Our grocery stores around here are looking sparse, how are yours doing? Aldis got rid of a lot of products when I was in there last and rearranged things to hide it.
Economically things are still the same. I'm still waiting on my subsidized apartment. I don't need to rehash my own situation; it's the same Groundhog Day stuff over and over. Sometimes I wonder why trying to plan ahead doesn't work either. I have been doing some art stuff so that's been enjoyable. I'll point out a few things happening as an example though. Why is there so much gaslighting about our economy? This guy may be on to something with the famine that awaits. Our stores are EMPTYING out here. Aldis got rid of a bunch of products last week, this may have included my gluten free bread and rearranged the store to hide this. In my town, there's multiple times I cannot find a food product I need. Is this happening in your town?
The city commissioners in my more well off town, decided to charge people to park--2 dollars an hour, so this town I live in is now overtly screening out people economically. Poors not allowed. People are already drowning in bills. There's middle class people here who are probably stretched to the limit and all they do is pile on more costs. There's been outrage but nothing changes. Do our governments big or small even represent us even more? I voted for blue collar guys during the last election who own small businesses and all lost for these money-grubbing neo-liberals to be put in instead. They make $140,000-160,000 a year, most double household incomes probably crossing the $200,000 mark, you think they relate to normal people? I doubt it. We have nursery school teachers and cooks here too.
I posted some of the Large Man Abroad videos on my social media. One guy said to me, "Oh things aren't that bad!" That's often the reaction one gets when they discuss this stuff. I have to cool it a bit. One is more popular posting positive stuff on Facebook. I suppose my social media is the "art" wall lately which I don't mind but it is hard when you wish there could be more discussion of this stuff.
Why are poor people so alone in it? For people in some areas, there's always this feeling too, that one has to "hide negativity", the stiff upper lips don't want to hear about it. The elite have separated poor people too, so we can't talk things over or relate to one another or form groups to help each other. It's every lonely dog for themselves. Just like narcissists separate all the scapegoats so they can't form alliances, the same thing has happened with the poor and working class people in America.
At least in the third world, if people are poor, there's other poor people to turn to and talk about how things really are, and get advice or at least be able to discuss reality with each other. Ask yourself where do poor people or even the working class have a voice anymore? We don't. I would say the only source right now where poor people have a voice, is some youtube videos, and other videos online. Blogs aren't so common now but maybe a few personal blogs are still out there like mine.
There is so much shame attached to poverty, that even my talking about personal poverty or money problems I know is extremely rare. It is risky. With lives run off the rails, you don't want to bore people with the same happenings that keep running through on repeat. SOME people though are taking to video to discuss their experiences despite the risks. There are others who interview homeless people or do tours of cities like Nick Johnson showing all the extreme poverty next to wealth. That's one aspect of the community I live in that is a very bad sign. We have a very poor ghetto area, next to extreme wealth. That's one aspect of America now, the distance is growing between the haves and have-nots. They live in two different realities. The poor and working class simply do not see their reality on TV or anywhere else for that matter.
While our news won't tell us how bad things are, people are getting the news out on Tic-Tok and Youtube about the reality of how bad our economy is. Our elite just will gaslight us. I believe we are in a Depression now, but this time unlike the 1930s, they won't announce it. Tariffs were a thing in the 1930s by the way. We will just notice more inaccessible goods, emptying and closing stores, lower life quality and skyrocketing costs, but this time they won't tell you the WHYS, unless you research them for yourself online and have the means to. Truth is ignored in this country. Why is Depression 2.0 mostly silent? That's more of the gaslighting process. People will think they are the "only ones". When people can't even see the others that are in their same boat, it gives the powerful an endless boost.
I watch Youtube a lot, and included some videos here. We are gaslighted when most of our national media ignores the plight of millions of people in our own country. All us poor people know the news, the TV, and magazines don't represent our world. Poor and working class people are never characters now on TV shows. When people are made voiceless, and their experiences minimized and simply IGNORED, there's gaslighting going on.
I looked up mutual aid societies having this weird thought I could find one and that they were groups of poor people at least trying to join resources together. Did I misunderstand the concept? Of course, this town didn't have one. Have you ever wondered why everyone who is poor, we are so alone in it? People who have poor families may be better off if the family is close knit, at least there's someone in the boat with you instead of being out to sea alone with the boat sinking. Even the churches [my dream of the supportive country church may be an impossible illusion now] are places where rich pastors preach a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the average poor person's lives. Poor people will get food [now dwindling in supply and quality] from the church food banks, but they know they don't belong in most churches.
A lot of people are poorer than me. Remember I'm not homeless, I have internet access. I've kept my rent paid on time. There's still some art supplies in here and books. They are hiding the poor in America now, it's part of the gaslighting. They make it so the poor hide out. "We are embarrassed". I still have an apartment and a car. The homeless all talk about how lonely they become. Remember when you are very poor, you can wear out the welcome of those who help you. If your life is off its moorings and it never gets back on the moorings, it can wear people out. "Why are they always in need?" Some people will cut you off, they see you as a "drain". Bad luck clings like a stink. Those who have to live with relatives or on someone's couch, all talk about the resentment, the anger, the bouncing from one place to another. Some healthy people can sometimes crawl out and via employment efforts change things around but the older you get the harder this is.
Why is there so little spiritual practices to help the poor? There were spiritual modalities to be contented in poverty. I was reading some of this stuff. The evangelical churches ran off the rails with prosperity gospel, maybe some of the Catholics had a tighter grip on this stuff. Many of us just want to be left alone in peace. Why are the poor in America constantly harassed where the screws are forever tightened to the breaking point? Why do they make bills impossible? Our leaders are so rich, they have no concept of what the average person lives on, or what bills they have to pay. At least in centuries past, while there was always trouble, the peasants had community and some stability unless there was a war. There seems to be a keen desire to crush people here. It's nuts. Leave us alone. Can we live in our small towns and just live quiet humble lives, without the money masters destroying the place? Why not?
They don't want happy people living simple lives, they always want to crush you. Some of us may throw our hands up, and I did this long ago knowing with these disabilities the middle class was never going to be part of my reality. "Okay I'm poor, now just leave me alone to live in peace." They won't do that. They don't want people to have their basic needs met, they always want them on edge.
America is a fear ruled country. They keep you afraid, desperate and clawing at the side of the crab barrel. This place is sick. People who are afraid are PTSD/CPTSD ridden, they aren't turning to each other in cooperation and with problem solving abilities. They are curled into a ball, and detaching or lashing out in anger. Hmm... that describes a lot of what is happening to this place.
There is almost an absurdist thing in play now. Where they tell people to pay bills they know will be impossible to them. I was told to pony up 900 dollars the other day for two new lower garments for my compression machine for instance. This compression machine has given me a second lease on life, remember I like it a lot. It ended severe infections I battled during my 30s and 40s. Some of those almost ended my life. I only get them rarely now. I crossed the 18-24 month marker without an infection for the first time in literally decades.
The garments are the cloth bandages with tubes in them, that go on your legs and are tubed into the machine where your legs are "massaged" and compressed with air to get fluids off them.
One of them has been having error messages, it's worn out. The second one is having error messages about half the time. These are the bottom part of the legs, the top half costs even more and full replacement would be 1800 dollars. I cracked a joke, on the phone, "Sure I will go get my bag of gold out of my closet, and send it to you right away!" and then got mad and said, "You people seriously expect disabled people to have 1,000 to 2,000 dollars laying around?" It's absurdity. I did apply for financial aid, and hope I get it. I have the fear, my legs will go back to infection land as my garments are wearing out.
The tent cities are proliferating all over. There's the hidden homeless too, the people living in motels and with relatives. Most people in our situation with families may have moved in with them, to catch up and get a breather while waiting for subsidized housing but many don't have that anymore. Rental rooms are crazy in price now, I'm noticing some of those are hitting 700-800 dollars in bigger cities. How come we don't have boarding houses anymore? Poor people used to be able to use those to "take a rest" or catch up or survive.
I read this book from the library. Every homeless person in this book was African American. I'm not sure why he focused on one race, because the stuff that happens to them is happening to ALL races. Maybe it was because it was Atlanta, I don't know. I just read it and their lives were like my own in many ways, so figured so be it. The underclass has all races in it. They did face the added layer for racism in the mix. I was pleased William Barber wrote a book about poor whites. He wrote a book about "White Poverty". I read it a few months ago. Maybe some are realizing that when they divide races, the powers that be never want different groups to unite such as the black and white poor and working class.
Anyway I read the "There is No Place" for us book and all these homeless people had jobs. The jobs didn't pay enough for their rent in Atlanta. Everything was expensive. There are draconian rules all over the place meant to trip you up. The rules seemed designed just to make everything as hard as possible and put up endless barriers. I related to that. These requirements included that one had to make three times the rent. There were credit cut-offs, one person even had a perfect housing record for years at one place but because they had bad credit were not allowed to move into another apartment. There's no tenant rights. There's scam artists taking rent and lease money who really don't own the place. Their lives are unstable and hell. Most have to hold several jobs. Many of them have to go live in extended stays at cheap hotels that charge more than rent would cost.
The social work programs are all overloaded and useless with stupid rules like not allowing a 15 year old to stay with his family in a homeless shelter. That's one nasty reality about homeless shelters, if you have kids they will put a family in housing but if you are married without kids they will separate spouses and come up with other crazy rules. It's a mess. It also shows what a wreck this country is and how much graft, rip-offs and life quality has sunk. They of course have racism to contend with in some different places. Oh one big matter was many of them got charged application fees. I remember those from Chicago where they got your 30 dollars, and kept it after they said NO. Many used this to rip off people just collecting application fees. I noticed since the 90s, now they charge 80-100. Who has that kind of money? One lady described paying out hundreds of dollars, while she got turned down for apartments. The system is designed to make you lose.
One reason we have held onto the present apartment with a death grip living here so long, is it was stable. It is a decent apartment, I've written about my own hellish past in living in some hellholes. I understand why my husband is so afraid to move. I'm scared too. He told me he is afraid of us ending up like we did in Chicago. I can't argue with that. Having stable housing in America while you are poor is very fortunate. You do not take it for granted.
I felt sorry for these people I read about. I related to a lot of the troubles. That's life as the poor in America always scrounging. I am lucky to have almost 20 years in the same apartment. I was able to keep the rent paid on time because of disability. Jobs aren't so stable now, they disappear in a heartbeat and then people lose their homes. I believe the job system in America needs to be changed. Jobs shouldn't be so easy to lose. We need complete changes to the job system. Jobs no longer pay the bills.
Surviving as a poor person meant a ton of gaslighting, everyone was out to rip these people off and tell them no and shut the door in their face. I noticed transportation for many of them was a constant problem. It was for me too in past times. I hated big cities because everything was spread out and hard to get to. Atlanta is one of those sprawling places too, it seems worse than Chicago. When you live in a place like that, everything is far away. Just doing basic things can be very complicated. Small towns are simpler which is one reason I'll never move to a big city again. One caveat though, jobs are harder to get in small towns. The mouse traps seem to design with a hitch everywhere you turn.
The book talked about all the people living in hotels. The homeless by necessity have taken over all the cheaper hotels and motels in America. Remember there's levels of homelessness, some are couch sleeper at other people's houses, some have a car or van to live in, some have motels and hotels to live in and the worse off are in the streets with nothing. I am too poor to travel but had to take a few cheap motel rooms for power outages over the years, the places are full of the homeless. Sometimes it can suck if you get a room next door to a homeless family of 6 and the noise levels make it impossible to sleep. There was one motel years ago in my mother's town and this was in the "suburban" area too that was nicer but it was a Red Roof Inn that basically was a homeless shelter. We stopped staying there because it was far too noisy to sleep and most rooms had more than 4 people staying in them. It's true of a lot of hotels and motels here. It's the more cheaper ones, not the fancy vacation ones, but that's where many of the working homeless live and they charge far more than rent.
Foreign people in developed countries, feel sorry for Americans. They probably are told more truth about the American economy than we are. I am online friends with English speaking people in Wales, Ireland, and England, I speak with them on a consistent basis. Their countries have problems too but they feel sorry for Americans for being poor and being unable to access medical care. People don't realize what a joke America has become. I think even the Chinese and Russians [look at Russia Today] feel sorry for Americans too, and think this economy is a hellish one. I have thoughts like well even the Communists at least provided jobs and places to live for their people. I am not a Communist but it seems the main American motive now, is to punish people. Nothing is ever done for the betterment of society, only for the profit of the psychopathic. Everything is authoritarian.
A lot of rich people here get mad if you talk about the economy. I had this one more well off friend who got mad when I told her how bad the economy was. She was a generous and nice person but our world views clashed. That's the friend who basically unfriended me for refusing to vote for Kamala. I learned my lesson and don't talk about politics anymore with people. She said, "Both you and your husband are disabled!" Well that is true, it's probably one of the main reason for our poverty. Being disabled doesn't rake it in. There are tons of costs built in from that alone. All these medications, doctors, supplements and gluten-free food, cost money.
One weird thing is she kept telling me the economy was great as I was watching our life implode and trying to help husband job hunt which was a fruitless endeavor. That still happens with people. That's part of the national gaslighting too. The rich people who often live in nice suburban areas, and don't see much poverty or only see it as a "rare" part of inner city ghettos and some rural enclaves like in West Virginia, really see America as "rich" and if you say things like the economy is not going well, they get angry at you. I thought I could open up to this friend but know I overdid it.
I suppose they don't want their own fortunes to change, that makes sense. I don't want more well off friends to be poor. Anyone who can escape this, all the better for you and your kids! However for us poor people, it adds to the invisibility quotient. All those people on Youtube, probably should be prepared for that reaction. "You are just one guy or gal, you failed, America is the richest country on the earth!"
Life for the poor and working class can be weird among liberals, you can see endless articles bemoaning why has the working class joined MAGA? This is one of the reasons why. I've written about how as they banged on about "white supremacy", the existence of poor whites seemed negated. None seemed to understand that if many of us Americans were falling into the abyss, that meant inner city African American poverty had to be worsening too. The left denied the real circumstances and basically told the working class and poor to shove off. I wrote about this already, this is why Trump won. I don't think most are getting it even now except a few more empathetic liberals I know.
My husband is still a Democrat. I told him "Look how poor we are, they don't care about us either!" Liberals are right about some of the bad stuff the Republican party always does to the poor. Always the FIRST thing is to put the disabled to the chopping block. It's the rare person who arrives at my conclusion that both parties only care about the oligarchy. This stuff is complex, I've voted for a few Democrats to "protect disability" in the past, but at this point, I've stepped away from politics. I may still vote but I'm more detached from it in real life.
The negation of the existence of the poor, the insistence and mythos of "America is the richest nation on earth" has kept a lot of the gaslighting going. Reality is not being faced or dealt with that while there is some money in America, most Americans are doing very badly now. The money has collected at the top, and trickle down was a lie from the start.
If you ignore the existence of people, minimize them, hide them, shove them away with no voice, they aren't living in your neighborhood living hand to mouth hiding on someone's couch or in a motel, I guess they are "out of sight, out of mind". We have massive homelessness happening, it's off the charts. The gaslighting has hidden them. What happens when the numbers grow too large to ignore? They will try and hide the existence of how homelessness is exploding here as long as possible. Here's two videos, I wanted to embed them, but couldn't. Maybe some are shadow banned, I don't know but check these out.
People are HOMELESS Living in the Woods and Their Cars Due to the Economy
Here is another video of his too:
The American Dream is a Nightmare: It is impossible Now.
Here are more channels and videos on Youtube describing the reality of poverty in America and our worsening economy.
Here's a documentary describing the trailer park debacle:
People living in their cars
You will be shocked, there's so many of these videos. I don't think they are counting how many people are living in their cars right now.
This is a good channel, it interviews homeless people. Many end up that way even from losing jobs. It breaks through some of the stereotypes.
Invisible People
This channel focused on food prices. He hasn't done a video in awhile. I hope he is okay. I watched it to compare prices here, they were about the same.
The Real Economy
Speaking of trying to find community and resources, I looked up mutual aid societies having this weird thought I could find one and that they were groups of poor people at least trying to join resources together. Did I misunderstand the concept? This town didn't have one.
A lot of people are sinking into the abyss out there. Remember I'm not homeless, I have internet access, an apartment and a car. They are hiding the poor in America now, it's part of the gaslighting. They make it so the poor hide out. "We are embarrassed". The tent cities are proliferating all over. There's the hidden homeless too, the people living in motels and with relatives. The people who are seeing the bottom fall out, are all told, "its your fault". They slink away under an air of failure. You see people give up, and I think that's where despair leads to so much drug and alcohol abuse to take the pain away. People always comment on how drug addiction leads to homelessness but very few point out some become homeless and then turn to drugs to numb out the pain.
There is so much gaslighting. Why can't Americans and America be honest about how widespread the poverty and suffering are getting out there? If you don't admit a problem it never will be fixed. Trump is part of the gaslighting always telling us "Lets Make America Great". Why aren't factories being built for more jobs if he really plans to re-industrialize America and bring the jobs back? I am confused. Some things aren't adding up. My running theory is he's shutting down the corporation called America. With the growing poverty and despair, very few realize how systemic and wide-spread this is. It can mess with people's sense of reality.
This is why Blackrock, Vanguard and other companies can buy up all the real estate and raise the rent even in super rural areas and there is no protest. Here's one thing going on few know about, they have been buying trailer parks. Trailer parks were one refuge of the very poor in the USA. If you hit really hard times you could rent a very cheap trailer in a trailer park. You could buy a trailer for far cheaper and pay a cheap lot rent.. That's now over. They have doubled the rent even at the trailer parks.
Here is one bad sign of the growing problems. Even in this richer town, there's the "hidden poor" and we just don't know each other. They could have come from the neighboring poorer area too. We use this food box at a local church, it's outside with open access. I both take and give to this food box. When I go to food pantries, they give me a lot I can't eat or am allergic to, from cereal to canned tuna and salmon to potatoes. I pile some of it up. We took the bags of this food and put it in the box. We went to the box just one day later to see if any new stuff I can eat got added, and almost all of this food was gone. I suppose the quickness of it disappearing said it all. Its a good thing people could use those things and they didn't go to waste.
The American economy is in bad shape. Instead of facing reality, America is gaslighting everyone and us poor people all feel like "throwaway" people. It doesn't bode well for a society or country when your young people are all unemployed or posting videos about how they will have no future. Youth is usually the time where people are eager and anticipate the future with hope.
The Democrats spent all this time gaslighting us. They told us things were great even as the inflation skyrocketed to outer space. Republicans aren't any better for us poor people, they always go after Medicare and Medicaid. No one ever cuts the empire war mongering costs or the 700 bases around the world. Who knows what the tariffs will do to us? Some Republicans have told me they think the USA is going to boom. I wish but I don't see it, Michael Hudson the economist says the American empire is in collapse. The ones in charge here are too greedy. They don't care if everyone's quality of life sinks to the bottom. Should working people be forced to live in their cars?
Sometimes they do put things in the news, to tell us "some" of what is going on, but they'll never address it. Notice no one is dealing with AI's impact on employment. Do you ever notice how no one questions the "job system" or how it is run?
That would include my husband who got stuck in the contract/gig/freelance gauntlet.
Some people hint to me their lives are economically bad. How did we ever get to this place where we are afraid to tell people our real economic situations? How did we get to this place where most of the poor are invisible and where even their very existence is denied? Why aren't there churches to turn to where one can get real support and pooling of resources instead of David Ramsey lectures or being told to care about "woke" issues that ignore economics? We need intentional communities for the poor and working class not just for rich boomers who can afford the $300,000-$400,000 buy in for the condo at the cohousing center. We need change but the ones in power obviously aren't interested. What's the game plan here to drive most of the population into permanent homelessness? To keep the crushing going with no end in sight? The rest of the world is watching, they see what America is doing to it's own people. They know something is wrong here. The gaslighting about the economy is off the charts.
