They are in DC, and as such, the chatter around the country club or parties is not about how poor rural communities are getting or just how horrific the struggle to survive within cities has become.
They really don't understand that people are literally counting their nickels and domes, and without easy credit, homes to pull equity out of, or even 401k's to borrow against, people are stuck.
It was already bad during the Bush years. People's incomes were stemmed. During 2007/ 08, the Dem candidates had already been taking about how the avg family had lost about $2000 in economic buying power, while manufacturing was being shuttled overseas and jobs left were of the low wage, customer service variety. And at that point, the housing boom was one of the only items keeping people employed, whether is was constructing new homes: condos, real estate, mortgage brokers, banks, and investors. When that collapsed, a large portion of our economy was harmed and it won't even begin to recover unless people are allowed to write down the principal of their underwater homes.
Like many in FL, my husband and I are in and underwater home. The value probably shouldn't be as low as it is, however, all new homes sales in our neighborhood have been foreclosures or quick sales. It's forced down the value of our home. Before the boom (out of control prices) and then bust, we would be looking at selling our current small 2bd/ 1bath starter home to a newlywed couple or elderly couple wanting to downsize their upkeep, and moving into a larger home to accommodate our needs. But we are stuck. We are paying too much on our home, but better to have our home that gives us a sense of pleasure and neighbors that are our friends and our son's playmates. Plus, we live in a good school zone... That's important in FL. But reality is, we would be better off financially to allow the home to "bankrupt" itself they my husband, dump any of his debts, and rent for half the price we pay on the mortgage. At some point, if the don't get a more progressive house in DC and a state that leans blue between 2014 and 2016, then we will probably have to make a financial decision to dump the property, save money, and rebuild our credit once we are interest free.
As far as the whole Duck Dynasty, Bashir, or now MHP for pointing out the absurdity of the Romney klan having adopted a token black baby, and the right-wing racists going nutsy over the contrived controversy, is just another corporate, spoonfed trap to keep people who are in the same financial boat, at each other's throats.
Sadly, so many on the right/ tea party/ small town/ undereducated white masses, have been lied to for so long, they can't see who is keeping them from achieving that proverbial "American Dream". They are lashing out at the wrong people, they are told "Obummer and Moochelle" are the one's who are holding them back. (And honestly it's a bit disconcerting when they are posting their hate all over the Internet with such inconsistencies, lies, distortions of reality, bitter rage, fear, and scary anger, that trying to have a real life, factual discussion with these folks, is impossible).
The fact that they can't understand why many of us can see the irony of a white, wealthy Mormon family adopting an African-American child OR that seeing the one "token minority" among a sea of white is emblematic of the Teapublican party as a whole, and is exactly the sheer, utter hypocrisy we find within these people as a whole.
Maybe worse are the remarks and posts from these CONservatives about the adoption of this baby... Calling MHP a racist, saying that the baby is lucky that the Romeny family chose to adopt her/ him(?) and say it in a way like "the colored child is lucky to have such a good, Christian family-man in its life" (they don't even see their posts as racist thinking)...
Anyway, long birdwalk around that, but the controversy over something someone said, taken out of context, trying to falsely equate MHP with Duck Dynasty patriarch, having other news networks jump into the fray, and allowing the racist cockroaches to run around freely from under the rock they once say under, is just feeding the the venom. I truly feel that the corporate, Wall St, investor class has created a monster. They have been using division and "other" to divide us for so long, and with the election of the first black president, coupled with the economy nose-diving, and Palin coming out of the Dominionist sext of "Christianity" to instill righteous racism and a feeling of persecution for being "Godly" and white, that we have our simmering pot right on the brink.
Seriously, the TeaParty politicians shutdown the Govt over the ACA going into effect. They wrote a budget that harms so many people, between their cost cutting maneuvers for the social safety net, long term unemployment being cut, and refusing to create jobs to fix the infrastructure and progress as leaders in anything but incarceration and wealth inequality, they have started to wake up people who hadn't previously thought much about politics or govt.
These rightwing, looney toons have finally gone far enough that my sister in law is finally noticing just who it is that is at fault for harming Americans. Her husband is in the army. They are in a "career mode" with her husband being in. She correctly named Paul Ryan as the jack ass who has thrown retirement benefits for the military personnel under the bus, along with having the families have to pay for tri-care.
As it is, there are many families who are in the service who are receiving food stamps. Her family is "lucky" that she has a job where she works at home, otherwise, they would be financially destitute. When one of the family members is serving abroad, it takes a toll on the family and makes it very hard for the other family member to have a job (many service families are stationed away from family and the cost of daycare for kids would be the equivalent, in many cases, to a take home paycheck for the spouse). Like she said, her husband's body is wrecked from his service. He's had a couple of surgeries and is about to have another. His back is a mess, one foot has been operated on and another is scheduled for sometime this year. By the time he would retire from military service, he will be limited on what types of jobs he could attempt at doing. The retirement benefits are necessary for his service. The idea that the govt should change the benefit structure and essentially a job contract to save a couple of bucks so that some other wealthy asshole can have another tax break is disgusting... Or that after retiring from a full, life commitment to the military, that they have a potential to retire again from the private sector and have benefits from that is just wrong. We already know how shitty the private market treats it's employees.
The country is a mess. I'm hoping there's enough people who are hurting from the Republicans BS that in 2014 we will see more Sanders and Warrens running for election and winning seats. Let's face it, our third way, corporate, blue dog Dems are just as bad for us, financially, as many Republicans.
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