# I pit Poverty and the current economic crisis **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 1, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487 "2009-01-01T18:38:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/101 "2009-01-02T01:20:58Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It’s also possible to end up with a great career despite having made a whole shitload of bad decisions. Life’s funny that way. Would you mind responding a little slower? That’s the third time in this thread you’re posting my arguments before I’ve the time to type them. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/102 "2009-01-02T01:21:03Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > OMG. Mr. GQ answer man doesn’t know what my username could possibly be referring to? Perhaps you should . . . ok I won’t say it . . . 😛 In fact, [I did](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rand+rover&btnG=Search). Strangely, no mention of Ayn. While I’m familiar with the name Ayn Rand, I’m not at all a fan. You’ll forgive me, therefore, if I still have no idea what your username is supposed to do with the subject at hand. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/103 "2009-01-02T01:22:30Z")
> [@dre2xl](#): > > OP is perhaps not exercising full creativity in job seeking, but unemployment can happen to anyone, period. Very, very few people have the priorities and education and self-discipline to be able to plan for and survive unemployment, and by the fearful tone in your posts, I’d wager that you aren’t one of them. I can’t speak for **Rand Rover** , but I would note that my criticism is not leveled at the OP; the OP doesn’t give enough information to reach any conclusions about his job search. **Broomstick** , in contrast, made a ludicrous, obviously false claim. Instead of admitting it when called on it, **Bromstick** now attempts to defend the indefensible. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/104 "2009-01-02T01:22:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But “Rand Rover” doesn’t immediately bring Ayn Rand to mind. Indeed. If pressed,. I would likely have guessed it was meant to be Chinglish for “Land Rover.” **clairobscur** : sorry! ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/105 "2009-01-02T01:23:39Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > If the OP’s position were just “my life sucks right now,” then I wouldn’t have posted in this thread. Intead, he’s blaming the economy instead of his bad decisions and then complaining he’s got to do some hard work. It is true that I could have been more ambitious in the past. I don’t deny this. However, I don’t have a time machine. This move is my plan to make things better, “pull myself up by own bootstraps” (though I don’t own boots, I am blessed enough to have friends willing to lend me a pair. :eek:) I am doing what I need to do, I’m filling out applications and handing out copies of my resume. I’m just very very stressed out and needed to vent. This thread is partially to vent and partially to get some good advice. I’ll probably be able to keep some means of vision since I have an ancient pair of glasses, but what would you recommend to a completely destitute person who needed glasses so as not to stumble around like a blind man? If anyone has any advice on this I’d be glad to hear it. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/106 "2009-01-02T01:24:48Z")
> [@dre2xl](#): > > Look, I’m a heartless capitalist bitch, but I’m not blind to the fact that criticism of the victim is often a way of reassuring himself or herself that the misfortune can never happen to himself or herself. That’s what a lot of this thread has been about; you aren’t criticizing lazy unskilled workers or fat people; you’re reassuring yourself that you’ll never land in poverty or become fat, at the expense of others. Ha, OK. And maybe your post is really a veiled reassurance of yourself that you can be a capitalist and a nice person (by pointing out that I am not being a nice person). Or something. In any event, I need no reassurance that I’ll never be in poverty because I would take any job to put food on my family (\<–my favorite Bushism). > [@](#): > > OP is perhaps not exercising full creativity in job seeking, but unemployment can happen to anyone, period. Very, very few people have the priorities and education and self-discipline to be able to plan for and survive unemployment, and by the fearful tone in your posts, I’d wager that you aren’t one of them. Bring it, unemployment, I’ll make you my bitch. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/107 "2009-01-02T01:26:07Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Are you really a farmer? Usually those types of folks are big on personal responsibility and bootstraps and whatnot. You might be big on individual responsibility, but there obviously are some realities of life outside of your personal experience that you completely missed. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/108 "2009-01-02T01:26:15Z")
Is the problem with the old glasses simply that they’re scratched up, or is the prescription out of date and inadequate? If the former, I’d take them to an optometrist and see if he can polish them out for a nominal fee. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/109 "2009-01-02T01:26:40Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > I hear vacuum drying is very effective. Good point. Airlock is this way… ---
**Author:** ![FarmerChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@FarmerChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FarmerChick)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/110 "2009-01-02T01:27:51Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Are you really a farmer? Usually those types of folks are big on personal responsibility and bootstraps and whatnot. Yes I am, but I don’t judge people nor do I kick them when they’re down or call insult them just because of who they are or what they do. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/111 "2009-01-02T01:28:38Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > It is true that I could have been more ambitious in the past. I don’t deny this. However, I don’t have a time machine. This move is my plan to make things better, “pull myself up by own bootstraps” (though I don’t own boots, I am blessed enough to have friends willing to lend me a pair. :eek:) > > I am doing what I need to do, I’m filling out applications and handing out copies of my resume. I’m just very very stressed out and needed to vent. This thread is partially to vent and partially to get some good advice. > > I’ll probably be able to keep some means of vision since I have an ancient pair of glasses, but what would you recommend to a completely destitute person who needed glasses so as not to stumble around like a blind man? If anyone has any advice on this I’d be glad to hear it. Alright man, good luck. Like I said in my first post, please don’t go down the dark path paved by Broomstick and Acid Lamp. Keep pounding the pavement and go to school and you can be a cocky jerkface to some guy in a thread llike this in 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/112 "2009-01-02T01:29:40Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > Is the problem with the old glasses simply that they’re scratched up, or is the prescription out of date and inadequate? If the former, I’d take them to an optometrist and see if he can polish them out for a nominal fee. Out of date, inadequate. They are better than nothing, but pretty crappy nonetheless. My contact lenses are in date as long as they hold out. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/113 "2009-01-02T01:29:42Z")
> [@FarmerChick](#): > > Yes I am, but I don’t judge people nor do I kick them when they’re down or call insult them just because of who they are or what they do. Yeah I don’t either, and haven’t in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/114 "2009-01-02T01:29:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Are there other papers in NW Indiana besides the Times and the Post-Tribune? I mean, given the size of the area that could be called “NW Indiana” I don’t see how anyone who is supposedly turning over every stone in search of a job could FAIL to search those papers. Can you explain to me how a good faith, leave-no-stone-unturned job search for a person living in northwest Indiana could justify excluding either paper? I haven’t excluded either paper, but those papers _both_ publish hardcopy editions specific to towns or small groupings of townships. I assumed that all want ads would be printed in all editions but perhaps not. If so, having to run around buying 5 or 6 different hardcopies of the same paper would be a pain in the ass at best. I most certainly _was_ standing in line at the unemployment office with a group of others going “WTF? Where are the want ads?” in an edition of the Times. I don’t recall which particular town’s edition of that paper we were looking at because, again, I assumed there would be the ads for the entire region. Do I personally purchase a hardcopy of both papers (and the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times) every day? No. Because _I can’t afford to do that_. I’m pretty much living on $5 of food a day, and I _have to_ eat. I do look at them at the library. I go to the websites of local companies (as well as non-local) to apply. I use the websites at the unemployment offices of both Indiana and Illinois. I go in person (although most businesses now tell me I can only apply on the internet). Perhaps it staggers the imagination, but I really can’t afford to spend $4 a day every day on newspapers. That would be $120 a month. Or about what we spend on food for one of us here in the Broomstick household. I did mention that I was poor, didn’t I? That’s what poverty means - you’re reading newspapers at the library, or handed to you by others while standing in line somewhere, or even on occassion picked out of the garbage. I could, I supposed, get a subscription to all those papers and at one point I did try that, but my unemployed neighbors kept stealing them. When it got to the point that at 4am I’m out in front of the house telling the delivery person that **I** am the one with the subscription while a neighbor was trying to snatch it out of my hands I said fuck it, I’m losing sleep, only getting this thing 1/3 of the time (if that much), and it’s less effort to go to the fucking library to read this. Except, of course, when some asshole _rips the want ads out of the newspaper_ at the library. This is yet another sucky thing about being poor and living in an apartment building in an area with an unemployment problem. Maybe I could try the subscription thing again, as that neighbor has since been evicted and last I saw him he was apparently living under an I-65 overpass. Gee, maybe he was having trouble affording newspapers, too. That doesn’t make his theft OK, but at least it wasn’t entirely out of malice. So yeah, I tend to concentrate a bit more on the internet and directly going to company websites. So fucking sue me. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been trying to find a job. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/115 "2009-01-02T01:31:06Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > In fact, [I did](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rand+rover&btnG=Search). Strangely, no mention of Ayn. > > While I’m familiar with the name Ayn Rand, I’m not at all a fan. You’ll forgive me, therefore, if I still have no idea what your username is supposed to do with the subject at hand. OK, understood, I retract my mock indignation. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/116 "2009-01-02T01:32:57Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Well who the hell else’s fault is it? Winston Churchill’s? Barack Obama’s? Sigmund Freud’s? > > I’ll never find myself in the position of not being able to find a job. You know why? I’ve worked my ass off since I learned to walk and I have developed skills and experience that are in high demand. So I’m not going to pat some loser on the head when he hasn’t gone to college and complains about not being able to find work as an unskilled laborer. > > You can wish for the same thing as the OP to happen to me all you want but it won’t because I’ve made it impossible. I may at some point have to take a job that pays less than my current job (or less than I’m making at that point), but I won’t be on the streets. This has got to be the most unintentionally hilarious post I can recall ever reading on the Straight Dope, ever. ---
**Author:** ![dre2xl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/34f0e0/32.png) [@dre2xl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dre2xl)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/117 "2009-01-02T01:33:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I can’t speak for **Rand Rover** , but I would note that my criticism is not leveled at the OP; the OP doesn’t give enough information to reach any conclusions about his job search. > > **Broomstick** , in contrast, made a ludicrous, obviously false claim. Instead of admitting it when called on it, **Bromstick** now attempts to defend the indefensible. Ah, I confused Broomstick with the OP. Either way, a justified bust of Broomstick does not explain Rand Rover’s pissing on the OP, or the declaration that he will never be unemployable, or his implied statement that he’ll never be fat. His motivation is clearly fear and denial–not offering constructive criticism. One would think this type of bashing would decrease during hard economic times as others start seeing what could become a reality, but it instead seems to increase. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/118 "2009-01-02T01:35:33Z")
> [@dre2xl](#): > > His motivation is clearly fear and denial–not offering constructive criticism. Look, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/119 "2009-01-02T01:35:41Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Hey Broomstick, how far north of Chicago would 40 or 50 miles from your house put you? Chicago Loop. I live SOUTH of Chicago. Actually going north of Chicago is considerably farther than 50 miles. I worked in the Chicago Loop between 1983 and 2007 at a total of 4 different companies. As I said, I am more than willing to travel that distance. I am still applying for jobs in that location. I have not yet been hired despite a couple interviews. I am also applying to positions in Michigan City and even South Bend Indiana. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487/120 "2009-01-02T01:38:31Z")
> [@nyctea scandiaca](#): > > What indispensable skills do you have that ensure you will NEVER go without a job? Garbage man? I mean, I can’t think of much else that will ALWAYS and FOREVER be in high demand. There always has to be someone to clean up everyone else’s crap, right? Personally, I would have guessed “undertaker” and the never-out-of-employment job, but hey, garbage man works too. > [@](#): > > That is seriously insulting to all the bright, experienced, talented, educated people out there who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and are having trouble finding work. I hope some of them come in here and call you out on your bullshit. Well, I’m _trying_ but it’s like yelling at a brick wall. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-poverty-and-the-current-economic-crisis/479487.md?page=7)