CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

While the dry spell at work is over for the time being and I'm back to 40 hours a week as opposed to the 24 hours each week for the last three weeks, I wonder how long it will last. My foreman did a great job of juggling us IJ's so there were no lay offs (24 hours is better than none after all ) but our already rickety ass budget was almost down for the count. The new contracts came just in time.
I keep reading things about the economy, and none of it is good news unless you buy into the bullshit pouring out of the bush white house. A very small percentage of americans have outpaced (by a long shot) other americans who earn between 70 and 100,000 dollars a year (those were the days) by virtue of the bushites, saddling them with the bulk of the tax burden on the way to being dubbed the "hyper rich". Those making 70,000 and below maintain by increasing debt and juggling bills and rent and/or mortgage payments while keeping fingers crossed that no one in the family falls ill or they get their job outsourced from underneath them. The middle class no longer exists.
I haven't seen any recent stats to back up my next thought, but I think it has merit.
I predict a sharp increase in crime over the next 5 years. Bank robbery, burglary, drug dealing, car theft, petty theft, that sort of thing. Desperate people do desperate things. I wouldn't put it past anyone who was hungry enough, whose kids were hungry as well, shoplifting food.This is after the unemployment runs out and you lose your house and the food banks and other resources are gone because of budget cuts.Some peole are too honest to resort to criminal behavior. I saw one of those folks today, standing on the stoop of a church in soiled clothes talking to himself and waiting for a handout. You can't rely on the kindness of strangers for very much when they are half a step behind you on the road to ruin.
So, the question for me last night was what would you be capable of doing if push came to shove? Rob banks? No...too risky, someone could get hurt or worse,killed. Burglary? No...I'm not wrapped like that, I couldn't steal from people in the same boat as me. Deal drugs? No...even when I sold pot to my friends in high school the anxiety surrounding the consequences wasn't (well, almost wasn't) worth the huge sums of money I made, but I'm older now and more anxious. Steal cars? that's for the bored teenagers of the hyper rich...a lark I have no interest in.
I decided I would be better off struggling along like I have been and hope for the best...2009 isn't that far off, right? Right?!
But if you ever see me on a church stoop talking to myself, keep in mind how I got there and if you're able, throw me a bone.
It's a scary world out there, more so for some of us.