Roomin' House Blues

These days we here quite contrary things on the economy.  We are told that with the massive deficits, personal and business debt today, Americans need to spend less and save more or we will never restore economic health.  Then we are told that the economy is dead in the water because consumer spending has slowed down and that we must spend, spend, spend to get it going again. Which should do? Both! That's right, both.  The most serious problem we are facing is not the national and personal debt.  Nor  is the lack of consumer spending.  as serious as each of those problems are, they are symptoms of a greater problem.  The growing disparity of wealth and income.  The middle class is shrinking, the poor are getting poor, even the rich are often losing ground to the wealthy few. Income, property and saved wealth are concentrating in fewer and fewer hands. By itself this is problem.  The economy exists to s...

Both middle income and low income Americans have been abused gravely by our financial system.  Our financial sector has grow from 20% to 30% of our economy, causing huge national debt, a roll coaster on the investment markets and a growing burden to the majority of Americans as our financial tycoons figure out how to take money borrowed from abroad and turn it into profit on our backs.  One of the best things our recent Congress did is pass a financial reform bill.   Now there is a Americans for Financial Reform Coalition asking for use to fill out a survey to advise them on what financial regulations to press for.  Please follow the link and take a minute to fill out the questionnaire. http://ourfinancialsecurity.org/

I have no finished solution, no absolutes for fixing societies problems, because I believe that man cannot do anything good without dependency on God.  But I do have views are similar to what Dorothy Day actually believed and experiences like her's. Dorothy, before she converted to the Catholic faith,  wrote for leftist and communist publications and thought that Marx had the answer.  While she was closer to an agnostic than an atheist, she definitely did not look to God for guidance.  After her conversion she stated categorically to a communist friend that she believed in all the church taught. She believed, as Aquinas taught, that there was a role for property in protecting people, a role for the State and a role for non-state actors.  She followed in her own fashion, G.K. Chesterton.   Chesterton sought a economic system of greater equality through the distribution to economic power.  More Capitalist not less he said, whe...

I live in an America outside the box of success. I am not uncontaminated by the contents of the box.  It spills over on us who are poor.  For 13 years I have worked as a parking attendant, outside the accepted definition of success in America. I harbored my faith in good, my love of books and arts, my dreams for the future, my past as a community organizer in my heart. My dreams, my past, my faith, the things I loved conflicted--stormy conflict sometimes.  And yet I remained of good cheer and equanimity.  My standard of living began to erode as the costs of my needs grew and when my hours were cut.  And then I lost my job. For over a month I have been unemployed.  I am in greater fear now than before.  I am in a country that has forgotten her poor, her unemployed, those losing their houses, but has not forgotten those too big to fail. When I first lost my job, after 13 years, I entered a dark hole.  In the da...