Kinda like you frequently accuse people kissing the asses of the rich? Just because you eat bag-o-salad doesn't mean you should be so tough on yourself, Hoss. Well sure they do... I told you what my great grandmother ate. I can tell you this too, what's considered poor now days is rich compared to how she lived. My whole point was that times ain't what they used to be, nor are the people. People no longer make sacrifices when things are going bad as much as they used to. There are many people now days will go get food stamps, disability, etc.. just to free up their money to the note on the shiny new Escalade sitting out front, or to put $5,000 30" spinning wheels on their '79 deuce & a quarter... Is it ALL poor? Of course not, to suggest that would be asinine.
We plant a garden year round. Just got the last of my lettuce out. We even pulled carrots two weeks ago. My wife loves to garden so we have fresh veggies all year. This weekend I plan go get my early peas started and bring in more leaves to burn on the other rows. We have fresh veggies and have enough to share with all our family. We still hit the cookies and milk every night though. Lots of people have enough room for a garden. All the old timers had them. Remember victory gardens?
Just how many? Do you see this 10-20 times a day? Does everyone on food stamps own an expensive car and bling? Get real.
They both are fresh, the bagged salad have expiration dates. Yum, finest kind. Wilmaaaa! Is the salad ready yet.
Get real? You get new glasses and re-read what you quoted me on, Red. I chose the words "there are many" for a reason. I never said it was all of them; as a matter of fact at the end of the same post I once again stated, that to assume they all are exploiting the system would be asinine. Of course, you either A) never made it that far before smashing the quote button, or B) ignored it... And I'm the one who makes knee-jerk responses, eh? Got it. Sure, there were folks that came in and you could tell they genuinely needed the help. But FYI, yes, 10-15 times a day was very common, and that wasn't even a "grocery" store, it was a K&B drugstore.. They come in and complain about how poor they are and buy the same name-brand food stuffs anyone else did, which priced higher than the grocery store BTW. But yes, a lot of them were wearing designer clothes, shoes, jewelry, and have a fat wad of bills in their pocket to pay for things other than food. And the folks didn't act like it was a big deal. All part of the "I'm gonna get mine" attitude. Like Rippley says "Believe it or not", but I know what I saw on a daily basis there. Of course, you'll probably say I'm making this up but I'm ok with that. Admittedly, all of this was years ago but I'm pretty sure the problem hasn't ceased to exist, or improved over time. I knew way back then, if you give folks an inch, they'll take a foot, etc.. They don't use that expression just because it sounds cool, ya know. There is some truth to it. Poor folk can be just as crooked as you claim the rich are.
I am quite sure. But appearances can also be deceiving. I have an old friend currently drawing food stamps. She's in her late 40's and has worked all her life, but has been out of work for 2 years since the crash. She has depleted most of her savings and is just getting by with help from family and friends and food assistance. You may see her at the store. She has nice clothes and a nice car that she earned while working. But currently she has no income and takes advantage of the taxes that she paid for many years to get food assistance. She's poor. She wasn't always poor and I'm confident she'll get work some day soon and not have to be poor anymore. But times are tough and jobs are scarce.
No disagreement there. I don't deny the fact that there are people that need assistance, and they aren't the people I was describing as the problem. Many of my older family grew up poor in North Louisiana up around Winnsboro. I certainly wasn't taking anything away from them or folks like them by my comments. My grandfather stopped school in 5th grade and began to work in the cotton fields to help support his family, because they were poor and all of the members of the family worked to keep it going... kids, parents, no matter. Their first taste of electricity in the house was in the 1950's-60's or so.. Don't even ask about indoor plumbing, I think they added the bathroom in the 70's. He was skinny as a rail as well, btw. Later in life, he was able to overcome poverty. He didn't complain to anybody about his situation, he did whatever work it took, and if it didn't pay much he looked for more he could do to bring in money. My dad tells me he had all of his teeth removed with no anesthetic and didn't miss work the next day, because he simply couldn't afford to. He supported his family, retired, and managed to stash decent amount of money away in the process.. all on a 5th grade education and growing up the son of a share-cropper. The morning of the day he died at 73, he woke up and got on his bicycle and rode around town (usually 15-20 miles) digging aluminum cans out of dumpsters. He did this daily in his retirement, and collected anywhere from 30-50 lbs a day in cans per day. He wasn't poor at that age, he had simply gotten so used to working, he did it out of habit. The same tends to happen with people that get used to not working. Anyway, I guess my main point in all of this is, if there are rich that exploit the system, fine. There are just as many poor that exploit it too. I would wager more, since there's so many more poor people than rich as has been pointed out in this thread, and they need to be stopped as well. The sad thing is, at this point you could take away the tax breaks and get rid of entitlement programs altogether and we'd still be screwed economically.
And my point in all of this is to say you can get fat on the fatty and starchy food that poor people eat to stretch the dollar without spending a lot of money.
Yes, it does. But people generally don't get fat because they're poor. They get fat because they eat too much crap. Even poor people can eat healthy. What doesn't take money takes time and effort, but they can do it. Conversely, they can also remain in shape while eating crap food, so long as they don't shovel 3 servings down and drink a gallon of sugary soft-drink at every meal. I'd just as soon leave it at that, not that I don't thoroughly enjoy the discussion. :wink:
