We Are Sinking.
Today it cost $47 dollars to fill the tank on our 1999 Buick LeSabre. This is the highest it has ever gone - I remember being able to fill the tank for $25, and being completely distressed when it got to $30. Now I'm just in shock that this is even an amount one can pay for a tank of gas.
My fuel price was 3.09 or so per gallon, and the car took somewhat over 15 gallons worth because we were a little extra empty at the time. But still! It's shocking to spend nearly fifty dollars just to fill up.
All the fun places we used to go that are a bit of a drive, I'm starting to cut back on because while the places themselves are free- the trip to get there wastes way too much of what has become a very expensive resource , gas.
A gallon of milk that once cost around $2.80 is now costing $4.39. A single loaf of bread is costing me nearly $4.00 ! I currently eat multigrain because I'm trying to eat healthier - but how long can I afford to do that if this price trend continues? White bread full of high fructose corn syrup and bleached flour is only $1.89 , after all.
We try to buy thing on sale where we can, but these little bread and milk runs are getting to be a painful experience in themselves.
So where does it end? When do we finally get to the point where we have had enough, and someone in a position to do so actually does something to stop this alarming increase?
When do we get decent jobs that will pay us enough that we can afford a basic, humanly decent standard of living that will let us have not even the luxuries - but just the simple things that we need?
I will vote for ANY politician who would actually do something about this and make our lives better, and not make things continually worse as the current administration has done for the past eight years. White, black, male, female, democrat, republican, independent, communist, socialist... ANYONE.
The problem is I'm no longer even sure our problems are solvable by anyone. I'm not sure that anyone is even really going to try to make the standard of living any better for the poor and average folks out there. But Obama is the candidate I think I have the most faith in - I believe that there's a better chance that he will actually try to do something, so that is who I am voting for.
But what I wouldn't give for there to be jobs in America again - to be able to actually 'look for the union label', like the t-shirt my father wore when he was a proud member of the Boilermaker's Union when I was growing up. Is anything at all made in America anymore?
I read today that they're closing so many parks in New Jersey, because they're understaffed and underfunded. We're heading for a Great Depression anyhow... why not use a depression era tactic and do what Roosevelt did and employ our people to do public works? Why not create jobs, and improve our economy and make us proud of our nation again?
And while we're at it, let's stop making Homeland Security about the vague threat of terrorism. Let's make a homeland that is secure, where people aren't being murdered in the streets of our cities - not by terrorists, but by each other - because they live in poverty, addiction and despair? Let's feed and educate our people. If you tap the phone of the average American, he's not talking about what he's going to bomb - he's talking about how he's going to eat, how he's going to afford to get to work at the crappy job he's too afraid to lose that doesn't pay the bills, that gets him further and further into credit debt and the shadow of foreclosure.
I'm angry when I think about these things - the car I can't afford to drive, the choice I need to make between the healthy bread and the cheap bread, about how the funny noise on my phone could either be static on the line or the government checking to see whether I'm a threat but not giving a damn about how I'm living, about how my husband went to school for seven months to better himself and may wind up jobless in America despite his certifications. I'm tired of our government throwing millions of dollars at an unwinnable overseas war while on our homefront, we are sinking.
WE ARE SINKING.
Where will it stop? Who will stop it? When will we hit bottom?
I don't know the answers to these questions - do you?
My fuel price was 3.09 or so per gallon, and the car took somewhat over 15 gallons worth because we were a little extra empty at the time. But still! It's shocking to spend nearly fifty dollars just to fill up.
All the fun places we used to go that are a bit of a drive, I'm starting to cut back on because while the places themselves are free- the trip to get there wastes way too much of what has become a very expensive resource , gas.
A gallon of milk that once cost around $2.80 is now costing $4.39. A single loaf of bread is costing me nearly $4.00 ! I currently eat multigrain because I'm trying to eat healthier - but how long can I afford to do that if this price trend continues? White bread full of high fructose corn syrup and bleached flour is only $1.89 , after all.
We try to buy thing on sale where we can, but these little bread and milk runs are getting to be a painful experience in themselves.
So where does it end? When do we finally get to the point where we have had enough, and someone in a position to do so actually does something to stop this alarming increase?
When do we get decent jobs that will pay us enough that we can afford a basic, humanly decent standard of living that will let us have not even the luxuries - but just the simple things that we need?
I will vote for ANY politician who would actually do something about this and make our lives better, and not make things continually worse as the current administration has done for the past eight years. White, black, male, female, democrat, republican, independent, communist, socialist... ANYONE.
The problem is I'm no longer even sure our problems are solvable by anyone. I'm not sure that anyone is even really going to try to make the standard of living any better for the poor and average folks out there. But Obama is the candidate I think I have the most faith in - I believe that there's a better chance that he will actually try to do something, so that is who I am voting for.
But what I wouldn't give for there to be jobs in America again - to be able to actually 'look for the union label', like the t-shirt my father wore when he was a proud member of the Boilermaker's Union when I was growing up. Is anything at all made in America anymore?
I read today that they're closing so many parks in New Jersey, because they're understaffed and underfunded. We're heading for a Great Depression anyhow... why not use a depression era tactic and do what Roosevelt did and employ our people to do public works? Why not create jobs, and improve our economy and make us proud of our nation again?
And while we're at it, let's stop making Homeland Security about the vague threat of terrorism. Let's make a homeland that is secure, where people aren't being murdered in the streets of our cities - not by terrorists, but by each other - because they live in poverty, addiction and despair? Let's feed and educate our people. If you tap the phone of the average American, he's not talking about what he's going to bomb - he's talking about how he's going to eat, how he's going to afford to get to work at the crappy job he's too afraid to lose that doesn't pay the bills, that gets him further and further into credit debt and the shadow of foreclosure.
I'm angry when I think about these things - the car I can't afford to drive, the choice I need to make between the healthy bread and the cheap bread, about how the funny noise on my phone could either be static on the line or the government checking to see whether I'm a threat but not giving a damn about how I'm living, about how my husband went to school for seven months to better himself and may wind up jobless in America despite his certifications. I'm tired of our government throwing millions of dollars at an unwinnable overseas war while on our homefront, we are sinking.
WE ARE SINKING.
Where will it stop? Who will stop it? When will we hit bottom?
I don't know the answers to these questions - do you?