On Love and Histoey and Counting a-One and a-Two
Stolen from McMom:
I have been meaning to post this quote since Valentines Day! It was in a chocolate fortune cookie. It says, "Love is realized not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."
True.
And while we all ponder what would happen to a chocolate fortune cookie on a hot day, we can look at some of the hundreds of thousands of references to the word "histoey." (Yes, these topics are related. Trust me.)
Let's look at what deep dark secrets are revealed in this myspace profile:
i dont usually watch tv anymore but if i do i usually watch the histoey channel(love learning bout ww2 for some reason),the military channel cuz im going to the military after college,spike tv,tech tv,fox, the discovery channel,mtv sumtimes,and comedy central
Speaking of World War II, I pontificated in response to this post. This is what I said. This is what Ontario Emperor said:
Maybe I'm getting this wrong, but I think that World War II resulted in a sea change in our society. While we had working women before World War II, the wholesale shipment of men overseas to fight in the war resulted in a NEED for women to work outside the home. It also resulted in a need for black troops, which resulted in another sea change in our society. After the war was over, neither the women nor the blacks necessarily wanted to go back to the prewar status quo.
What I haven't pinned down is why our society has shifted from one-income households to two-income households.
(And just be thankful that I lost the text for my Aaron Copland parody "John Wilkes Booth.")
Meanwhile, I found one view about why we've moved to two-income households. Could it be...SATAN? Or at least the danged commies:
The first thing communists do to expand their power is put the women to work in order to take over the family unit. Putting them to work separates both parents from the children so that they can be indoctrinated and propagandized in the government/socialist schools and preschools. Increasing the workforce also decreases wages - Economics101 - basic simple concepts of supply and demand. Women in the workforce doubles the workforce which decreases wages, and this lowering of wages was deceptively hidden through deflation and devaluing the dollar....
That is why in the 1950's, the average American family lived fine on one income. Today the average American family needs TWO incomes just to get by because the progressive income tax (the second plank of the Communist Manifesto, we might add) has sapped the earning power from the main male breadwinner and women in the workforce has lowered his earnings. Women in the workforce and feminism therefore are government tools for creating more Taxpaying Slaves for The State resulting in the enslavement of the average American family unit.
Or perhaps the fascists are to blame:
For the average citizen, however, day to day living is much tougher in America [than in Canada] - Their is much cause for concern with the neoconservative vision of an America based on a society of accountability. Life is already tough - middle class two income workers are hardly any better off than single-income families were 40 years ago. With the Bush Tax Cuts, the attempts to privatize social security, repealment of state funding, abolishment of the estate taxes, and many other regressive policies, the Bush Administration is waging class warfare on the lower and middle classes of American society. Twenty years ago, CEOs made an average of 30-40 times the salary of the Average American worker. Today, that number has reached between 500-1000. We are on the verge of establishing a two class society - an aristrocracy - a corporate climate based on fascist principles.
Or perhaps we should just blame the bankers in cooperation with the federalists of both parties:
Until [1978], interest rates were a matter of states' rights, and most states carried on a long-standing tradition of anti-usury laws designed to protect consumers from unconscionably high interest rates. In 1978, the Supreme Court, in the infamous Marquette decision, said that existing laws allowed lenders to charge borrowers anywhere in America the rate ceiling allowed in the lender's state of incorporation, regardless of the rate ceiling in the borrower's state, and that it was up to Congress to change the law to prevent 'exporting' of high interest rates. Congress did nothing, lenders flocked to Delaware and Nevada (the two states with no rate ceiling, which are still home to the companies that do half of all consumer lending in America) and in four short years virtually every state, to prevent exodus of financial institutions, had scrapped its interest rate ceiling....
A quarter century later, the consequences of this ruling are clear. In their well-reasoned and thoroughly-documented book The Two Income Trap (the Salon review of which I covered last year), Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren and her daughter outline what has happened since 1978:
The proportion of Americans who own their own homes has risen a paltry 3%.
140 million (70%) of adult Americans now admit they are carrying so much debt it is making their lives difficult and unhappy.
Bankruptcy rates for women have risen 662%. Foreclosure rates have risen 400%.
Having a child is now the single biggest predictor that a woman will declare bankruptcy.
One out of 7 families with children will declare bankruptcy this decade, and at least that many more should declare bankruptcy to make a fresh start but will instead out of ignorance or fear live with the constant horror of repossessions, hounding and threats from creditors.
More Americans each year declare bankruptcy than have heart attacks, get diagnosed with cancer, graduate from college, or get divorced.
One comment - this article was written in 2004, before the recent tightening up of the bankruptcy laws. Continued:
Increased availability of credit has more than doubled the price of housing, to the point that after paying for housing and other essentials (and the other essentials have actually decreased in cost), the average two-income family has less disposable income than the average one-income family had a generation ago.
Families with children have driven up the price of housing in many areas with desirable public schools by as much 600%, and a recent survey indicates proximity to good schools is now the single largest determinant of US residential housing price.
Credit card debt balances have risen from $20 billion to nearly $800 billion, a forty-fold increase....
Well, I've strayed into DadTalk territory (again).
I’m not an economist, but I can do math and sense when something is out of whack. So can someone explain to me why housing values can go up as much as 20 percent a year while wages have fallen 2.3 percent from 2001 to 2004?
And the DadTalk post above inspired A Family Runs Through It:
Here are a few things that we do in order to live comfortably on one income:
Haircuts: I cut the kids' hair. Scissors for my daughter, clippers for my son....
Entertainment: No cable TV. It saves us alot of time, too, as we aren't tempted to plop down in front of the TV for marathon sessions of House Hunters or Kumars at No. 42. We have a subscription to Netflix at $17.99 a month, so we still enjoy TV shows and movies, only without the commercials....
Food: This is easy. We just don't eat out very much....
Home Maintenance: I do most of it myself. With the amazing resources available on the Internet, a person can figure out how to fix just about anything in your home....
Clothes: My wife will disagree, but I'm perfectly content with my two pairs of old jeans, five various t-shirts, and one classic sweatshirt. I have some dressy clothes somewhere, but in my line of work [stay at home dad] it's better to just wear the old stuff because it's a daily inevitability that something will smear itself on me (usually peanut butter, milk, or cat barf)....
Newspaper and magazines: Who needs them when I'm already paying $35 a month for Internet access....
Those are a few things that we do to make sure one of us is home and that our budget isn't stressed.
If you have eNotes access (I don't), you can read this Harper's Magazine article, written in 1951, on the two-income family. This may or may not be the same article, written by Nancy Barr Mavity (note: strong language such as "dodo" is used). Here's an excerpt:
I am a wife, a mother, and a grandmother, and I have been a continuous jobholder since I graduated from college. Besides all that, I am a dodo.
I never used to think of myself as a dodo, but it has been brought home to me by my married daughter and her contemporaries that I most certainly am. These young people have perpetrated a revolution right under the noses of my generation. There have been no parades, no crusading arguments or lectures or legislative lobbying. They did not fight for a revolution--they simply are one.
The whole argument of marriage versus a career which burned like a roaring fire when I was my daughter's age is now as dead as wet ashes. The revolution that we were so vociferous about as a matter of principle has taken place unobtrusively as a matter of hard necessity.
My daughter and her friends and the young married women who work in my office do not call themselves career women. They do not harangue about the right to develop their individual capacities. They do not discuss the primary function of woman as a homemaker. They do not argue the propriety of muscling in on the labor market. They just plain work. . . .
Under present circumstances, a single pay envelope will not meet the needs of a white-collar-class family. It is as simple as that. . . .
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