Shipler chapter 2 response

"Land of the free, home of the brave?" While the latter part of that statement seems to fall into place when we look at stories such as Christie and Caroline's, "Land of the free" just seems obscure. Yes the meaning is contradictory to the purpose of my response, but when we look at a story like any of the real life people so far in the book, we can realize that this is not a free country. The government supports people with no jobs, no priorities, and usually no hope of turning there life into something of importance. In contrast the government punishes the minimum-wage, barely making it by, hard working Americans by taxing, scamming, and flat out ripping them off. If we look into Christie's story we see that she works exhausting hours for meager pay and gets food stamps along with other government and state services to aid her and her children. When She works hard and gains a pay raise as reward, the government takes other things away, like how she gains ten cents an hour but loses ten dollars in food stamps. Yes this puts her ahead but at the same time it doesn't help get her out of the hole she lives in called poverty.

There are so many different aspects to look at when it comes to poverty and people like the character's we have met so far, along with the people we have touched basis on with Shipler that do nothing with themselves but get paid. Politicians try and throw blame at the other parties responses to poverty and the economy and point fingers at why we are in such a predicament. However, the "party" a person belongs to is not a legit reason for there responses and attempts on a fix for recession and poverty, but what is mainly to blame is the politicians and government departments that base figures off of a fraction of what needs accounted for, i.e. how poverty is based off one thing to the government even though there are so many causes, and then these departments think of ways to better the system or help the country but cause-and-effect leads it nowhere. I could go on and on with politics and government shame but realistically there is nothing we can do. Simply put, we can all become knowledgeable of the countries financial, economic degree and start with what we have, what we can do, and start the youngest generation on a path to succession to break the cycle. How do we do this? I do not know for sure but I think we are not at that point yet, a bit more trial-and-error and we will all be on our way, whether it be now or in the next decade or so.