Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for October 14, 2015

Because the Bentley is in the shop and they have no way to get out there.

The residents of the town of Palm Beach and nearby Manalapan aren’t that oblivious to the world they don’t live in. In fact, some of them are among the biggest fund raisers and donors for charities in South Florida during ‘the season’.

The reality is, few people who haven’t faced financial ruin due to a job loss, high medical bills,closed head wounds suffered during a war, or other catastrophe understand.

I was once a volunteer on a crisis switchboard that was supposed to help college freshmen who were scared at being on their own for the first time. Most of those who contacted us, though, were recently returned Vietnam vets who were struggling with physical and mental issues they didn’t understand. The VA was not helping, and they were camping in tents in the desert outside Tucson.

Ultimately, we were overwhelmed and unable to help, and our switchboard was shut down. We grad students returned to our daily lives. The homeless vets were ‘encouraged’ to go somewhere else…

I’m about to ride my bicycle a couple of miles to use a friend’s laundry room, then I’ll drop back in to McDonald’s to use their WiFi and get a McChicken sandwich, wash that down with the Coke I bought earlier at Walgreen’s, then go over to another friend’s nasty apartment to get a few hours sleep on the cold, smelly carpet.

And how was your evening?

Oh the misery of rich peoples…

Very true. A few lost pay checks or an ambulance ride will have most people in trouble.

I remember Mitt Romney’s statement that if you had trouble affording college just borrow the money from your parents as if they had millions like him!

Well said, and so true.

And then, people wonder why so many Americans have become economic expats, like myself.

The U.S,A, has become, for many of us retirees, unaffordable. We can no longer live there.on our meager pensions.

It is a shame that those who fought for their country can no longer live there.

Why do the people who hate the rich still want to be rich? Does money Trump hate?

@Robert Landers

“The real secret to a successful retirement is to have enough income and/or retirement funds to live a comfortable life. Obviously, you have achieved that goal Almost to the point of bragging about it.

There once was an actual quote very similar to Panel 4 by an actual “rich person”.

She asked why “the poor” didn’t just move someplace else. Wealth, even with education, does not always equal intelligence.

$21 per hour net would be great! try supporting 4-5 people on what 1 person gets on SS dis. There is some other income, but nothing to count on. That is the reality of post 9/11 – small businesses tank, laws written to keep the big boys(hogs) in power, the little guy can not compete.

I suspect from your comment that when YOU were 17, an average Joe with an hourly wage job could realistically be able to buy a house and drive a car by the time he was in late 20’s while making $6k-$8k a year. Those days no longer exist in a time when real wages for hourly workers have done nothing but decline over the last 30 years. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of 17-yr olds today have no chance without rolling the dice on college loans, and even then it may not be any better in view of the transfer of most well-paying jobs to places where 2 fish heads a day is a pretty good living, especially when you rely on the fact that all of your family, including the 4-yr, old can have the same job making Nikes or iPhones for the same 2 fish heads a day . . .

“They have no bread.”.“Then let them eat cake.”.Simple solutions rejected by cake haters.

“It may make you look good to have babies in the circles you run in, but even for ones who have dependable jobs, kids aint cheap.”.Cost is no object when you are not the one paying the bill.

Understood ( only too well ! )

I, btw, owe you a long private email which I shall endeavor to write tomorrow, if the Inca Internet gods are smiling.

and eat cake.

I also “hit the ground running at 17”, but sometimes Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate.