Two Different Worlds

As the unemployment benefits for millions of people come to an end, and the streets are not becoming filled with the desiccated, emaciated corpses of the starved waifs who’s government lifeline was cut off, more andmore government-minded folk are beginning to secretly ask the question – “how is this possible?”

 How is it that sentient, intelligent human beings are capable of taking care of themselves and keeping themselves from starving without a dole check from Uncle Sugar? 

It is simply beyond their capability to understand. 

most baffling to economists are the people who appear to come up with more-idiosyncratic solutions, which are tough to identify and almost impossible to track.

The “impossible to track” part is what is getting these statist’s panties in a wad.  They simply cannot deal with the fact that people are getting along on their own, without their help, and without them being able to figure out how it’s being done.  Statists hate that sort of thing. 

But the long and short of it is that it isn’t that hard to figure it out, if you just think outside of the “government uber alles” box, and consider that there are many ways for enterprising people to support themselves without an “on the books” job or a taxpayer funded dole check.  When I was laid off in 2012, I told my wife not to worry about it, because I am the sort of person who will ACCIDENTALLY make enough money to cover the bills we had at the time.  Without an 8 to 5 keeping me occupied, I would have a lot of time to figure out ways to augment the income, and I’ve got a lot of skills to fill that much time.  Turns out that I wasn’t out of a job for even one day – I had a new job lined up before I left the old one, but the point stands. 

For instance, the article gives an example of one of these “off the books, off the dole” types:

Now that her unemployment benefits are gone, McKinley relies on what she calls “legal hustling” to pay her bills and keep her daughter in college: helping friends’ children fill out financial aid forms, driving friends on errands, entering data for small businesses — all for a fee. 

So she’s turning skills that she has into useful services that other people will pay her to perform.  How the fuck did she ever come up with that idea? 

I think we’re only days away from them funding a government study to investigate how people come up with these things. 

Of course, as snarky as I want to be about that, the sad truth is that it is closer to the mark than many would care to admit.  Government folk and statist types live so far outside the “provide a service, get paid a fee” bubble that it is completely foreign concept to them.  To them, life revolves around one of two things: “win a campaign, be provided power and money” and “secure a sinecure in some government services organization, and get paid to flex the government’s muscle and bully people.”  The idea of providing a good for the benefit of someone else, and then getting paid for that service, is just a foreign to them as chopsticks were to a viking

No, not that kind!

On one hand, I can’t believe that this article was ever written.  On the other hand, I understand completely how certain types could be baffled by the fact that adult human being can actually survive without a government check.  It is really sad, but it is the way of things.