From: Spike (spike66@comcast.net)
Date: Sat Aug 23 2003 - 17:50:12 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: Barbara Lamar
Spike wrote:
> Depends on what you mean by the term "support". If
> one is satisfied with the standard of living they
> had "then," one minimum salary is way more than sufficient
> to make it happen.
Barbara wrote: I challenge you, Spike -- I'm not kidding, this is an
honest-to-dog challenge -- next time you can take six months off from
work, go out and try living at the lower end of the economic scale...
Barbara, I have *some* experience with poverty in the
form of a summer in Seattle in a $50 a month "apartment".
It had no electricity or windows, but the four apartments
had running water in the common kitchen down the hall, and
even a homebrew "shower" of sorts, plus an actual flush
toilet, so it wasn't as primitive as Gilligan's Island.
I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better. {8^D
... Here are the rules:
1. You cannot rely on your higher education or professional
experience...
I didn't have those at the time, just an incomplete
engineering degree and not the foggiest clue.
... 2. You have to leave your vehicle(s), credit cards, nice clothing,
etc. at home...
That was easy: didn't have a vehicle at the time,
unless you count a junkyard-refugee motorcycle I
managed to resurrect. Didn't have credit cards
or nice clothing either.
... 3. You cannot take money from your bank account via ATM, online or
through any other means...
There were no ATMs in 83, but it didn't matter, since I
had no bank account anyway, nor any actual money to put
in it had I had one.
...The only way you're allowed to get money is to earn it or obtain it
through begging...
The minimum wage was so high with respect to prices
in the early 80s that teenagers had to compete for
those jobs with actual adults. I lost. {8^D
... (by the way, I've been told by people who know from first-hand
experience that for the short term, you can do better by begging than by
getting a minimum wage job...
Funny you should mention that, for I just returned from
a motorcycle trip down to one of my favorite hangouts,
Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I had to check
out the controversial new Hooters, make sure that the
young nubiles employed there were not being exploited
by the evil capitalists, you understand. (Oh my goodness,
if only I were an evil capitalist. There were a number
of shapely young lovelies at that Hooters who I would
cheerfully and repeatedly exploit. {8^D )
On the wharf, one can see a large number of unoccupied
ecological niches for those in the gray area between
working and begging, an occupation that may be generically
defined as "Will work for fooding." Along with the usual
collection of harlots of both genders (and everything
in between), one will see various street entertainers,
mimes, joke tellers, buskers, instrumentalists, card
tricksters, fire-and-brimstone preachers, etc, all making
an apparently decent tax free living off of tips from the
touristas.
The will-work-for-fooders can make it by having a
schtick: pretending to have Parkinsons disease, for
instance. Today I saw one dressed in fishing garb,
hip boots, lure encrusted vest, with a sign saying
"The worst day fishing beats the best day working."
He had a pole with a paper cup tied on the end of
his line. Whenever a tourista would drop a few
coins in his cup, he would shout "GOT ONE!" and
reel it in.
Of course everyone there was a Vietnam veteran,
including those who were born well after the fall
of Saigon and those older than Senator Strom Thurman.
A notable exception was one whose sign insisted
"NOT a Vietnam vet. Went to Canada. It sucked there too."
The touristas gave him money.
The saxophone player got my attention, for I am
sure I can play better than he. With my
scrawny build, I could set up a sign saying
"Starving Musician" and people would believe it.
I have never used any kind of dope, but I kinda
look like a heroine addict, so perhaps people
would withhold donations for fear that they
would be contributing to my downfall. {8^D
...4. You have to live like this for a minimum of six months...
Interesting challenge Barbara, but I must decline,
for in my business, aerospace engineering, a six
month hole in the resume will result in one's losing
one's clearances, for the security people cannot
be sure one was not conspiring with the commies
during that period. That small portion of aerospace
engineering that does not require clearances has
already been mostly outsourced to Russia, with
little chance of it ever returning. A lot of
those who left the biz to chase a dream during
the dot.com boom were unable to get back in. Im
not ready to retire, altho the possibility of
job loss in the next couple years looms large.
...Also, bare survival isn't enough if you have children...
This I freely acknowledge. By the time the kids
get to first grade, they quickly learn that
poor is not sexy, and counterculture is not sexy.
I suspect that some of our best ruthless capitalists
grew up in antimaterialist homes. But the media
soon bombards them with messages that wealth, glamour
and glitter is where it is at, brought to you by
glamour and glitter salesmen. This is not a value
judgement on my part, merely an observation.
> Today you can earn enough to support yourself in
> a similar manner by working only a few months.
> Look around you, Robbie. Farmland is as cheap as,
> well, dirt. It costs practically nothing.
..."Practically nothing" is quite relative. You can pick up land in the
middle of the desert for just a few bucks an acre, but most tracts of
land on the market are in the thousands of acres...
My comment came from our family's experience with
my great-grandfather's farm in Greenup county Kentucky.
The family moved there in 1915 and they farmed it until
about the mid sixties, not very profitably I might add.
Then my grandfather and two of his brothers hobby farmed
it after he retired on and off in the 70s. The vacant
farm is still owned by one of my uncles but has been
fallow for three decades.
Greenup county has fewer people now than at the dawn
of the 20th century, as most of the small farms up
thru there have been abandoned. The soil is good there,
a stream runs year around, but it is hilly, so the 16
(or so) farmable acres are irregularly shaped and not
well suited to large farm equipment. Somehow they managed
to raise six children on that land. That farm and
others like it can be had for a very low price. Many
of them are likely being held merely for sentimental
reasons, and arrangements could be had to rent those
farms for almost nothing.
But none of the farms up that way have been operated
for any real profit for a long time. Tobacco is the
only profitable product, but tobacco is a very labor
intensive crop, so it would require a large family
to make it go, and even then, most of the children
would likely eventually conclude than a minimum wage
job in twon is a far easier way to live.
Another example of a way to make a living without
begging or a 9 to 5 is found up along the Kern
River in Southern Taxifornia. On the map, find
Ridgecrest, go west on 178 to Lake Isabella, turn
north up to Johnsondale and Camp Nelson. There
are a few subsistence farms along the river, and no
one cares what the hell you do up that way.
Gleaning of fields: I have an old college buddy who
raises potatoes in Idaho. Every year people show up
with burlap sacks right after the harvesters
are finished, every year he gives them as many
potatoes as they can physically carry away. He's
a generous guy: last year a vw bus showed up. He
loaded them up with as many as it would hold, these
being potatoes he already paid to have harvested.
I figure it is only a matter of time before someone
arranges to step on some sharp object or somehow
"accidentally" injure themselves while gleaning those
fields, so they can get themselves a free ticket in
the lawsuit lottery.
Those who say it is getting tougher seem to want to
both live near a city and raise larvae, two tasks that
I would agree would be tough if one wants to drop
out of the rat race. My contention is that if you
forgo all luxuries, don't smoke, drink or do drugs,
then it is easier now to merely survive than ever before.
Still, I cheerfully opt for the modern rat race and
everything that goes with it: the pressing crowds,
the vanity and vexation, the endless search for meaning,
the hurry, the struggle of constant competition,
the pointless glory of it all.
May the fastest rat win.
spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Aug 23 2003 - 18:04:59 MDT