You’re Poor? Really?

During the summer of 2019 and throughout 2020 ANTIFA ,the BLM movement and riots successfully convinced millions of Americans that they are victims of the evil rich rather than benefactors of the jobs the evil rich create. Many of us in the “99%” were brainwashed by the left wing media into believing that we are poor and need help from the government to survive. Many of us were convinced that our incomes are below the poverty level. The fact is we as Americans do not know real poverty. Most people in the United States live in a house or an apartment. We have cold and hot running water as well as a toilet inside our home that flushes. Most Americans own a washer, dryer, refrigerator, and a range. They have a car or at least access to reliable transportation. We also own furniture including a real bed, sofa, dining room set, chairs with cushions, and at least one TV. I believe that probably 99% of the “99%” have food. It may not be steak and lobster, but it is good, clean, safe, food.

In April of 2012 I married a Filipino woman and I currently live on the beautiful island of Camotes in the Philippines. Here, the women do all of the household chores. It takes all day to cook the family meals as they use a metal grate over a wood fire to cook on. Electric or gas cooking stoves are for rich people. They do the laundry in a plastic tub using cold water, a detergent bar or detergent powder as they hand wash the cloths. Only rich people have washing machines. They dry the cloths by hanging them on an old fashioned cloths line. Rich people own clothes dryers. If they can afford to buy meat, it must be cooked and eaten the day it is bought as only rich people own refrigerators. The small bamboo or cement houses are usually less than 300 square feet in size. They have two or maybe three rooms. The toilet is outside sometimes in an old fashioned outhouse as it is the rich people that have toilets in the house and very rich people that have toilets that flush in the house. Water connected to your house is a luxury here. Most people pay the people that have water to fill 5 or 10 gallon jugs with water and haul it to their house. To take a bath, they go outside with a bucket of cold water and pour water over their bodies, scrub, and rinse. Rich people have showers in their house and very rich people have hot water for the shower.

The Filipino people are very industrious, hardworking, and self-reliant people. Unlike their American counterparts, they do not have tax payer funded unemployment benefits, food stamps, subsidized housing, and subsidized medical care to help them. Their theory is if you do not work, you do not eat. If they do not have a job, they make their own job. The self-reliance and individualism that used to be prevalent in America, is alive and well here. They do not blame the rich or the government for their financial status, if they do not have what they need; they work and get the money to buy it. Whether they sell fish door to door, open a small store, or work as an OFW (overseas foreign worker) they are not afraid to work.

Many of us in America are spoiled. We have lost our will to believe in ourselves and we demand that someone else must pay for our daily needs. Many Americans think that they are poor helpless people when in fact they are not as poor as they have been told that they are, and they are not helpless. To be blunt, many Americans are simply lazy. They will not clean toilets at a hotel because they have a degree. They will not pick crops because they think they are too good for that work. They would rather sit on their lazy ass at home and complain about the rich people than to fry hamburgers at a fast food restaurant.

It is not the “greedy 1%” who deprives the “99%” of achieving success; it is their own lazy arrogance that deprives them of success. In a country such as The United States, the sky is the limit. The only person who can stop you from succeeding is you.

The people of the Philippines live in real poverty rather than the imagined poverty that Americans have been told they experience. They work and find ways to succeed.

So the next time you are crying in your beer with this poor me attitude, think about how much you have. Be thankful that you live in the United States where the poor people have more than most of the rich have in other countries. Take a close look at yourself in the mirror and think of how you can improve your financial situation on your own. Most of all quit believing the propaganda machine of the mainstream media.