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My mother made $80k (with lots of overtime) the last year she worked. She had a union job, non-management, at a steelmill.
She was bitter because, as she put it, the fatcats at the top were siphoning off all the money that should properly go to the working poor like herself. This was in 1982 or '83.
Her house was paid off, she'd just paid cash for a new car, bought new furniture for the house, replaced the major appliances and had a new roof put on. Her retirement + SS benefits were good. Her husband had received his pension distribution a couple of years before and had $200k in an IRA at 10% that he couldn't touch until he hit the right age, plus his SS.
Her complaint was that people didn't realize exactly how destitute she was. How could they live on $30k a year (in 1984), before IRA and investment income?
She sounds a lot like the faculty I know with two-income households, both making well over $100k/year. Why, like, they needed a *car* loan, and they could only afford a 2k sq ft house in a sort of average location in the really expensive part of town. Their computers are two years old and they can only afford to eat out twice a week--and one of those restaurants has to be too cheap to actually have a proper maitre d'.
And on a retreat among some fairly wealthy people (I was there as the token grad student, to whine and complain about how much the school appreciated so-and-so's last $20 million donation, but could he make the next one $30 million?) it was pretty much the same. They might lose a business location, interest rates were so high they'd only be able to open up 15 new sites next year, the stock market wiped out 10% of their assets, they're only worth $1.2 billion now and "what's this country coming to?"
Then I look at some of students whose family income is $20k in 2011, mostly government assistance. They're poor. Yet they *need* their Droid and service plans that have all kinds of whistles and bells, they *need* that visit to the nail salon, they *need* those $250 sneakers, even as they complain about how poor they are and that really, the government should make sure to provide them enough for better housing, better food, *and* a nice toy budget. Not everybody bought toys. But they all did nothing but complain that they *needed* more money, they *deserved* more money.
They all sounded the same, whether they made $200 million/year, $200k/year, or $20k/year. Some may have been needier, but all felt the same burning need for more when they had sufficient. They all found people wealthier than they were, or could imagine being wealthier, and felt they deserved being just a couple notches higher in the economic food chain. Greed was pretty much constant. It's just that we find excuses to make some people virtuous and others venal. Those like us are virtuous; the others are venal.
Among the few that weren't greedy were mostly people in churches that I belonged to. The woman who was grateful for her Section 8 housing and ebullient when the church all but forced her to accept a landline that she couldn't afford. The family of 4 happy to have an income of $28k--they may not be able to afford steak, but they have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. The parents who couldn't send their kid away to a good college, and had to scrimp to pay for community college, but were grateful that their kid could afford the local community college because at least it meant he'd have a better education--and they really didn't mind having him living at home while he went to school.
Then there was the non-church person who had been a taxi driver. She'd been assaulted, hurt, was in constant pain so that she had trouble walking; crutches on good days, wheelchair on average days, drugged on bad days. They never caught the guy. She lived on disability payments. Not exactly flush with cash. She decided that she had to give back--society was supporting her, to so speak. She contacted churches. Churches always had people claiming to be needy calling them for help; a lot of them were scammers. She sat between the needy and the churches: Churches referred people to her, she went and talked to their creditors. She'd buy them food and deliver it, then turn in the receipt to the church that authorized the payment; same for rent, phone/utility bills, whatever. She all but insisted that somebody go with her and check up on her--why trust her? And, if there wasn't enough money to cover a needy family's food purchase, she'd fill in the difference from her disability.
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