This is part of the upcoming Covid comic zine, which I know is taking me too long to do but remember I am a very disabled woman who is diagnosed with chronic fatigue. You know what is weird this panel was based on a cartoon in my journal drawn in 2020, maybe I thought pandemics always mean economic collapse and war. We could see the early signs couldn't we? They got away with Covid, and all that entailed so why wouldn't they go to town with the financial end of things? I had dreams about the above. I'm sure some New Agers would tell me such dreams are not a good thing and I need to stop manifesting "bad things" but it's what I dreamed about.
I expect the streets to fill with the homeless soon, though it seems they are making the homeless "disappear". Put the picture together, if they are laying off millions of people and the prices have gone this high, where do you think things are going to go? Where is all the money going? Up to the tippy top, someone is profiting off all these out of control prices. Even mainstream news has mentioned the loss of 1.1 million jobs but then took the real news down. One question I used to think on X, was where were the other poor people? Maybe most have had their internet shut off. The real poor people were shut up or shut down, so they could build more astroturf and controlled opposition accounts, with guys saying the homeless were all drug addicts or the poor ate too much avocado toast to brainwash people and make them feel all alone.
The young lady in the video, trying to find a dishwasher/restaurant job probably is in trouble because the restaurants are shutting down. We have lost so many restaurants locally. Some are getting smart and realizing people can only afford take-out and can't afford tips and a sit down place anymore. It's sad her own aunt wants 800 a month from her in rent. That's a bit much for a rented room. Yes many young will realize welfare won't help them. I had no money coming in and got turned down in the 1990s, "you're abled-bodied". She has figured out her college degree is utterly worthless. I'm still in shock the college dreams are still selling. I do find her family pathetic in not sharing food with her. That's white families for you now, sink or swim, they can sit there eating a T-bone while she nibbles at her ramen noodles. That kind of crap wouldn't go down in the Latino or African American families. They still care about each other in most cases.
Hey I had relatives visiting China and England, while I was wondering the streets of Chicago dumpster diving for canned food. Her future is being ruined. She is not building experience. At age 22, I had graduated and gotten my 14 dollar an hour juvenile home job by August. She's doing worse than I was. That age is the make or break age that builds or tears down the future. Potential is now being ruined in America. Consider this, even I had seeds planted in my 20s, that have blossomed into the art shows of my 50s. What are the young going to be left with now?
The guy with the beard has a point, make stuff affordable again. I remember economics class, doesn't more crap sell if more people can afford it? Why don't they want to sell stuff?[because they are secretly dismantling this place? hmmmm] The teacher needs to get rid of the expensive nails and is paying way too much for car insurance. I relate to the African American lady talking about the "run away train". I always spoke of it as being on the edge of the abyss, don't look down or you may fall in. The month becomes nothing but a marathon to pay bills. The bills are all more than what anyone is making. We have cut everything off. I haven't seen a "new" TV show or any network news now in over a year and half, or maybe two. I probably will never have cable again. I watch only old stuff on Pluto. I read news online. I hope he will keep his phone shut off and pay what was left and let the rest go. I pay one subscription around 14 dollars for my Cloud storage which is necessary for our zines and my book illustration projects. I don't know how anyone with kids or who owns a home is supposed to do it. With the air conditioning lady, yes, where is the money supposed to come for emergencies, or repairs or car repairs? The whole system stinks. There is a point where it does not work for people anymore and this system isn't.
The astroturfs and bots berating all the poors outnumbered the rest on X, I got tired of them. Rich people with no clue. Some wisely supported medical freedom but were annoying on other topics. There were always those farm people who preached self-reliant living not realizing us poors didn't have land to grow food on or barns to store animals in.
Yesterday I got a new bill, a premium for Medicare D that used to be 9 dollars is now 78. Some idiot thinks the disabled are rolling in money. I am approaching the place where there is essentially none of my disability check left. Add to that the CPAP monopoly sending me a bill for 422 dollars, they claim that's "WITH" insurance. These bills used to run in the 100s not the 400s. They actually send me a form, when I applied for financial hardship, where they wanted me to sign my entire bank account over, where it said on the form they could take up to 5,000 dollars out of my bank account at any time. I wonder how many old people needing CPAPS and nebulizer's aren't so careful to read this form. Lung problems don't help one discern predators. The form is so bad, it seems fraudulent. I called them up, "Process my financial application but there's no way I am signing my entire bank account over to you, since I could end up homeless if you clean my account out!"
I told them I want emailed from now on, my captioning kept failing during the course of this conversation. I am too deaf to use voice mail jail too. The eye doctor secretary got mad at me because I thought they would bill me and I had no money on me to pay the 17 dollar co-pay, Sometimes I think just pay what you can and let the rest go. I can only do so much. It is a bit ominous how some bills are getting higher.
We had just enough money to get a chicken and some vegetables for our holiday meal, I was glad to have two friends visit in the last two days so that was really nice. One we made art and collages so that was fun. Today my husband made some money to pay my phone bill, his phone got shut off, I'm not sure if we are going to turn it back on or not. He made just enough to go get something to eat tonight. The captioning worked far better on that phone, Sigh. Sometimes when really down and out, I make some strange food, lunch was a masa biscuit, 1 egg, and kidney bean curry for each of us.
It's weird on my social media, I posted videos like this, people either seem to ignore them or the ones with more money tell me the videos are "too negative". I know a lot of people don't like facing things like economic collapse, it doesn't make you too popular at parties. Many don't want to think about this stuff. For some of us the collapse already is here. It's worse for some others, I still got the power on, am housed, and got other basics though food is always a problem.
Some of the reactions were strange, I guess some saw me a doomer. One very "Q" friend has told me that rescue awaits, and the quantum financial system is going to be put in, and we will all be prosperous during the new Trump-led golden age. They are middle class from what I can tell, their family is very close too, I am not so optimistic. The left outside of William Barber and a few words from Bernie Sanders who sadly was a Covid vaxx sellout never mentions the poor and working class even now. The streets are filling with the homeless, no one can afford groceries but none of them seem to care, the extreme identity politics still run the show. Even the church I left, the UUA, only talks about trans people anymore, their magazine shows up at our apt still. you would think there is no other social issue on the planet to be concerned about. The Christian churches all push David Ramsey [still!] and act like packing a lunch for work instead of eating out, will bring endless money to your door. Of course, those programs assume there is decent income coming in. Poor people understand there will be little understanding for our own circumstances in most evangelical churches. David Ramsey won't admit the economy is crumbling. He thinks one can pick off a job off the job tree.
Maybe the healthy can go get a minimum wage job in a group home or nursing home. I did that gambit in the past taking the jobs no one else wanted to survive. I noticed all the wealthy Christians around here, were just telling a woman on my social media asking about financial help, to go take a Ramsey Financial Peace class. We are surrounded by closing businesses. There's a breakfast restaurant that opened up and died within a month.
It's kind of scary to me, watching normal [non-disabled, conventionally good looking] people on all these videos hitting the financial skids. How bad is this all going to get? Why are Americans putting up with it? I guess the billionaires, have perfected the art of misdirection. Will we get another no kings fest without no mention of the economy again? I'm tempted to make signs, "The Economy is Crashing and None of You Care!" for the next one. How about "The Billionaires won and control this protest, that's why none of you mention the Economy!"?
My husband will be going on Social Security for age, but there's some time before it and it feels like we are both limping into the end of the race. Why are things so hard? Life used to be more than drudge, I do try to find fun where I can have it and the art world and my friends add joy to my life, but the sad faces at the grocery store are a bit much to take. Some seem so shut down. It didn't used to be like that.
You know what scares me, is we don't drink, no one smokes, never did drugs, I buy the cheapest food I can--[the same stuff from Aldis], I got clothing from thrift and get what I can from "Buy Nothing" board and there still isn't enough money. I am facing the fact my disability check due to inflation is now almost worth nothing, and yes it scares me. As I have written, my husband doesn't like my ideas about moving to Appalachia, , or a more remote area of my own state, rented rooms or finding somewhere to go. He sees us in another Chicago scenario. I've done things like go on Zillow searching for cheap apartments in my state. They were all HUD apartments which sadly we will still be over the newest cut-off, in very bad dangerous areas or very remote, with no hospital within hundreds of miles. I saw a few studios for the amount of money I was thinking of [700-800] in college towns and apartments that were less than 400 square feet. It is kind of weird they made even small towns expensive. We have gone round and round, "Where should we go?" but we would take the lack of money anywhere we go. It's better to be in an area where you know a few people. Our present apartment is safe. You can't take that for granted now either. I dread getting new doctors especially with my level of medical complexity and don't want to leave my functional doctor behind who has probably saved my life from kidney stuff alone.
One thing I have noticed as I have researched places to go, is a lot of cities seem to be crumbling, and are having serious problems with homelessness, crime, and basically collapse of the infrastructure. You aren't going to see this talked about in the news. Have people lost their minds from being online, where they don't LOOK at the real world anymore and just believe the reality told there. One city I lived in for college, is now taken over by the homeless, it's so bad, I saw videos of this one guy on Youtube, feeding the homeless in that town and there were hundreds of them. My old small town, had a homeless shelter, that got closed, the rich MAGAS drove them out. I think they may be trying to rebuild something else. Things look bad. One town in my county, I considered moving to for cheaper rent, seems to have such a burgeoning crime and homelessness problem I am now not interested in moving there. I joined a local board on social media to see what life was like there. Hmm lets do a random glance today, Oh there's two shootings, looks like some bad stuff is spilling over from a larger town. Some thief is shown at a gas station. I'm glad I investigated this place a lot before moving there. My husband sometimes cynically says, "They've ruined everywhere".
People have enough of their own problems, with everyone sick from the vaxx, they fear for their own survival. I made a list of everyone I know sick or deceased from the Covid vaxxes and it was dozens of people. I lost neighbors, church people, and endless acquaintances and some friends. These numbers are increasing as time passes by too. People are dying a lot younger. I have outlived multiple people I never expected to. I miss old nice neighbors. One I said hello to for years and was felled by a stroke in their early 60s, the lady who lived upstairs from me died of a massive heart attack in 2021. One person I cut ties with may have died. I knew in one case they definitely took the Covid vaxx. I even wonder if death notices are being put up. In some cases, it just seems like people disappear. You wonder "What ever happened to...."
Imagine this across the landscape, I belong to multiple "anti-vaxx" boards where people talk openly about all the people they have lost, some even seem to have whole families wiped out. This level of grief for a society isn't going to be doing good things to that society. I think America as a whole has a PTSD problem from the abuses of Covid/Covid vaxx. Now add in the financial abuses and pressures, it sometimes seems to me, if they press the screws much more the whole society is going to crack up.
I refused to ever touch credit cards again after a certain point and haven't had one in 15 years. However the medical debts now will pile up. Having a company abuse me over sleep apnea supplies is very scary, some of my huge weight gain came from untreated and diagnosed sleep apnea. I have to make the decision to put off some medical appointments so I can catch up on the hundreds I owe in medical bills. I may delay going to the kidney doctor, the ear doctor, I have to see them, so I go down the list to see who or what I can put off. The sleep apnea machine is scary as it uses filters up and goes through masks, but if they are going to charge me 200 dollars a mask what am I supposed to do?
Much of the rest of the world knows America is going down the economic tubes. Even if Trump is deporting people, I am tired of rich liberals who support endless illegal immigration. I have noticed they don't seem to care about poor Americans who are homeless. I still stand by what I wrote about immigration years ago.
Legal immigration has a place, but in a country that can't even take care of its own, we can't take in millions per year. I can't stand ICE's tactics, but how come none of these liberals get the point that one reason Americans can't get jobs or survive is millions from other countries pouring in. They support the H-1B programs and other things that take jobs away from citizens and LEGAL immigrants. There too, you see the liberals protesting against ICE but they never seem to give a damn about the economic damage happening to fellow Americans and citizens. Maybe some immigrants are leaving reading the signs in the wind, this place is economically collapsing and self deporting while they still have somewhere to go. Maybe the news is getting out finally about how hard it is to survive here. People around the world realize things are getting bad here. Read this reddit thread, many overseas realize life is easier elsewhere now:
I visited my cousin in the US and realized I actually live better than him : offmychest
How is any of this sustainable? One can see the future and it's not too bright. They are making home ownership impossible. They are making having families impossible for the young. Many of the elderly and disabled are ending up homeless.
I myself while trying to plan for the future have been put in an impossible situation, HUD blocks us out even as poor as we are, my husband couldn't make an extra dollar again even working for a newspaper. The other place that we are on the list for raised the rent nearly to what we pay now and there's a time limit on the years the apartments remain "affordable" and then are raised to what they call "market rate rent". Food is insane. This good friend of mine sent me some gluten free foods from a local Trader Joe's she lives near. It is nice to have olives, nuts and rice crackers, foods I can't otherwise afford. I live in a food desert, there's not much to eat here, and no Trader Joe's. The health food store that is some miles away in another town, is going out of business, I suppose because no one can afford to shop there. I did during better times, but the prices rose so high even during working class times, I stopped going there.
Jobs are more insecure. No politician or planner cares about making up for the jobs lost via AI. Some believe AI is a fraud and I've wondered if it is the excuse for deindustrialization and the end of oil. Are you noticing they don't care about the betterment of society anymore? I noticed this, the left doesn't care, the right obviously doesn't care. They aren't even pretending. Everything is about screwing people over, ruining their lives and extracting every drop of wealth for the ruling class. You know it and I know it. Everything is to serve the ruling class. Covid served all their needs and desires as they expanded depopulations and helped to monopolize business as they wiped out millions of small businesses.
I don't think there's another CPAP company I can switch to. Think about that. They have no competitors. They are national, and that is scary! I could be denied care for a very serious disorder, that could bring back weight gain and heart problems. Life is being made worse, and the liberal world was destroyed by Covid. Sadly since more of them took the clot shot, there's more of them dying or getting sick. They only care about identity and corporate sponsored issues instead of the rising numbers of homeless. The right wing world, well, I was long ago tired of them with their reality denying lectures, and hatred of the disabled and up by the bootstraps myths. I know many people will just brush me off, "Oh she's a conspiracy theorist". Hate to tell you but crap we talked about 20 years ago on those boards is all coming true today. Do you think sell-outs like Michael Moore who pushed the Covid vaxx while he made millions cares? Where is that guy? Is he even talking about the economy? Hmm let me go look. Sheesh, just the usual no kings crap. What a disappointment he was!
Notice everything is to serve the ruling class, the oligarchy, the 1 percent. The world society, business, money, culture, is all being formed for their needs not yours or mine and they have plenty of servants to help make it happen. Do you see anyone fixing anything? Do you see anything being done for the betterment of society? All the technological advances are invested in surveillance and control not for alleviating any human suffering.
One thing I have noticed is most of the pundits except some independents on Youtube and elsewhere, never mention the reality about the economy. They aren't even telling people the truth. They are gaslighting even worse then when I wrote about it some months ago. I have a rule for any new pundit I listen to, if they don't admit the true state of the American economy, big potatoes or small potatoes, I don't waste any time with them.
This society changed for the worse when they forced the young into serious poverty. I want to write an article about how the economy may have impacted declining family relationships too. Look for that next. There is a problem with older people who do not care, that their adult children are having worse lives. What kind of life can you build as detailed in the video above, if you are dependent on your parents well into your 30s? What happens to your life if you "work hard" and your job doesn't pay enough to cover your bills and you are always desperate with a hand out. Keep in mind as I have described my poverty sagas, I have a husband who worked all the time for years. Lives are being ruined.
Why do people even believe in this system anymore? I am not sure the young even know what to extent they have been betrayed, they think this is normal to have life always put on hold because everything is too expensive. Blackrock and health care costs will extract the wealth of the wealthy boomers as they die off, and all the nice stuff like our decked out Senior centers, nice restaurants, libraries, parks etc. that we take for granted now, will all simply vanish. We have already lost magazine stands, cafeterias, bookstores, and most third places. Even church has become something only for people with money. Many of the small ones are closing.
It will be the Victorian/Gilded age with the rich being even more powerful. We are reliving the Gilded Age, but on steroids. Go read this book, I am up to page 177 but my eyes are bugging out reading it. They are doing the same to us now. Extracting all the wealth, redoing small crowded "tenements", making food impossible to afford but the bowls of gruel. Time to wake up! Seriously go read this book, here's an online copy History of the Great American Fortunes by Meyers. It's my second time mentioning it but it will help you understand what is happening. Many of their ancestors today are directing things. Notice what is done to ordinary people for the achievement of this wealth.
Those younger than me, don't remember the 1970s and 1980s and how different things were, how many vacations one could take, how leisure was part of everyday life. I became a poor adult, but I remember all that stuff, and got to enjoy it. Even family visits were different in the days before working people had to work so many hours. I notice on the video above, even those making 6 figures are pressed to the wall. They often live in very expensive cities and have expectations that increase the money. Their taxes are high, they have to pay huge money on insurance and medical bills. The lady being told to pay 1600 instead of 800 for medical insurance, probably will have no choice but to drop it unless she is a big earner. Some people live on 1600 a month or less. Are these insurance companies dumb? Don't they get that most people simply won't have the money and will drop the coverage? Maybe they will all go out of business. One can only hope.
I did wonder if I don't come up with the 70 bucks a month if I will get dropped. Oh I also have to pay a bigger Medicare premium over 200 dollars, when I say nothing is going to be left of my check, I mean it. If I was not married, I probably would be homeless. I wanted to protect us both from homelessness finding housing in case the worse would happen to either of us but the way American society is set up, they don't care. This place is designed to push you into the streets. This is why we have giant homeless encampments everywhere. Look, if my old small town, which used to be a stable working class place has a homelessness problem, that means things are getting really bad. People don't have the family and social networks that used to protect each other.
I do wonder what the solutions are. One thing I am noticing is we can't depend on the powerful and the famous. Most of the pundits, academics, people like Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, etc, serve the ruling class. They don't want to admit what is going on and the people who pay their salaries or give them deals don't want them to admit what is really going on. I suppose some could work locally and try to build up local networks. I've faced the problem, I can't even find a church that isn't brainwashed by the likes of David Ramsey condemning most poor people to walking out the door, because they can't take anymore shame. Some are fortunate enough to have good friends, I am. I try to focus on them and art to keep my head above it all. I and my husband always have projects. You have to know we do think of what life could have been with economic stability.
I do think people need to admit what is happening and talk about it. That's not too popular. I am glad a few are speaking out on Youtube. I did notice information was "controlled" in talking about the economy, this probably got me shadow banned on X as much as talking about any Covid vaxxes, fat people or conspiracy. I doubt things would be better on BlueSky though, I probably would go over there and be censored for not being a vaxx lover and not supporting trans, and probably would be told the economy is just fine. I notice liberals ranting and raving about ICE, and Trump but still saying nothing about the economy and lying to us and telling us it's wonderful due to a rising stock market. With the liberals, are they all rich? I don't know. Maybe the poor have figured out both sides don't care about us finally.
I think ICE sucks for rounding up citizens and legal immigrants and fear them being used to round up dissenters one day. However I wonder about liberal people who are in such denial about the death and destruction all around us from Covid and maybe it's spilled over into deep denial about the state of the economy. The right wing is going around saying all the homeless are drug addicts even as the job layoffs skyrocket into the millions. The corporations which both of these sides serve seem more hell bent on crushing us all and abusing power to the point you wonder how they expect to stay in business when no one has any money. They use fear to control us all. No one is left alone to live in peace anymore. As I have said to my husband, "I am fine being poor as long as I have a few simple art supplies, library to go to and can get my needs met", but I added, "They never leave us alone". Every step in life is a threat.
Many other people of other countries see Americans as weak and suck-ups for even putting up with this crap. I've seen the posts online, "What's wrong with Americans?" I wonder why American's aren't departing out of the system. In earlier times, people formed communes, religious communities and other alternatives but all the doorways to those seem to be shut and/or cost money. Sometimes I think the elite just decided America the corporation is to be shut down, and that's the process we are now in. That's the only thing that seems to explain all the craziness. I understand the better off people not wanting to look at this stuff, it's not pleasant, but it's reality.
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