My brother needs $3500 to turn the power back on! (alcoholic, father, member)

[HumanNature]

Originally Posted by emerald_octane

You should send them both a letter, outlining the long and arduous process of getting up in the morning to go to work. Dwindling account balances due to fulfilling real life obligations. The anguish of dealing with irresponsible sociopathic family members who see you as a no-fee ATM.

Actually both my brother and his wife work two jobs which take up about 65 hours a week. My brother works one job from 8 -5 at a factory and then goes home has dinner and works another job as a security guard from 9 PM to 2 AM. He gets so little sleep that he may not be thinking right. So it is not a question of being lazy. Both he and his wife work hard but they are only paid close to minimum wage.

Actually my father thinks we owe it to him to help the entire family out. When Dad was working, wages at the factory were able to support our family of six on one income. Dad had no special training or education past High School, but was paid about $60K in todays dollar for routine unskilled assembly line work.

Now my brother works in the same factory as my dad did but he makes only a few cents over minimum wage for doing similar work.

My Dad and the rest of the family does not think it is fair for us college graduates doing professional work can make over $100K for sitting on our but and as a result we owe help to the real workers in the family. That's the background story.

[DR2012]

Originally Posted by HumanNature

Actually both my brother and his wife work two jobs which take up about 65 hours a week. My brother works one job from 8 -5 at a factory and then goes home has dinner and works another job as a security guard from 9 PM to 2 AM. He gets so little sleep that he may not be thinking right. So it is not a question of being lazy. Both he and his wife work hard but they are only paid close to minimum wage.

Actually my father thinks we owe it to him to help the entire family out. When Dad was working, wages at the factory were able to support our family of six on one income. Dad had no special training or education past High School, but was paid about $60K in todays dollar for routine unskilled assembly line work.

Now my brother works in the same factory as my dad did but he makes only a few cents over minimum wage for doing similar work.

My Dad and the rest of the family does not think it is fair for us college graduates doing professional work can make over $100K for sitting on our but and as a result we owe help to the real workers in the family. That's the background story.

Wow so they are working that much but still can't pay their bills? Something is going on. Unless they got into the mess then starting working.

That is something, the way your dad thinks. His thinking is wrong. I hate the mentality of punishing the successful people by making them pay for the others' way because they made different choices.

Man if I were you I'd say the inheritance didn't pan out or something happened, or you almost have to choose to have them out of your life. Although if this is their attitude, maybe that is for the better. You don't deserve to be treated this way just because you chose to go to college and have a higher paying job.

[Creature of the Wheel]

Originally Posted by HumanNature

Actually both my brother and his wife work two jobs which take up about 65 hours a week. My brother works one job from 8 -5 at a factory and then goes home has dinner and works another job as a security guard from 9 PM to 2 AM. He gets so little sleep that he may not be thinking right. So it is not a question of being lazy. Both he and his wife work hard but they are only paid close to minimum wage.

Actually my father thinks we owe it to him to help the entire family out. When Dad was working, wages at the factory were able to support our family of six on one income. Dad had no special training or education past High School, but was paid about $60K in todays dollar for routine unskilled assembly line work.

Now my brother works in the same factory as my dad did but he makes only a few cents over minimum wage for doing similar work.

My Dad and the rest of the family does not think it is fair for us college graduates doing professional work can make over $100K for sitting on our but and as a result we owe help to the real workers in the family. That's the background story.

Wonderful. Your father has brought up a generation of leeches. Congratulations to you and your wife for making something of yourselves. You owe them nothing for the sorry choices your brother has made throughout his life. Don't give them any money, and don't cave into their guilt tripping methods. Stand your ground.

[MaseMan]

Originally Posted by HumanNature

Now my brother works in the same factory as my dad did but he makes only a few cents over minimum wage for doing similar work.

My Dad and the rest of the family does not think it is fair for us college graduates doing professional work can make over $100K for sitting on our but and as a result we owe help to the real workers in the family. That's the background story.

A lot of older people just don't get that a dollar doesn't go as far as it used to, that wages don't go up like they used to for manual labor, or how much more expensive raising a family is than it was in the 1960's, '70s, or even the 1980s and '90s.

[cheryjohns]

Originally Posted by HumanNature

Actually both my brother and his wife work two jobs which take up about 65 hours a week. My brother works one job from 8 -5 at a factory and then goes home has dinner and works another job as a security guard from 9 PM to 2 AM. He gets so little sleep that he may not be thinking right. So it is not a question of being lazy. Both he and his wife work hard but they are only paid close to minimum wage.

Actually my father thinks we owe it to him to help the entire family out. When Dad was working, wages at the factory were able to support our family of six on one income. Dad had no special training or education past High School, but was paid about $60K in todays dollar for routine unskilled assembly line work.

Now my brother works in the same factory as my dad did but he makes only a few cents over minimum wage for doing similar work.

My Dad and the rest of the family does not think it is fair for us college graduates doing professional work can make over $100K for sitting on our but and as a result we owe help to the real workers in the family. That's the background story.

Originally Posted by MaseMan

A lot of older people just don't get that a dollar doesn't go as far as it used to, that wages don't go up like they used to for manual labor, or how much more expensive raising a family is than it was in the 1960's, '70s, or even the 1980s and '90s.

This right here. The world changed some time ago. A man can no longer support a family on a manual labor paycheck. This change was apparent decades ago, and is only going to get worse. Any parent that does not highly stress the value of education is doing grave harm to their children.

Manual labor is now almost slave wages, especially in regards to how expensive it is to live, much less raise a child. To go out and have several children, while working minimum wage jobs, is irresponsible and ignorant.

Your dad might as well get mad at you because you drive a car, instead of a horse and buggy. Times changed, your brother didn't.

You want to help your brother out long-term? That money would be better off going to tuition to the most promising of his children.

[virgode]

Originally Posted by HumanNature

Why would I even consider it? Well for the following reasons:

• My father made a personal appeal to me

• Family harmony. If I say no next Christmas will be a living hell

• The kids are going to be messed up living in a house without power. One is in as senior in High School and has potential to be someone. I am afraid living in house without power will put him over the edge and ruin his future.

• We have the money

• I am a coward and will run the conversation with my Mom and Dad through my head a thousand times while I try to sleep if I don't pay the money.

Know someone with a similar situation, they're not wealthy, no windfall, paying his gambling brothers electric bill for a least 3 yrs or longer for the reasons above.

Every 3-4 months like clock work, he forks over $1,800 to 2 grand when his brothers threatening shut off notice rolls in. Rather than hearing the grief and pressure from his enabling mother or providing them housing until they get the funds together, they pay up.

Originally Posted by steel7

$3500.00 is quite abit for electric bill. Do you know when he last paid his bill ? My last electric bill here in so.ca (may 2013) was $13.00. The highest summer bill for me will be around $20.00 (incl the 20% care discount).

Share the secret!

[GrandviewGloria]

Originally Posted by HumanNature

Actually both my brother and his wife work two jobs which take up about 65 hours a week. My brother works one job from 8 -5 at a factory and then goes home has dinner and works another job as a security guard from 9 PM to 2 AM. He gets so little sleep that he may not be thinking right. So it is not a question of being lazy. Both he and his wife work hard but they are only paid close to minimum wage.

Actually my father thinks we owe it to him to help the entire family out. When Dad was working, wages at the factory were able to support our family of six on one income. Dad had no special training or education past High School, but was paid about $60K in todays dollar for routine unskilled assembly line work.

Now my brother works in the same factory as my dad did but he makes only a few cents over minimum wage for doing similar work.

My Dad and the rest of the family does not think it is fair for us college graduates doing professional work can make over $100K for sitting on our but and as a result we owe help to the real workers in the family. That's the background story.

Well, that's a horse of a different color. And I assume your family is white, and thus discriminated against, where public assistance is concerned. If your brother and his wife were in this country illegally, they'd be getting EBT cards for food, rent assistance, free medical, and (assuming the kids had any kind of brains at all) preferences and financial help for college. American Industry (or what's left of it) gets a subsidy, in the form of various supplements to the 'working poor'. Government gibsmedats cover the shortfall caused by low wages. But whites are ineligible, for the most part.

If anyone doubts the effects of mass immigration on our economy and the lives of ordinary Americans, then your family is a textbook example. Same family/same job: only the Labor Market has changed with the change in generations.

We sold our old house before the new house was completed. The people who bought the old house let us use their family's place in Beverly Hills, for a while. His parents were sometimes in one wing, her parents were in another wing on occasion, we got the second floor of the main block of the house. People were coming and going, and we ended up meeting a good many West Coast industrialists/sweat-shop owners. That the Government is underwriting their businesses by supplementing the living costs of their (mostly imported) labor is the source of considerable glee.

Assuming, now that we have a more complete picture of what's going on with your family, ....assuming your family's genetics are average or near-average for Traditional Americans, then it is beneficial for society as a whole, that your brother has produced three offspring. They have done something of extreme importance, considering the demographic tsunami threatening to wipe away Western Civilization. Now that we know both parents work themselves nearly to death, I think most would agree that it would not hurt anything for you to supplement their income.

They need to buy a home. I think that they are probably eligible for a low-income first-homeowner type loan. It would be OK for you to help out with that. Being white, they will be discriminated against, and you'll need to have attorneys assist them get the sweet deals available to those who are poor and in trouble. And the kids need to go to college. It's time to become involved in that. Maybe the new house they buy can be near a technical college where the kids can become skilled technicians of one sort or another?

And if you need justification for the help you are giving, then tell them that they are doing something important for America, by having and raising three children.

I'm Native American. I was all set to tell you about my own childhood, in a rural Mississippi tarpaper shack without running water. My Mom was a prostitute, with a predictable range of substance issues (420, booze, cigs, 'co-colas', 'Nabs', 'Chlorettes'...). Plenty of times, we were without power, when her income from 'working', and the various welfare checks coming into the shack, were insufficient to fund Mom's habits (my Grandmother and Great-Grandmother lived with us, if you can call that living...).

I was going to tell you (to support your decision to not help your brother) about what it's like to live through a Mississippi summer (where daytime highs can hover around a hundred degrees, for weeks-on-end, and where humidity is darn close to 100 percent, all night long). Ninety degrees? I was going to scoff at the teenage son's 'suffering'. I was going to relay how to make window screens out of old nylon petticoats, and how to tack those up with a brick, if your brother didn't have a hammer (all from my personal experience). And I was going to relay how to salvage nails and tacks, if your brother lacked funds for those.

But now, we are enlightened.

My Best Female Friend is from an aristocratic Mississippi Delta Family. She's basically the same Indian/Hebrew mix as me, but with (noble) Scottish filling in the percentages where I'm Sicilian. I met her at a point where her family had recently been bankrupted, and we (and the rest of our inner circle of friends) have worked our way out of poverty together. She and I have discussed the fact that we owe most of what we have (and we've got a lot),... we owe what we've got to more traditional Americans. They created the wealth, the infrastructure, the stable society. We just came in and scooped-up a bunch of the surplus they created - with their gracious blessings. It is in our best interest to remain a minority surrounded by them. We like golden eggs, and are smart enough to want to remain in the barnyard full of Golden Geese. (kindly, generous Golden Geese...)

So, a few years back, she's at a gym in Louisiana, and spots the most spectacular blond bodybuilder. There's just been a competition, and he was in town for that. Just a beautiful, beautiful, man. As she's headed for her S-class in the parking lot, she sees him join his equally beautiful wife and little girls, and get into an ancient pickup truck. It's clear they're really poor. Struggling. She jots down the license number.

She has a satellite office in that parish, and got someone to find out who those people were. He worked at a mill in an adjacent parish. They're sweet, nice, country people from families who have simply never had a chance. "People like that are about to disappear from this planet. What could I do?"

What she did was to take them under her wing. They've been able to have two more babies, and she has established trust funds and college funds for all the kids (who are very bright: MedSchool material). She arranged for 'VoTech' training, to move the man and his wife up in the world, and finally moved them into associate status in one of her business endeavors. She told them what I think maybe you could tell your brother: "You've done something wonderful for the world, by having those kids. I live in the world you're making better. I'm honored to be able to help." Instead of the 'Telescopic Philanthropy' practiced by rich narcissists sending billions overseas, she has chosen to apply her wealth where she KNOWS she can do some good.

America is becoming a Third World country (by design). The old American model of individual self-sufficiency possibly needs to be rethought. Extended families have to work together, more than they have done so in the past.

[laorbust61]

Some members of my family struggle with substance abuse and there is no human being on the face of the earth more devious or predatory than one in desperate need of his " substance" To manipulate family members into enabling them, they are not above calling the house with Peril-of-Pauline-type DRAMA, as in, impending:

Eviction
Re-possession
Utility shut-off

They will use sympathetic (doting) parents, even their own children to guilt relatives into giving them money. It's enough to make one nauseous, really. I just don't care for irresponsible adults who get themselves into trouble, and then play the, "But You Gotta Help Me I'm A Mother or A Father" card. They knew they were parents when they were acting out financially and being irresponsible, so that fact is brought up to prospective pigeons to guilt or manipulate them into "helping" them.


If OP wants to help, then he could research resources available in the community that would compel the cash-strapped brother to use them and help himself. An example of this would be a non profit agency that will provide the $3500 in the form of an interest free loan, (DIRE emergencies) but THEY make a direct payment to the creditor.

The family may have to take up residence in a transitional (shelter apartment) housing with a program that pay the utilities and rent while the family lives there and work, save money and straighten out their credit. If the family resides in a major city like ones in California, there may be avenues they can pursue that involve helping themselves with the help of a community based charity.


He is setting a horrible example for his children constantly presenting himself as a charity case to the family, these traits and situations have a way of becoming generational.

[GeorgiaTransplant]

Originally Posted by GeorgiaTransplant

+1. Of course that's not the MO of HumanNature, Mr_Spock, Mr Spock, Old Tired Man, snooper, or Dingler.

None of whom are the same person, and who all coincidentally post with the same paragraph, paragraph, question? format /nod

HumanNature is no longer a member.

Next alias coming up in 3...2...1...

[Justhiremenow]

I think blood is thicker than water and human nature should bail out his or her brother no matter what the cost as long has he/she has the money!