Short ,Simple Quote

[cook]

From Abraham Lincoln

"..The poor never got wealthy by making the wealthy poor.."

This is not aimed at either political party,just something I read in the past

[Slipped Cork]

A poor man has never hired me for a job. With the programs in this country nobody should consider themself poor. Now if you want to go over to haiti you can find some poor people I know for sure as they eat mud cakes and whatever the missions provide. Anyone in the USA tried one? Me either.

[Opie1]

Way back in the day when I was in college I just made my fall semester tution payment and bought books for my classes. I was flat broke. That
Friday I walked into my job and was told to go see the office manager.

"We were just bought out by a national company and they determined we are not making enough money. I'm going to have to let you go."

Hmmm. I'm flat broke since all my savings went to tution and books. Rent payment is due in a couple of weeks and the fridge is bare.....This was September and in two months the electric, gas, cable, phone...all utilities were shut off for nonpayment.
It was getting cold outside (Ohio). I dropped out of school. Couldn't concentrate on advanced chemistry classes when you haven't eaten for a week and constant hunger pains won't let you concentrate.
I would have been on the street but my landlord allowed me to stay in the place for 8 months without payment till I could get back on my feet.
No jobs available. Not even McDonalds down the road.
Wasn't eligible for unemployment. 50-60 hours a week for two part time jobs won't allow you to qualify. Must have a full time job.
Welfare....nope. Made too much money the PREVIOUS year (most that went to tution and books).
Move back home with Mom and Dad? Nope. Dad said when you move out you better be sure you can make it because you are not moving back (He stayed true to his word).
SOOOO. No money, no food. What's a starving college boy to do?
I lived next to an interstate highway in the middle of a relatively large city. That didn't stop me though. I had an abundance of neighborhood animals. Just wasn't legal to shoot them with a rifle (or anything else).
But hunger makes a man do things he is not proud of.
All squirrels were extinct in my neighboorhood within one month. Cats came next. They were much easier to take out than the squirrels. In my experience, cats are just plain stupid. Plus they have 4-5X the meat on them than the squirrels.
Dogs were next on the list after the cats ran out. Didn't know what I was going to do after the dogs were gone if I couldn't find a job by then.

One evening my future wife (just a girlfriend at that time) and I were lying on the couch, in the cold, in the dark (no gas, no electric) and I jumped up and ran upstairs all excited.
She heard a pop and saw a cat drop out of the top of a tree in my front yard. I come running down the steps all excited with my rifle in hand. "ALL RIGHT I GET TO EAT TOMORROW!!!!!
I was excited as he%&!

It was then she realized how far things have gone downhill. After that, she took a portion of her parents grocery money every week and bought me bread, oil, pasta, hamburger and tomato sauce. She kept me going and alive when the rest of the world and "programs" didn't give a damn whether I lived or died.

Don't tell me these "programs" do anything for the average Joe because they don't. In reality, you're on your own. Nobody gives a damn about you even if you're a hard working frugal person who never asked anyone for a dime and helped others whenever you could.

My dad taught me a very important lesson that fall of 1989. You're on your own buddy. Sink or swim. I chose to swim.
My wife saved my life that winter of 1989/1990.
I never would have survived without her. At best, I would have been in jail for shooting a rifle in city limits along an interstate highway. At worst,...well I prefer not to think about that.
We were married in the spring of 1991. I will never forget what she did for me.

With the programs in this country nobody should consider themself poor. Now if you want to go over to haiti you can find some poor people I know for sure as they eat mud cakes and whatever the missions provide. Anyone in the USA tried one?

Ever try kitty kat? I have...many times.

[mudwitch]

During the depression,it was called city rabbit.To sell a rabbit,you had to leave the feet on.

[cook]

Dang,Opie...now thats a post!

Your Dad my have taught you a lesson-but what about family/blood thicker than water/stick together...etc...blah/blah/blah...?

I've got 2 daughters and 6 grandkids...at one time or another some or all need help...ya do what ya can....just saying

[superdave1984]

People tend to forget history.

The Great Depression was not a sudden total collapse. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below the peak of September 1929.[6] Together, government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the northern summer of 1930.

In early 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates, but people were reluctant to add new debt by borrowing.[citation needed] By May 1930, auto sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, but wages held steady in 1930, then began to drop in 1931. Conditions were worst in farming areas, where commodity prices plunged, and in mining and logging areas, where unemployment was high and there were few other jobs. The decline in the American economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first, then internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By late in 1930, a steady decline set in which reached bottom by March 1933.

Debt deflation
Crowd at New York's American Union Bank during a bank run early in the Great Depression.

Irving Fisher argued that the predominant factor leading to the Great Depression was overindebtedness and deflation. Fisher tied loose credit to over-indebtedness, which fueled speculation and asset bubbles. [8] He then outlined 9 factors interacting with one another under conditions of debt and deflation to create the mechanics of boom to bust. The chain of events proceeded as follows (1) Debt liquidation and distress selling (2) Contraction of the money supply as bank loans are paid off (3) A fall in the level of asset prices (4) A still greater fall in the net worths of business, precipitating bankruptcies (5) A fall in profits (6) A reduction in output, in trade and in employment. (7) Pessimism and loss of confidence (8) Hoarding of money (9) A fall in nominal interest rates and a rise in deflation adjusted interest rates.[8]

During the Crash of 1929 proceeding the Great Depression, margin requirements were only 10%. Brokerage firms, in other words, would loan $9 for every $1 an investor had deposited. When the market fell, brokers called in these loans, which could not be paid back. Banks began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits en masse, triggering multiple bank runs. Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used. Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets.[9] Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. After the panic of 1929, and during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 US banks failed. (In all, 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s). By 1933, depositors had lost $140 billion in deposits.[9]

Bank failures snowballed as desperate bankers called in loans which the borrowers did not have time or money to repay. With future profits looking poor, capital investment and construction slowed or completely ceased. In the face of bad loans and worsening future prospects, the surviving banks became even more conservative in their lending.[9] Banks built up their capital reserves and made fewer loans, which intensified deflationary pressures. A vicious cycle developed and the downward spiral accelerated. This kind of self-aggravating process turned a 1930 recession into a 1933 great depression.

The liquidation of debt could not keep up with the fall of prices which it caused. The mass effect of their stampede to liquidate increased the value of each dollar they owed, relative to the value of their declining asset holdings. The very effort of individuals to lessen their burden of debt effectively increased it. Paradoxically, the more the debtors paid, the more they owed.[8]

Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected in 1932, primarily blamed the excesses of big business for causing an unstable bubble-like economy. Democrats believed the problem was that business had too much money, and the New Deal was intended as a remedy, by empowering labor unions and farmers and by raising taxes on corporate profits. Regulation of the economy was a favorite remedy. Some New Deal regulation (the NRA and AAA) was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Most New Deal regulations were abolished or scaled back in the 1970s and 1980s in a bipartisan wave of deregulation.[23] However the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Reserve, and Social Security won widespread support.

[LBM]

People tend to forget history.

Some people don't even know what history is and for them all they have to do is listen to BHO. Maybe BHO should spend more money on our wounderful public education system.

[oldwun]

I read your post 4 times. You are right on!! Unfortunately people today want every thing free. where it comes from doesn't matter. They may get their way tomorrow.

[Slipped Cork]

Opie I seriously doubt your story but if it is true I bet those cats had alot more protein than a hatian mud cake.

[SpeckWick]

No jobs available. Not even McDonalds down the road.
.

You had it tough Opie1, tougher than I or most anyone else has ever experienced. But one thing you mentioned-no jobs available....Tax the rich just because their successful as Obama wants to do, and they'll no doubt cut the jobs, or the wages, or both. Heck, they might even pack up and move out of the country. What good would that do? The "rich" worked hard to get that way, most of them, and they will do what it takes to stay that way.