On the heels of Missy's report, I ran across an interesting set of articles on a phenomenon that we've probably all seen. Worth reading.
"Los Angeles Times reporter Peter G. Gosselin has spent the last year examining an American paradox: Why so many families report being financially less secure even as the nation has grown more prosperous. The answer lies in a quarter-century-long shift of economic risks from the broad shoulders of business and government to the backs of working families."
2 comments:
After reading those 3 stories you can't help but feel lucky. The 3rd one is quite a tear jerker. Those folks had some hard times and a long way to fall. The 2nd part of the series indentifies people who have the type of hard luck I see quite frequently in the construction industry. Barring the personal tradgety side of the coin there is not much distance to fall and a whole lot of room to improve. In my world most people can tell you some stories of financial ruin but they are generaly followed by a great comeback. If the subjects in part 2 interest you try the book NICKELED AND DIMED I read it some time ago but thought it was interesting and funny.
I really liked Nickeled and Dimed, too. I recommended it to Mom, and I saw it on the bookshelf there when I visited, so maybe she's read it, too. Mom once commented to me that you could not make health care policy decisions based on anecdotes (or something like that, anyway -- sorry Mom if I'm misrepresenting you, even if you remember this). The point, I think, is that there is always some story about someone in terrible straights no matter what policy is in place that didn't serve their needs while it was serving others. The thing I liked about this set of articles was the combination of real-world stories with real people, coupled with the more analytical perspective on the way policies have been shaped to shift the risk burden to individuals. I recently read Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston. This is a book that does a similar job on the topic of how the tax system has been slanted to benefit the super-rich -- and in case anyone is concerned, that's none of us reading this blog.
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