The elusive economic recovery: a nerd can dream

 

There’s the lucky one percent, the luckier top tenth of one percent, there’s the fifty percent, and then there’s the bottom quartile. Somehow, despite an education and skills, I’ve ended up in the bottom and it’s as scary as it sounds. I’m talking minimal survival here, struggling every day for basic food, basic healthcare, modest shelter. That’s why I’m asking for donations this holiday season. A site like that this can’t operate for long as a hobby, not without a little support, but it’s way past that for me and so many others like me. The corporate sector has let us down, again and again, over the last few years. It has let down the kind of people you read about, the reportedly highly sought after employable computer nerds, regardless of what media stereotypes have been packaged and sold. And it doesn’t have to be that way, judging by reported corporate earnings, there should plenty to go around. Especially for those of us who actually do the work. Alas, for many there is not. [Read more…]

Maybe we don’t have to be poor anymore!

I can’t thank those of you who pitched in this month to keep me in lights and air conditioning and Internet. If anyone can spare a couple of shekels, please consider me, your humble atheist blogger. My Paypal account is at Darksydothemoon-AT- aol-com. A few more bucks this week and I’ll have survived this latest crisis. Things are looking up. Maybe we don’t have to be poor anymore … [Read more…]

Job growth in living wage states higher than minimum wage peers

If I collect a little more in donations this week, the blegging can stop. My Paypal email is Darksydothemoon-at-aol-com. Please chip in if possible to your gentle, progressive atheist activist. Sadly, there’s just no career path and little in the way of tangible benefits doing what I do here at FTB. Speaking of benefits, guess what happens when the minimum wage is raised to something closer to livable and guess what economic ideology is being shown as dead wrong on that score? [Read more…]

You too will be assimilated

Thanks so much to those that have helped out this month. For those who are new, I struggled for several years on barely-above- minimum wages after falling completely out of the middle class back in 2009. At eleven bucks an hour I slowly burned through my meager savings and then got hit by the financial coup de grace: a freak heart attack with complications. It’s just blind luck I happened to have health insurance and disability at the time. But the disability paid only a fraction of my crappy base pay and, of course, my out of pocket medical costs exploded. I survived, my job didn’t. Beginning in 2013 and through the new year, for the first time in my life, I faced down grinding poverty, food insecurity, cutting prescription meds in half or going without, and even the looming prospect of homelessness.

Finally, after recovering for the better part of a year, and then jumping through a lot of hoops for two more months to land a tech support job that might have paid a little better, it looked like things were turning up. Alas, just this month, just a few weeks after starting, I’m no longer employed and have no unemployment benefits. This all happened in the great state of Texas, where the social safety net for people in my shoes is essentially non-existent, even the Medicaid expansion that would help millions like me has been sacrificed to Gov Rick Perry’s fantasy of winning the GOP nomination for President. Please help out if you can, even if it’s only a few bucks. My Paypal email is Darksydothemoon-at-aol-com.

My story is sad but it’s becoming the norm. It’s just a matter of time before they come for other jobs that pay anything close to a living wage: [Read more…]

Wealthy inequality may be worse than measured

I had hoped not to have to ask, but I’m between jobs, approaching dead broke and could use any help anyone can provide. No amount is too big or too small. Paypal email is DarkSydoTheMoon-at-aol-com. The economy’s definitely better, at least there are more ads for jobs here in Austin than in months past. But few of them are the kind of jobs that pay a middle class salary. Mostly 10 and 11 dollar an hour deals. The one-percent are reportedly doing fine though: [Read more…]

A poll for Republican Jesus

In the Bible, Jesus spoke clearly on the spiritual mandate that all people of any means must heal the sick, feed the hungry, empower the powerless. A reasonable person might then conclude that a majority Christian government of the people, by the people, and for the people would reflect those sacred directives. And for the most part, people do. But few Republicans agree: [Read more…]

OK you hardcore webpage divas & start up devs, how can we get rich?

So, I think I have a job and I wanted to take a moment and thank all of you who have helped keep me afloat through 2013, which I hope will soon be the toughest year of my adult life fading in the rearview mirror. This particular job is a network support role and involves large agencies. It requires an extensive background check, now ongoing. If I pass that and it doesn’t fall through, the start date will be April 28th. It shouldn’t interfere with blogging and I’ll be able to get back into a regular habit without feeling like I’m wasting time doing something fun; writing and bitching about anything and everything here on FTB and elsewhere.

I know some of you have suggested consulting or being self employed in some way. I’m interested in knowing more about that. For example, there’s a lot of these companies popping up that set up web stores for small and medium sized businesses, like Web.com or Host Gator. Some offer design and support for the web pages, others hosting, still others will sync up social media, provide SEO services (SEO does sound a bit saturated, but I really don’t know enough about the state of that art to say for sure) and run email lists, a few try to do all these things.

What got me interested? Earlier this year an old friend who runs a landscaping biz offered me a few bucks [Read more…]

GOP base lashes out at budget deal: An inconvenient poutrage

I’m having PC issues and can’t wait to have a better system, I’ll have an update on that tomorrow. For now, do you have any spare DDR3 RAM, or would you please consider hitting my tip jar above and improving my shitty circumstances.

The Republican base doesn’t like the budget worked out by the Republican controlled House between seasonal McScrooge Paul Ryan and centrist dems. Boehner finally couldn’t take the bullshit anymore and lashed out at the base: [Read more…]