1. Painting
I helped when I could, but frankly that wasn’t very often. He did all the work—taping the drywall joints, applying layer after thin layer of mud, sanding and rubbing and checking the surface closely with his hands.
He talked about his family—about his daughters, about his wife’s late night shifts at the drug store, about his mother and father years ago, about the brother he works with and his youngest brother who died tragically years ago. He talked about working in a machine shop in California. He talked about looking for work in Alaska when he was 20. And he talked about working with his father when he was young.
“My brother and I barely get half as much painting a house today as we did with my father more than twenty years ago.”
And that’s in absolute dollars no adjustment for inflation. Twenty years ago, they could make a living at it but not today. He’s looking for other work.
The bottom has fallen out.
2. Powder
Actually, the bottom has been falling for a while. But now that the middle class and white collar workers are beginning to feel the pain, the story is gaining a little more traction. Meanwhile the elites in the corridors of power and finance strategize and make their plans, oblivious to the despair about them.
Did you know that there have been protests on Wall Street in New York City, for almost two weeks? The Occupy Wall Street protesters don’t have an organized agenda or at least no clear list of concrete demands, but they are mighty angry. They, like the Tea Party, are a consequence of this despair.
They might not be well organized. They might not have leadership executing a plan, but does it ever really work that way? It might not be a powder keg, but there’s clearly a lot more powder out there than most people realize.