WEDNESDAY SEVENS UP ON MIDDLE CLASS

I found the Wednesday Sevens during my usual pre-writing routine, (reading Yahoo News, scrolling twitter, checking Facebook like a pro.)

The sevens are,

Yahoo News: 7 Things the Middle Class Won’t Be Able To Afford in the Next 5 Years

Twitter: 7 Keys To Life

Facebook: Nothing, so I adapted.

Yesterday I sat and talked to one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met.

At a dog park.

Not the most interesting man in the world, but close.

He’s a funny looking short, fat, old guy in a goofy hat, a man who knows how to make everything an advantage, like being short, fat, and old.

He’s a guy who makes other guys want to be like him.

And he knows things, so I asked him my current question after coming back from England:

Who would be the first to crack if things took a drastic downward turn, the upper class, the middle class, or the lower class?

The first question I asked, to set things up properly, was, ‘What would happen if we had no transportation, no fuel for a car, a truck, a train, or a plane?

And what would happen if we had no means of communication? No electricity?

And then came, ‘Who would be the first to crack, the upper, middle, or lower class.

Smart guy that he was, he said he’d need to think about it.

Not me. I said middle class would crack first, and here’s why:

Those at the bottom have endured hardship their entire lives.

The middles are soft.

The uppers will find a way to adapt.

 

7 Things The Middle Class Won’t Do

Who makes these lists of what the middle class won’t do?

 

1. Extended Family Trips

When I was a kid we took one extended family trip and it was more than enough.

There were rumors of other families taking extended trips when they all showed up with suntans in a pale coastal Oregon town.

As a dad and granddad we’ve taken one extended family trip. It was nice, maybe the best trip ever since it was the only time I wondered why I lived where I live.

Yes, it was a trip to Hawaii, my one and only.

What made it more incredible than it already is? Kids and grandkids.

Hawaii was unbelievable; that my kids’ families were there too put it over the top.

Instead of reading shit online and getting downed out and morose, dig into where you are and make the local exotic.

Where to dig? The Oregon Historical Society. Start an adventure by tracking old landmarks that have endured, and visiting them.

What’s the oldest house in your neighborhood? Oldest house in your town?

What did the land around you used to be?

 

OHS offers free admission for low-income families through the Museums for All national initiative of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

This program was created to make quality museum learning experiences available to everyone.

Individuals and families (up to four) who present their SNAP or WIC Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Card at the admissions desk will receive free admission and a 10% discount on purchases in the OHS Museum Store.

 

2. New Cars

Both my parents worked white collar.

They owned one car, a Volkswagen camper, and the old man’s company car.

We thought we were rich.

I didn’t own a car until thirty-one when I got married to a car owner with a used Datsun B210.

We thought we were rich.

With our first born we bought a bare bones Mazda 626 for $11,00 and drove it for twenty years until my younger son retired it on the way to high school.

More like un-tired it.

 

3. Private School Tuition

No private school?

I’m sure the schools are worth every dollar, but sharp parents know that learning doesn’t end with the last bell of the day.

Life long learners push their kids harder than any school.

If you’re not a life long learner, make sure you marry one.

 

4. Homeownership and Real Estate

The author of the article is using California as an example.

Is California expensive? From what I hear, yes.

“Especially in certain high-demand areas of the country,” he said, “it’s still pretty difficult to have an offer accepted on a home unless you’re bidding far over the asking price, waiving key elements of the inspection and sale, offering in cash, etc.”

Does everyone want to live in LA and San Francisco?

We’ve spent a lifetime watching celebrities cavort and it looks good, so yeah, LA.

Oh, but we’re not celebrities with unlimited money for an upgrade on our mansions, beach houses, and apartments in the city.

Would you want that lifestyle? Ask Ben Affleck.

 

5. Healthcare Costs

Many middle-class families may find themselves unprepared for the financial strain of long-term care, whether for themselves or aging parents.

 

There’s a way to do it, but it takes cooperation.

If you’ve talked to your parents ahead of time, you likely have a plan in place for how to help when they need it. But knowing when it’s appropriate—or necessary— for you to jump in can be a challenge.

Ask me about jumping in too early.

 

6. Leisure and Travel in Retirement

What was once considered an attainable goal for the middle class may soon become a luxury.

 

How many times have you heard someone talk about a trip like it was nothing?

“Oh yeah, we went to Italy, it was too hot.”

“We went to France when there was a strike and it ruined everything.”

“We went to England and the driving was awful.”

 

Travel is a luxury unless you’re a refugee and you’re making a run for it.

People in Portland have the travel advantage with Washington just across the Columbia.

Go over there and travel back two hundred years in Fort Vancouver.

 

7. ‘Safe’ Investments for Retirees

I may be wrong here, but the reference to ‘retirees’ seems pointed at baby boomers.

How were the safe investments from the predatory loan practice that created the financial crisis of 2007-08?

 

Subprime lending thus represented a lucrative investment for many banks.

Accordingly, many banks aggressively marketed subprime loans to customers with poor credit or few assets, knowing that those borrowers could not afford to repay the loans and often misleading them about the risks involved.

 

By now we’ve seen enough of the big-living, big truck, big boat, big house lifestyle built of cards, credit cards, and all fall down.

Enough of the big talking, chest thumping, self-made men living in their best lives in their big house with their big boat in the garage and their big truck backed up on the driveway.

Those with any heart never want to see grown men go from being kings of their world to crying on TV with others wearing a shirt that says, ‘Help Me Save My Home.’

Is it too big a stretch to think these people who were helped during the Obama years are the same people loving their ACA insurance but hate Obamacare?

 

The Wednesday Sevens, Part 2

If you don’t believe in God, then start with #2 down and you’ll still live a Godly life.

You might ask yourself, ‘Is it helping the Godly life in Louisiana by adding new decorations to the classrooms?’

We see what passes as a Godly life when preachers go off the rails in their zeal for a little something something?

“Evangelical Protestants very much subscribe to the idea that sexual sin is the mother of all sin,” says Samuel Perry, a sociologist of religion who trained at an evangelical seminary.

“It is the most dirty, the most damning, the most shameful.”

 

Dirty. Damning. Shameful. But only if you do it right.

 

“There’s an understanding [among evangelicals] that God designed men to be natural sexual initiators,” says Samuel Perry, who now teaches religious studies at the University of Oklahoma.

“Being an evangelical man and confessing to being somebody who makes sexual mistakes almost validates your masculinity,” he says.

 

Depends on the sort of mistake, doesn’t it?

I heard this years ago:

The church pastor was getting frisky with a congregant’s wife on an off day.

They were out among the pews when the woman said, “Oh Pastor, let’s do it standing up this time.”

In shock and all aghast the pastor said, “Oh Heaven’s no, woman. If someone sees us they might think we’re dancing.”

 

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