The Rent is Too Damn High

Oh leader of the "Rent is too damn high "party, Jimmy McMillan. How right you are.

Don't know what I'm talking about, click here.

The Rent or the Deficit is too damn high. Walking around Natrona Heights Pennsylvania today, I saw some things that I witnessed in some of the poorer towns of the Black Sea region where I have traveled:

1) Pawn Shops and Cash for Golds (I have counted FIVE new ones during my time at home)

2) Empty buildings to be rented

3) Small tobacco stores

4) Banks I have never heard of

5) Buildings falling apart and not kept up

Naturally, of course, these things could be anywhere. It was just the uncanny parallel of aesthetic and visual likeness that threw me a curveball.

Of course there was more to all of this, but you get the idea. Basically, what I know is the United States of America is matching up with some of the poorer towns in the world. Stop into a makeup store nearby, and they tell you they haven't sold anything in a week. Walk into certain grocery stores and they make you check your big purse at the door because of excessive amounts of shoplifting. The economy is bad and getting worse. As my astute mother pointed out, many people are just finishing up their unemployment benefits (which began at the crashes in 2008 and 2010). As people have no money to spend and no one else's money to spend, it only gets worse and worse.

I don't think most people in the cosmopolitan circles one usually frequents in the Ivy League see the effects of this poverty and how harsh of a toll it is really taking on parts of America. It is honestly frightening to see how derelict parts of what I must call my hometown have become.

If there is one thing people cling to, it may not be their "guns and bibles" but definitely the victories of the American military. A victory that happens thousands of miles away, that certainly did not resuscitate the dying businesses surrounding the super market where I took the picture of this t-shirt.

How is this helping us?

Seeing Robert Gates tear up in front of Diane Sawyer sparks many questions in me about the nature of war, economy, morale, and morality, just as it does in, dare I say it, Gates himself?

A few thoughts. Not developed, obviously. More importantly, observations.