Um… yes, actually in my area it IS a requirement that you fill out McDonald apps on line. A relatively recent development, true, but one nonetheless. Ditto for Meijer’s, Wal-Mart, and all those other stores that represent an entry level opportunity for those needing to climb out of poverty. Please update your knowledge base, and no, I’m not being snarky. 5 years ago I would have said a computer for job hunting was arguably a luxury. Today it really is a necessity.
Well, it’s like this - I haven’t always been poor. For 20+ years I was comfortably middle or upper middle class. Then several Bad Things happened to me over the course of a year or so and I am now, truly, poor. However, I still own the things I bought and paid for while I was middle class - like a computer and two vehicles and some nice clothes and a TV and stuff like that. Why should I stop using them merely because of reduced financial circumstances?
There are people who are poor who use the library computers solely for job hunting - I know this, because I’ve met some of them. But you will never see those people here. What you see here are more likely people like me - going through temporary financial setbacks, but with a computer bought and paid for in better times.
No, YOU don’t - but not everyone was taught how to cook by their parents. One of the good things about the internet is that it is a source of information on so many topics.
The things people assume… Anyway, we own a house and our property taxes go almost exclusively to the city school district. Since No Child Left Behind, a large majority of what our school district does is teach the children of Mexican immigrants to speak English, so they can learn to read, write and do math. So, instead of getting any sort of value for all of those tax dollars, as well as those that come from other taxes, what we now have is part ESL and part babysitter.
And that is just our property tax.
A bare fact is not a dig. I don’t really care either way about the illegals, but I do care when I am expected to pay more and more in taxes to support yet another subset of the poor who themselves pay little or no tax. Left to themselves, the illegals tend to keep a low profile because they are - you know - illegal, but the bleeding hearts cannot let them alone and keep insisting they sign up for MediCal and DentiCal and food stamps and and and. The state is broke and the middle class isn’t far behind.
Well, starting out being completely rude does tend to make communication useless.
Yet, you appear to be. You say that Wal-Mart will give out a paper application, and I know that the McDonalds, Jack In The Box, Del Taco and other fast food places here will as well. And those are just the manual labor type jobs - people with degrees like my husband can use a headhunter and people in the health insurance industry in this area use a service.
And the thing is? I never said that I didn’t think that people were using the library computers to look for jobs. What I said is I didn’t think that they were spending a majority of their time doing that, given the amount of posting from library computers that is said to go on in here.
But then, it is always better to jump to a negative conclusion, isn’t it?
I am going to define because I really dislike communication problems a lot more then I dislike curlcoat, whom I like even less then I’d enjoy a prostate exam from from cactus, with cold fingers.
Curlcoat, kiosk in the store refers to an application computer terminal in the store.
This pretty much explains all. You get your piss poor hater attitude because you think anyone who lives in poverty can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
You don’t know either. All you have is your own narrow point of view based on your particular situation.
IMO, if you’re taking money from the Government for any reason, you don’t get to bitch about other people getting money too.
In short “I’ve got mine, so piss off”. Right?
Sometimes I’m embarrassed by my fellow citizens. This is one of those times.
If nothing else, if you have internet at home, that’s costing you money. And when I was poor, I had one old car, no TV and no computer - if I’d had them I’d have sold them.
Quite right - I wasn’t taught to cook either. Still don’t know how to.
To LeeshaJoy -
Note in the original post - there is a kiosk in the store also
If your property tax pays for almost exclusively schools, then who pays for other city and county services, such as fire/police/civil/infrastructure/water/etc. services?
You do realize that some of those ESL students are naturalized citizens (Mexican immigrants do actually manage to stay in the country legally) and some of them are natural citizens (having been born in the U.S.; check your Constitution, dear). How many alien children are your property taxes paying for? Good question. Even the GAO doesn’t know (warning: PDF), so I can’t imagine you do. Have you really given it much thought at all what your taxes are paying for? Do you know the difference between payroll taxes and property taxes? When discussing taxes collected for SSI and UHC, people are referring to payroll taxes, of which you contribute exactly none. Your SSDI benefit is not paid out of your property tax contributions as you damn well know. So, when someone points out your hypocrisy in that you’re tapping the very system other people are paying into you don’t get to justify it by saying you’re paying thousands of dollars for the education of illegal aliens, which you really can’t say with any certainty you – I mean, your husband – actually are.
Oh, and as the mother of a 19 year old, who this year, and in recent years, has applied for jobs in the fast food industry as well as other entry-level positions, I’d like to point out that regardless of your experience, most of the places he has applied at provide only online applications. He does not have a computer and walks to the library to apply online. That is the only place he can go to apply online at most establishments. Some of the larger ones, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, provide in-store computer kiosks for online applications, but most do not. I can’t understand why you seem to think that everyone else’s lives and experiences conforms to yours. But hey, if it works for you, who cares how it works for anyone else, eh?
If I can pay for it why do you have a problem with that? As it is, the only sort of “government assistance” we’re getting at the moment is subsidized health insurance, and as that is through the state of Indiana not one penny of YOUR tax money is going to pay for it.
Well, THIS poverty stricken household has one old car and one old pickup truck, both paid for, and both of which help bring money into the household in addition to being one vehicle per driver. Selling them would seriously impact my ability to make money so that would be utterly foolish.
As for the computer - it’s 10 years old, it has little value. Again, it’s a job search tool and it also helps earn me money by allowing me to sell stuff on line (bringing in sufficient funds to more than pay for the internet connection AND the phone line) so selling it would actually be a net loss in our income. (What I sell, generally, are old books some of which have brought in a fair amount of money, and more than a POS computer or outdated TV thus selling those represent a FAR better use of my time and resources than your plan, which is in any case engineered to make us as miserable as possible as punishment for some bad luck in life).
The TV - again, over a decade old, without the analog to digital converter box it’s a fancy doorstop, and with little to no resale value. I’m not parting with an object I bought and paid for LONG ago and which provides both free entertainment and information such as weather and traffic and news to make curlcoat happy. Again, we see the attitude that if you’re poor you need to get rid of all earthly possessions and wear sackcloth and ashes. How ridiculous.
As our financial situation is better right now than last year at this time I am not apologizing for the extravagance of holding onto an old TV to get free, broadcast programming.
So you’re utterly dependent on someone else to feed you as well?
Great. We weren’t talking about property taxes. Try again. Welfare is a product of state/federal taxes. The thousands of dollars you pay to teach what you assume are (though given the intellect you’ve shown before, it’s hard to imagine you being wrong) illegal immigrants english has nothing to do with the topic.
I’m still curious as to how long a person has to pay taxes before they are allowed to go on welfare. You keep referring to yourself as deserving because you’ve paid taxes for 30+ years and those on welfare as having paid very little taxes. What sort of duration/amount level do you see as appropriate for someone to be able to get federal assistance?
So, you too are unable to see anything other than black and white? Because I am tired of supporting generations of people on assistance, I must have hatred for all who are “poor”?
My decades living poor among the poor, as well as more decades still knowing plenty of poor people. Simply because you refuse to believe there might be people - a large number of people - gaming the system, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
How does that work?
No, exactly what I said. I see no reason at all why we should lose our retirement simply because people like you think that we should be dumping even more money into the poor, under some pie in the sky belief that doing so will eliminate poverty. How can you justify calling names simply because I’d like to be able to hold on to some of what my husband and I have worked for over these past decades? Are you a socialist or a communist, and it simply bothers you that some people have more than others?
I am way ahead of you on that. The lack of common sense, knowledge of what is going on, how all of the programs are not working and can make things worse - OK, that can be explained by simple lack of education. But for so many to get up on their high horses and demand that I be happy to pay out even more in taxes to people who, in my personal long term experience, are never satisfied and think they deserve anything and everything they can get, simply because they are here. I know you are young and starry-eyed, and think that there cannot possibly be more than one or two people like that out there - all you need to do is spend some time with Google.
FYI, I’m 48 years old and have been around the block a few times.
Keep sucking on the government teat while you bleat on about how your tax dollars are being wasted. That makes you a hypocrite along with being a selfish asshole.
How someone “in their 50’s” can be so absolutely fucking ignorant is beyond comprehension.
Suckle the government teat and sponge off her husband. Oh why can’t the poor be more self sufficient like Curlcoat who handles none of her own finances, doesn’t have a job, and can’t even cook. At least she has a blue card.
It seems to me that assuming that most poor people who use the library internet access are not using the time to look for jobs is jumping to a negative conclusion. This is a small, specific example of what you seem to be doing a lot of. For example, viewing the money you and your husband pay for property taxes as going primarily to teach English to immigrant children. This is a pretty negative conclusion, and also seems highly unlikely to be where “most” of your property tax money goes. Even if it only went to schools, it’s doubtful that all or most of the children in your school district are ESL students, and it’s doubtful that the only thing any of those ESL students are learning is English. So the conclusion you have drawn, while I suppose it’s possible to be somewhat accurate, seems both negative and highly unlikely.
It sounds to me from reading your posts that you are genuinely very angry. Does it really serve you to be angry at things that are not true, or only partly true? If you were able to discover that some of the things you are angry at are not true or not entirely true, is it possible that you will be less angry? Would it serve you to be less angry, if not for reasons of your comfort and happiness, but because needless anger could be impacting your health? I don’t know what your disability is (that is certainly your private business), but I know that being angry, stressed out, or upset negatively impacts my condition (MS). Aside from the fact that I like to be happy, it is my responsibility to caretake my own health. The sicker I am, the more of a burden I am on my family.
I am genuinely distressed to see someone who is angry and unhappy because they believe something that is simply untrue or at least partially untrue. I wish that some of what others are telling might persuade you, in hopes that it might bring you a little relief from your anger.
:dubious::rolleyes: