This one was inspired by something my son said in an article about personal and professional intentions for the new year, which really struck me as significant in a more universal context.
Being poor in America has been experienced and exhaustively written about by many, but there’s a smaller category of people not usually considered or afforded empathy, who are also vulnerable to the whims and caprices of politics and economics. It’s constantly touted and hailed by politicians as the key to a better economy, the “dream” to aspire to—the very same politicians whose policies are now more than ever sabotaging that aspiration.
I refer to small independent businesses. You might assume a successful SB owner is just raking it in, making profits, hiring employees, enriching the economy and their family, a master of their own fate. Here’s a more accurate snapshot of a SBO, especially under trump deterrents. [Credit to my son.]
- Little to no savings buffer.
- No retirement options or benefits.
- Huge fixed out-of-pocket expenses like unaffordable healthcare.
- The concern that your kids will have to take care of you later in life.
- Scarcity of time to spend with kids, because income to cover expenses has to take precedence.
- Little to no time to go out with friends for personal respite and mental health.
- The guilt of buying oneself anything not essential, which might deprive the kids.
- Going without basics, like furniture.
- Little spare income to hire employees or childcare.
- One catastrophic event away from ruin.
These are just borrowed examples, and not the full extent of the picture, but you get the gist. Does this sound like someone who is riding the crest of success and trickling wealth down to the masses? No, it sounds an awful lot like being screwed along with most of the rest of us, under this self-centered, greedy administration.
My son cited the above as reasons to aspire to “get rich”. What’s shocking is that this is what our country has come to. You’d have to be rich to make it beyond treading water. There’s no longer a middle class conventional option for making a reasonable life for you and your family. Incentives to be creative, entrepreneurial, and self-sufficient, a supposed enricher of the economy at large, are few under our current lord-in-chief. The proverbial SB ideal is hyped, but without backing or support. The reality looks a lot like all the rest of us poor serfs.
On a lighter note, remember salads? Here’s one now. I’m aspiring to be skinny like the Skullies!
