Out Of Touch

I'm not going to pretend that I fully understand what is going on with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

But I can tell you this: I was ENRAGED when I saw Herman Cain say that if people don't have jobs (and, he added, if they're "not rich") they should blame themselves.

(Isn't he running for something, by the way? Some kind of Oval Office? Yeah, good luck to you, sir.)

I don't talk a lot about my work here, but it involves working with small business owners and lending agencies, and private, 3rd party inspection services. As a result I work with the guy who runs your local gas station, the guy who is selling him a POS system, and a third party, self employed guy who is going to go check out the whole thing -- all over the country. I can tell you where business is picking up and where business has curled up and died in ALL kinds of industries. I can tell you who is struggling and who isn't. I can tell you that the number of people who call us, looking to get into our line of work, is growing at an alarming rate because, as jobs go away, they are looking for something where they can try to piece together a living in the meantime.

I can tell you that it's hard all over. That even as people come to us looking for work (and I can tell you how awful it is to have to tell them that I don't have any work for them right now), other people -- people I've worked with for years -- are being forced out of our line of work because they can't afford it anymore. Gas is too expensive. The work can be too sporadic. Sometimes they retire. Sometimes they are lucky enough to find a full time job -- or two part time ones -- and scrape together enough to get by. Not to get rich, mind you. No one here seems to be getting rich. But to get by.

And to be honest, getting by seems to be all anyone is doing. I can tell you this, too -- no one works harder than a small business owner. No one cares more about  her employees than the one at the helm, who knows people are counting on her for their rent, their food, the shoes for their children. But she should work harder, right? If her business fails -- and small businesses do fail, increasingly, for a variety of reasons (some of which have to do with lending practices, and franchise regulation -- or lack thereof -- or large chain businesses moving into an area and undercutting pricing) and people lose their jobs -- it's her own fault, right?

What about this: there's a large manufacturing firm in my area that has decided that it's no longer cost effective to be here. They're shutting down their production facility. All of those people are out of work. Some of them have been offered positions 900 miles away, but the company is not helping with relocation if they accept, so they have to sell homes in a stalled market while somehow at the same time purchasing new homes, and moving their entire lives -- and that's only the ones who were "lucky" enough to be offered a job at the other facility. The number of manufacturing opportunities here are slim to nonexistent. But when these people lost their jobs, and when they can't find another one -- it will be their fault. At least, that's what some people would say.

I keep hearing "I am the 99%" in regards to Occupy Wall Street, and it makes me wonder: if there are 99% of us who do not have the money, who are unemployed or underemployed or just barely making it, if there are 99% of us who are struggling and fighting and trying to get by, then it's time that 99% of us tell Herman Cain to SHUT IT. It's time for 99% of us to get to the polls and be vocal and take back the country that we're allowing 1% of us to run. 

I don't think that if you've lost your job, you have only yourself to blame.

But I think that if we allow our voices and our strength to be lost? We MUST blame ourselves.