Reality, back to earth

So here I am, back to reality and into snow.  How can we be at the end of April and still have snow?  But let's not complain when we have the opportunity to take a tropical vacation since many people don't.

 

The survey on my station today was whether I could live on $1.50 per day for 5 days (which is apparently what Ben Afflect proposes to do as part of an awareness of poverty campaign)

People can do it if they set their minds to it but naturally it would mean sacrificing many things we take for granted these days.  Like a cup of coffee at Tim Horton's, a bought lunch rather than a brown bag lunch (because we are too lazy to make a peanut butter and jam sandwich), picking up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken rather than opening a can of beans (mind you, I don't think a can of beans is very cheap anymore).  I can remember when you could get 5 packs of Kraft Dinner for a dollar.  Then it went down to 3.  Now one pack costs, I don't know, $2.00 maybe?  (it was never my choice of comfort food).

 

The reality is that we are expensive people these days, we do like to take the easy way out by either eating out a lot or buying a lot of prepackaged, processed food.

 

But here is another side of the topic - how many people do live a very narrow line between barely making it and dipping into the poverty line?  More than you might think, and many are your friends, relatives or neighbours.  I have a huge concern for the way our government bodies are treating employees in this decade.  More and more frequently government is involving themselves in union disputes and declaring almost every type of union job "an essential service" and rapidly legislating them back to work.  Currently we have prison guards striking in Edmonton (and now rapidly moving elsewhere in the province) due to an individual getting fired for speaking out about unsafe conditions in the workplace.  How many others are concerned about the way the government is / will handle these types of situations?  It comes perilously close to dictatorship when workers can no longer strike for fair conditions, fair wages, etc.  And to be even more outrageous, these tyranical politicians gobble at the trough to an extent that would put the Sheriff of Nottingham to shame.

 

Really very worrisome.