If You Have A Bad Job: Keep It!

by Dick Mac

I shared the article below with an acquaintance who attends tea parties. After reading the article and some of the ensuing comments, she told me that she "knows people who keep bad-paying jobs so they can keep their Section 8 and Food Stamps. . . . "

I think she's a liar, but didn't say it to her face. I know that she is totally misinformed about who benefits from the Section 8 housing program and she has absolutely no idea (like most tea-drinkers) how economics really works. She confuses hatred with economy and concludes that our economic problems are the fault of the poor (who have no control over any money or monetary policy).

You see, as a tea-drinker she thinks that the Section 8 housing program was designed to enable the poor to have wonderful housing that she could never afford. This is exactly the sort of illogical thinking that has had America voting for Reagans, Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas for 30 years.

I don't know if you've ever seen a Section 8 apartment, or the neighborhoods in which most of this housing is located. I have. And I don't know anybody that wants to live in these conditions.

Those on the right-wing (liberals and conservatives) work to keep the public uninformed and under-informed about social spending. Conservatives continue to reap the profits of government subsidies, and liberals pretend they are helping the poor. In reality, the Section 8 housing program is welfare for the rich.

If developers, especially urban developers, were required to rent their apartments in the free market, they would have to lower their rents by at least 75%. Rental apartments cost $1,500 per month in urban settings like Brockton, MA, Brooklyn, NY, Patterson, PA, East Los Angeles, CA, and similar places filled with lower middle-, working-, and welfare-class citizens, not because they are worth $1,500 per month, but because the federal government artificially inflates the rental market by ensuring developers and other large-scale landlords receive a huge subsidy from the housing program.

If the federal government would stop making welfare payments to wealthy developers, they would have to lower their rents to market value, which would be more like $200 per month than $1,500 per month.

Tea-drinkers of course want to blame the poor for this program, but it is really a benefit for the rich AND the middle class.

You see, if the feds stop subsidizing slum housing, then the entire real estate market will go down. Home values in every community except the most privileged will plummet, and even the hard-working tea-baggers will be underwater with their mortgages.

So, we can pretend it's the fault of the poor that the Section 8 housing program exists; but it's really the fault of the middle class who want their real estate values to remain artificially high, all the while receiving massive tax deductions on their jumbo mortgages, and the wealthy who receive tax benefits to build bad housing then get subsidies to keep rental values artificially inflated.

So, when you think that welfare is expensive because of the poor, you should ask yourself how much it is costing to continue welfare that subsidizes the rich and the middle-class.

Now, back to this article: it lists five reasons to leave your job.

1. Does my company stand for something -- anything -- special?

2. Am I excited to see my colleagues when I show up for work on Monday morning?

3. Do I have a voice at work -- does anyone who matters listen to what I say?

4. Am I learning as fast as the world is changing?

5. Am I making enough money?

I get three no (1, 3 and 4) and two yes (2 and 5). According to this article, it is time to leave my job. Sadly, now is no time to leave my job as there is no alternative employment for me in this economic climate.

You see, I don't want to live in sub-standard, subsidized housing that keeps the wealthy rich and the middle-class home values artificially inflated.

I, like everyone I know (who drinks coffee instead of tea), like to work. Sadly, the more welfare we give to tea-drinkers and the rich, the less likely it is that working people will ever make a living.

You want to cut the budget? Eliminate welfare for the rich, then welfare for the middle class. When those two classes are finished watching their lives crumble without their welfare, then we'll cut welfare for the poor.

Is It Time to Leave Your Job?

Soon, I will discuss how food stamps does almost nothing for the poor, but keeps processed food prices artificially high and corporate farms rolling in the dough (our tax money)!