert.
I didn't feel a ton of White Man's Guilt, so to speak, as a rich tourist. Our group did have a chance to give a little back to one community, during the tour, which felt like a small good deed as a visitor/guest. The South African non-Whites didn't ask for the above mistreatment, and it was clearly unjust. I think that country will be unwinding from that, a hundreds-of-years problem, far longer than the 22 years so far since the ANC won office in 1994.
That's a more extreme example of wealth-disparity than, say, San Francisco. Sociologists and pundits...some, many...seem to suggest America is heading to that kind of social Balkanization. Not yet, but we're getting there.
Personally, I'm a big fan of equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. I was born Middle Class, and slowly worked my way to an arbitrary "Upper" Middle Class across a twenty something year career arc so far. I'm not "better" than anyone, but I did work for it which meant education and solid decision making. The government helped me, via (in 2014 dollars) one approx. $16K student loan for undergraduate, and $50K for grad school. Both were paid back, by me, in due time because I was able to find jobs in my field that provided sufficient income.
I'll do everything in my power, via the ballot box, to help provide opportunity for young people or others wanting to self-bootstrap via strategic career choices and the appropriate education. I'll do little to vote in boondoggles and no-consequence handouts with little hope of repayment to the government, however.
Where are the bricks and mortar, shall I start building my wall?
