Money is Everyone’s Vice
Human beings like to label things and this society often brands a person based on what that individual does as a source of income. That makes sense, of course, being that this is a capitalistic economy, but should it? Generalized individuals seemingly find their careers to be simply identities for themselves. And why not? Whenever a person wakes up every day to do the same thing as the previous, they tend to identify with the procedure over time. But, there is another motivation in every job or career and that is to make money. Every job, no matter what positive good you may do for whoever, makes money for you. Even if it’s a little and you could’ve made more selling out and working at wherever, it doesn’t matter. Every job makes money, that’s what makes it a job.
So, apparently, we got to this point where we made money the ultimate goal of every individual for at least some portion of that person’s life. And how’s that? The goal of any species, seemingly, is to survive. Human beings have created a world that requires an individual to have money. And not just have money, but a world where the more money the individual has the more freedom and flexibility he or she is able to enjoy throughout it. A child goes to school and receives reports on his or her progress, and stresses out more and more as he or she attends year after year of lawfully required schooling.
This is done, we are told, to make sure the child becomes a productive member of society. The word productive is used, apparently, in relation to economical productivity. It’s our society’s way of providing the individual with the knowledge necessary to be self-motivated — every one of us. The skills we need to rise above our peers in whatever this is.
So, after years of raising ourselves under the guidance and protection of investment portfolios and life insurance in case we die before our loved ones, we find ourselves at a point of global economic crisis.
Jobs, the catalysts needed for individuals to make money, are scarce, and getting scarcer while the population and cost of living continue to grow. So, basically, not only is it hard for someone to make money doing what they like to do, but it’s getting less and less possible for them to get a job anywhere at all. We’ve arrived at this point where there are too many people and too few jobs.
The goal of the GA program in San Francisco is to provide an individual with the means to survive until the individual can re-enter the workforce. Recipients do Workfare eight hours per week to make 320 dollars each month. The work that is done is city labor, street sweeping, bus cleaning, janitorial work and all is done at a fraction of the cost of entry-level city positions. It’s basically an unrecognized job working for the City — it’s the City’s way of getting cheap, non-unionized labor.
And, now, on top of it all, there’s this whole Proposition N that’s trying to take 85 percent of a person’s 320 dollar monthly payment in exchange for a cot at a shelter, a service already supposed to be made available. So, that would leave the city with even cheaper labor, paying workers $58.88 per month in exchange for 32 hours of work. That’s an hourly wage of $1.84.
The argument is given that the given-up money will provide the individual with the proper housing and other care that the individual needs. So, if the individual prevents his or herself from spending even a cent of their $14.72 weekly pay over the course of one year, that person will have saved $706.56, almost enough for the security deposit on a studio apartment in the Tenderloin.
Many still argue that those affected by these potential changes need to simply get jobs and become productive citizens. But it’s a difficult task for thousands to find employment when there aren’t enough jobs available in the city for hundreds. Those looking to get on their feet and improve their lives can enter a program like those offered by the Supportive Housing Employment Collaborative, where individuals are able to add various work experience to their history. Individuals who enter these programs are obviously trying to create positive change in their lives and the programs do offer help with job placement.
But the jobs are usually shortterm and, outside of these non-profit housing providers, no specific local companies have taken an adamant stance in favor of hiring formerly homeless employees.
There’s no questioning the fact that many homeless people have barriers such as mental health issues, substance abuse, learning and physical disabilities, and record blemishes such as a criminal history or hospitalizations for them to work through. But many of these barriers have been created, obviously, by the lifestyle and environment the individual is surrounded by on a daily basis. Just as an advertising executive drinks a cup of coffee every morning with two cream two sugar, a homeless woman may start her day off with an early morning hit from a crack piece. Both are considered addictive substances. Or the housewife who watches Oprah everyday at the same time, and demands not to be bothered by her family during this time, or while reading O Magazine. What separates her from the homeless man who, after a hot afternoon of sweeping the tourist-congested streets and sidewalks of Pier 39, likes to unwind with a bottle of cheap hooch?
The obvious realization is that people who hold respectable or acceptable roles in society can afford to enjoy the vices they choose. They continue to go to work and lead what they themselves view as productive lifestyles.
As does a workfare worker.
Workfare workers, the majority of whom are persons of color, are supervised with strict oversight, usually by a person of “non-color.” And if a worker is late to work or reports too intoxicated to function properly, the individual has his benefits discontinued. So the question becomes is it better off being a tweaked-out bum, or an abusive, alcoholic capitalist? Or neither?
The point here is that a label is only that, one person’s view of something, a biased perception, based on all the things that person knows to be reality.
Of course some guy working 40-plus hours at any job doesn’t want to see anybody getting money for free. The problem is that he thinks it’s free. And yes, for some it is, just like in the business world where some people get paid to sit on their ass while others bust theirs for a fraction of the pay. Some people do get out of doing their workfare, or spend all of their money on alcohol or drugs, and yes it’s a problem. But assuming that most homeless people are like that creates an untrue, generalized view of homelessness, and becomes perhaps the biggest barrier of all in relation to improving their employment opportunities.
It’s the same as generalizing all white businessmen as self-indulgent, greedy, powerhungry capitalists.
The current image of homelessness in the minds of the general public is not in a particularly good state. The country is in this economic panic, fearful about talk of recession. People are trying to get money from wherever they can for whatever they don’t really need it for. And now, they’re being informed about this burden on the economic system that homelessness is, by the same people who drive expensive cars and other cliché rich activities.
It has them thinking about how homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk hamper the day by bumming the ambiance and how these people need to clean themselves up and get jobs. While bias can be to blame for some of the problems on behalf of employers when it comes to hiring workers with blemishes on their personal records, others simply don’t have the time or money to train them. Some employers are willing to take a chance, however, after being spoken to in what’s referred to as their own language, which explains to them visions of tax breaks and other kickbacks for hiring disabled workers.
But even these incentives aren’t enough because, simply, there aren’t really any jobs available. This current economic frenzy has jobs on the downlow again, with panic-stricken companies spending their time and money on getting consumers to buy their products or subscribe to their services and less on creating jobs to allow more revenue for them to actually do so.
In 1994, this continent passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, and American companies rushed south to Mexico to claim the newly available land the Mexican government had taken from the families who had been farming it for generations. America aided Mexico with military force to help the country enact this devastating change, and violation of constitution, upon its citizens, who themselves were, and still are, in revolt. Mexico went into economic decline while America enjoyed soaring stock prices and an increase of inflation. For the ten years prior to the passage of NAFTA, Mexico’s poverty rate stayed at around 34 percent. Five years after its enactment, 65-75 percent of all Mexican families found themselves living below the poverty line.
Prior to September 11, 2001 the American government was in talks with leaders of South and Central American nations in relation to a proposed Free Trade of the Americas Agreement, which would basically extend NAFTA throughout the Americas. Media coverage of the pending proposal has quieted since.
American companies don’t like paying American wages, thus the NAFTA rush of ‘94. And since it’s been nine years, some are growing tired of paying the admittedly cheap Mexican wage and want to pay even less, so are working to move or create facilities in even poorer countries. So with American companies focusing time and money on ways to create cheap worldwide business relations, it becomes increasingly harder and harder for the people that live in America to find jobs.
And while those who invest in these companies continue to see their bank accounts growing, more and more people living here without steady work or inflation-consistent pay are finding themselves phased out by their lack of ability to stay afloat financially. So they’ll do anything for whatever little money they can receive, since it’s all they can do to stay alive. Even sweeping the streets for $1.84 an hour and sleeping on a cot two inches away from some other guy trying to do the same thing. Like all of us everyday that we go anywhere, we’re trying to obtain money so that we can prolong our death sentence.
It seems hypocritical for a society that boasts itself upon freedom to stay competitive in the world economic market from the closest thing to slave labor.
We’re told that there are no jobs because there is no money to provide them. There are limitless arguments on how the money could come about, but those arguments fall into the same category as trying to make money. Economic arguments come from individuals whose job it is to create economic arguments. As long as a dollar sign is attached to anything it seemingly burns its own credibility.
So it would seem that money is the central cause for its own crisis.
Money, or what we acknowledge and perceive money to represent, arouses certain feelings within individuals that causes them to behave in ways that he or she wouldn’t have without having these money-related associations stapled into their perception. Without money, we’re just human beings trying to survive and having as pleasant of an experience here as we possibly can.
Instead of inspiring logical comparisons to geese in flight, taking turns to share the heavy load of wind resistance, human society has seemingly become reminiscent of a pack of wild jackals fighting over each shred of capital, snarling at one another and mindlessly diving back into the bloody carcass.”
Steve