Politician Tries Minimum Wage For A Week

I almost never watch Lardball Hardball anymore but I caught a short segment on former governor Ted Strickland attempting to survive live on slave minimum wage for a week ($7.25). He characterized it as a failure. "Living nightmare" might be more accurate.

After taking rent and taxes (But, but, they say the poor pay no taxes!) into account that left 77 dollars for everything.

Most mornings started with eggs and toast, bought last Sunday during a grocery trip costing more than $15. Lunches were normally leftovers, macaroni and cheese or McDonald’s. There were no big dinners or coffee stops on a whim. But the challenges were beyond food.

Obviously he was not shopping at Whole Paycheck Foods for a week's worth of grub.

Because fresh fruits and vegetables are hard to find at a price within a minimum wage budget, I turned to bread, peanut butter, bananas and bologna more than anything else.

Yup, familiar with the old bread diet! Fills you up for cheap! Of course, long term this sort of diet rots your insides but we care as much about slaves in these times as did ancient Rome. Work them till they die then throw them away. There's some Judeo-Christian values for you!

CEO pay in the fast food industry increased by 300% since 2000, 

while workers pay has increased just 0.3%.

Wednesday morning, I had a meeting about a mile from my apartment, but in the opposite direction of my office. I would normally take a cab, but this time, I took off my jacket and walked the mile in 90-degree heat, then walked back almost 2 miles to my office.

See! The poor are reducing our dependency on foreign oil! But there's nothing like arriving to the office all hot and sweaty as everyone in the elevator moves as far away as possible from you. People don't want to get "poor" germs on them - plus you stink. Sometimes you can get fired just for being poor.

And early in the week when I actually caught a cold, I felt lucky to already have medicine at home that would help with the symptoms. Medicine, along with any other unexpected or additional expenses, often prevents the budget from stretching as far as it needs to stretch. That was a lesson I learned when my budget ran out on Thursday evening.

Ain't no stress like poverty stress. There's absolutely NO room for mistakes. You can't get sick (or your kids or your cat(!)), no fancy new clothes or Cancun vacations or cars or practically anything else you see in a commercial (that's not fast food). But if you do need help, there's always a predatory lender waiting just around the corner to fuck you over.

Poverty is a prison, a life sentence at hard labor while spit on by the people who benefit from said labor. We are mostly silent on these issues of social justice, not realizing that the price of that silence is many multiples the price for correcting injustice. Must it happen to all Republicans before we change our ways?

What this is is a day by day rape squeezing the lives of millions in hopeless toil as politicians exploit their anger and the rest stay silent out of fear. It's like being buried alive with no one acknowledging your screams as the dirt is heaped on top of you. Show me a capitalist and I'll show you a real terrorist. God won't help us.