The "poor" make their choice

Some exceptions, but most actively choose

Published on March 9, 2004 By Dynosoar In Politics

This is my observation after 15 years making a comfortable living off of the poor.

I have to confess, I am a "Affordable Housing Provider", with monies I made selling, financing, and repossessing cars, I bought Real Estate. Not fantastic mansions, but 800 to 1200 sq ft houses, a couple of duplexes, and 1 small apartment building ( 6 units). I do not participate in Title 8, or any other government subsidy program. Those programs provide me with plenty of people who do not qualify for anyone else, 'cept me. It's quite simple, and with the exception of houses that need major repairs ( due to tennent damage ) I keep my rentals full. This is a "high risk, high return" game.

My average tennent is unmarried, 2 children, and receives on average a net of $2000.00 per month in income !!! This income is derived from AFDC, SSI, Child Support. They are typically enrolled at Community Col, have free daycare, and have the nicest nails and hair you'd ever want to see. This doesn't include the windfall in the spring when "Tax Season" begins, our government has created the Earned Income Credit, (which I really believe is veiled reparations), if my renter has held any job and earned at least $2000.00 in the past year, the average refund of my renters has been $3500 !!!!!!!

This cash is what runs the economy of my area. Our chamber of commerce has stated that the 1st qtr of the year( tax time ), has
surpassed the Christmas season in spending....

So, my renters, to collect my rent is like pulling teeth, I have to personally vist every one every month. Then I get to see how much the boyfriends have torn up, I get to see the big screen TV's, stereos, Sat dishes, new furniture, and the bills stacked up in the kitchen. Oh, forgot to mention the cars with new tags in the yard.

The cars, heh, I used to tell my car customers at closing to always remember " you can sleep in the car, but you can't drive that house ", I'm eating those words now. Seems everything comes before the rent, Hair, Nails, CD's, rims, clothes, goodness, the clothes. I had a renter to skip out, we locked down the house so she couldn't return, and she never did ( tried to sue me, but never returned) The House was left in such a mess, it was a 3 bedroom but we threw out over 10 mattresses, a DUMPSTER full of clothes( no, none of this was fit to donate ) They had kindly burned holes with an iron into the carpet of every room....She was 3 months behind and had been in the house for only 4 months....oh well.

I rent a house to a family who had worked hard to buy a house, and then just gave it up. The maintanance was killing them, when the toilet clogged up there was no one to pay for the repair......No one to cut the grass, or paint the shutters.......I bought that house out of foreclosure for about half of the balance they owed, spent $2000 on repairs, and rented it back to them. They're happy now? I find that it is culturally ingrained in the "poor" of this area to work the system, it offers a comfortable life, without having to try hard at all.

They receive a fantastic education from their churches who teach accessing those benefits ( along with the need to tithe...), the social services assist them with everything but an enviroment for a Nuclear Family.
Women run this entire operation, "poor" men in this area are devalued to the extreme, if they are caught in the Housing Authority the woman can lose all of her benefits, they are constantly brought to court for child support, and subsequently locked up for non-payment ( but the mother of the baby has to keep having children to maintain her lifestyle ) We have over 9% unemployment in this area, there is no job out there, yet the men have to stay on the fringe of this culture for the survival of the mothers and children........Hey, I didn't create the system, I just live off of it.

Comments (Page 3)

Archer

on Mar 10, 2004

PoetPhilosopher:

"It may be more accurate to say "The rich get richer and the poor get richer very, very slowly"."

It depends on the amount of work and sacrifice they put into it. The secret to wealth is labor and retention of money. I should be sitting on a massively fat bankroll right now, except for the fact that even as I was taking home princely sums of money (despite my involuntary contributions to the Federal beast) I was blowing it in an utterly irresponsible fashion. If I'd started out young, put together a solid plan and put in the same amount of labor, I'd probably be well on the way to a million by now, if not already there and looking at the next few. If I'd been a bit more fiscally sensible, I'd be like a fellow I worked for back in the day, a millionaire who lives with his wife in a forty-foot vacation trailer.

People want the wealth without both the work and the sacrifice. They want the trinkets, not the achievement.

"Case in point. Unfortunately - politicians spout off about tax cuts and the extra $600 you get, all the while shifting the burden from the super-rich to the middle class. And for some inexplicable reason, "middle america" doesn't see through this. Possibly because they've been bamboozled into thinking it's an issue of entitlements for the poor, when in reality it's about the progressivity of the tax brackets. Well... economics is complex."
It's all about the downward / upward spiral, right ?"

I don't believe in the so-called progressive tax system. Because a person makes more money than I do in no way entitles me to a share of that income, nor does it put upon them the onus of having to have a larger portion of their income confiscated. It's not my money, it's not your money, it's their money, and they're welcome to it. Let the rich buy all the damn yachts they want, and if they're on a big yacht-buying tear, I'll get shares in a yach-building company and make a tidy profit.

Oh, and one other point about the 'super rich.' With that delivery job of mine, we had to stagger out how we turned in our payroll accounts, because if we weren't careful about crediting too much work in a single week, we'd get kicked up to the next tax bracket, putting us firmly in that level of Al Gore's "Very weaaaaaallllthiest Americans." Because of the static nature of the income brackets, more Americans by the year discover that huzzah, they're wealthy.

vincible

on Mar 10, 2004

somebody who used to work 120 hour work weeks only to have forty hours of that work week get siphoned straight away into federal coffers to support these parasites

Okay, let's keep the problem in perspective. Whether or not the "system" is being widely abused (and I don't know enough to take a stand on that--the anecdotal evidence presented here notwithstanding), this type of program is really a very tiny portion of the federal budget. Aid to Families with Dependent Children, SSI, food stamps and so on only take up a couple percent of government spending--this is well-documented. (The exact figure depends on exactly what programs you choose to include.) Your forty hours are getting siphoned away to pay mainly for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national defense, and interest on the national debt. You might be working for the welfare cheats for twenty minutes or so out of your 120 hour week--which is bad, but not really a huge problem in the big scheme of things.

StumpMan

on Mar 10, 2004

Living here in Eastern NC, I have to say Dynosoar hit the nail on the head.....

I've seen what he is talking about the majority of my life.

Dynosoar

on Mar 10, 2004

Hey stumpman,
Thanks for the validation, I'm sure others ( as noted in more than a few comments ) see the same in
their neck of the woods.
As for those that are presently blind to the situation, perhaps they may take a closer look around, next time
they ride thru "that part of town".

Draginol

on Mar 10, 2004

As much as I dislike AFDC and other welfare programs, vincible is correct. They are a miniscule amount of the budget.

But we do know that roughly $40 billion per year are spent just on food stamps by the federal government. And a large amount by the states as well.

I pay 33% in federal taxes and 6% state. That's about 40% right there. We then have a 6% sales tax so using that money puts us up to almost 50% of our income effectively taxed before we even get to property taxes, gas taxes, and various "fees".

As someone who considers himself pretty good about spending money (my wife and I invest as much as we can) my biggest problem with paying such high taxes is that so much of it is just plain wasted.

That is why I prefer private industry to the government to solve problems when possible. Generally speaking, private companies have an incentive to be efficient. The government, by contrast, has no incentive to be efficient and thus is not.

jeblackstar

on Mar 10, 2004

What Social worker in their right mind would suggest a program that would put her organization out of business?

Most doctors I know would happily go out of business if it meant the end of disease.

cheers

Lunaticus Minimus

on Mar 10, 2004

My only problem in the entire equasion, Dynosoar...is when someone points the finger at me and says I'm not doing another to help out the poor and to take care of my fellow man.
When I become resentful of that treatment, I get told I'm not sympathetic to the plight that is of the poor. That the poor are people who desperately need me to bail them out and shame on me for turning a blind eye to it all. As you said, they seem very content to be the way they are. They seem content to live and interact as they do..but God strike me down for not contributing to their happiness. For once I'd appreciate if there was a "middle class fund"..in which everyone from a certain finacial bracket got money they never earned simply because they are middle class. "Hey, you make between X and X amount of dollars! Here's 25,000 for the year of 2005. You won't be taxed for it, have a nice day!" I'm just saying it would be nice. ;o) Please..won't you donate to my cause? *tears well up in the eyes* I'm human, too.

Lunaticus Minimus

on Mar 10, 2004

that first another should be Enough. Bleh lol

Dynosoar

on Mar 10, 2004

LM,
It is the beauracrats job to perpetuate the system, be it by guilt, or rationalization, the "poor" are nothing more
than a means to their end.

Jeb,
Certainly you are right concerning most MD's, but then they would turn to a cosmetic practice. But you know, iradicating all
disease is a more attainable target than eliminating "poverty".

Brad,
I mirror your tax and investment obligations ( at least in general percentages and practice ) but I believe ( or rationalize )
that I get my fair share of those tax dollars back by serving my chosen market niche....

Perhaps if you designed a software program with Governmental applications, you too could reap back your "investment"
of taxation?
Of course as a provider to Government your application would have to be way over priced and obsolete before
instalation, otherwise it wouldn't meet Federal standards.......( hehehe)

jeblackstar

on Mar 10, 2004

I actually doubt that most MDs would turn to cosmetic practice, but that's something else entirely.

Cheers

J13

on Mar 11, 2004

jeblackstar:

Most doctor's may happily go out of business if all disease was eradicated, but most pharmaceutical companies would not. Drug companies would rather prolong the disease than cure it... or make a cure that you need to take daily to keep the disease away.

jeblackstar

on Mar 11, 2004

Absolutely, it's eroneous to compare poorly paid and over worked social workers to the Drug Companies however.

Cheers

Dynosoar

on Mar 11, 2004

Jeb,
Overworked ? Granted their mission is a noble one, but if their management focused on the problems instead of
perpetuating the Department.............
Oh yes, they are overworked, filing forms, learning new regulations, new qualifications.........

Nothing personal, but I've always considered a Social Worker a professional meddler.....

jeblackstar

on Mar 11, 2004

Ahh, yes, those damn social workers who break into people's homes and take their children from them, those children who have pesky bruises, broken bones, burn scars, concussions, organ damage, mental psychoses, etc.

Yes, those troubling meddlers, we ought to stop them so those parent's can go back to their god given right to beat and abuse their children.

Jeers to Dyno.

jeblackstar

on Mar 11, 2004

Some of the people I graduated from Law School with, went into Family law.

These judges deal with approximately 60 cases a day, that's one case every 8 minutes. Now, these people deal with divorces, but most often they have cases refered to them from these meddling social workers. And many of the cases of abuse I've seen, and they've dealed with would make your blood run cold, this is not a overzealous parent, this is thrashing a kid within an inch of their life. Pushing their faces into the electric stove, locking them for days and weeks in a closet without allowing them to eat or use the bathroom.

Professional meddlers? If so, thank God!

Cheers

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