JonnyD said:
Thank you for the informative Response I am only 25 And have many years yet to live so I'm not really gonna let some know it all try and Classifie me as a bum when I am doing what is best for me at the moment and yes I do belive your right about the Crime rate, And furthermore you make a good point about being able to afford to live by yourself At this point trying to live by myself is ludicrous I cant afford it the economy is so bad here that its nearly impossible to do without a good paying job which is also nearly impossible to find around here
I live on my own, but can just barely afford it. I lost my job almost 2 months ago and I've been living on... how should I say this.... the government dime. It's enough to pay for my rent, car, cable, ect... but I still have to dip into my saving to have any fun. But you're correct about the job market in America. It's horrible, especially where I live. Remember when Giuliani said that he was going to "clean up" NY? Well, he didn't clean a damn thing, he just swept it under the rug, and that rug is Reading, PA.
Allow me to elaborate.
When Giuliania's "clean up" went into effect he did nothing more than drive the criminal element away from NY and into smaller cities, Reading being the one most heavily hit. We've seen violent crime sky rocket (we're now #25 on the most dangerous cities list, with a bullet), massive unemployment (such a small city can only handle so much), steady overpopulation (again, 20lbs of vermin in an already full 1lb bag) and a rediculous amount of mass stupidity. Hearing of 80 year old women being beaten, raped, and shot to death are the norm. Those idiots who got into a fight with Mike Tyson in New York last week (they're from here) are a perfect example of the people around here. Annoying, threatening, tough guys that claim they have a gun and with warrents out for their arrest. It took stray bullets bouncing around a preschool for law enforcement to start doing anything about it. And even there, all the good cops are too scared to work here.
They're considering closing the center city school and sending all the students to the already overpopulated surrounding schools (I went to one of those schools and being stuck in portable classrooms wasn't uncommon), simply because the idiots living in the city won't pay their taxes. Their excuse is "if we raise taxes, more people won't pay". Well then, do something about it. They want to live here so much, and send their 8 children per household to school. MAKE THEM PAY.
Driving around is an entertaining experience. Better roll up the windows, lock your doors and pray to god that some asshole with a shotgun doesn't pick your car hijack. And when you're not dodging bullets, have fun actually moving anywhere. Everyone loves double parking (especially when there's a car also parked along the other side of the street, leaving about 5 feet of space for you to try and squeeze through) even though if they were willing to walk an extra 15 feet they could park along the curb. And when they double park, they like to stand next to their car and converse with each other while you sit and wait for them to move. And if you honk the horn or tell them to move they just stand there, staring at you like livestock.
You can't even find a good place to eat. There used to be all kinds of awesome German and Italian resturants and Irish pubs. These places were family owned and have been here seemingly forever. They're now being replaced with shit bars, that smell of urine and are full of sweaty, hostile mexicans. The resturants are being outnumbered by these places that sell pure garbage. The grocery stores are being replaced with places that are so proud to accept foodstamps that they advertise it in bigger letters than their own stores name. Even banks are being outnumbered by these retarded little places who's sole purpose is to cash checks for a fee.
As for employment, forget it. The jobs simply dried up. All the employers closed up and relocated to other parts of the country where they weren't forced to hire the incompetant clowns who've invaded our neighborhoods. Now we have a situation where the middle class, with kids, and their kids college funds, and second mortgages, and those new in ground pools they just had put in last summer, are losing their jobs. And you know where these people with former careers are now working? Gas stations, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Wendy's, ad nauseam... The last resort has become a high demand career oppurtunity.
That's what my problem is. I chose not to go to college, as I was confirmed a job for the company my dad works for. I basically would have been set for life, easy. After school I made the mistake of taking a few years to "discover" life, started a band and fucked around. Then when it came time to take that job, too late. It wasn't there. Not that going there straight out of school would have mattered. They've laid off more than half the people who work there, some with over 20 years experience, and more are planned later in the year. My dad has already suffered more than $28 thousand a year in pay cuts. He's also being laid off at the end of the year. He also owes the bank about $65 thousand yet for the failed business he tried to start up. He made the mistake of opening a pizza shop in this shitty Bushenomics economy. If it's any consolation to him, half a dozen other pizza shops closed down within 2 weeks of his shop, including 2 Pizza Huts.
He's going to lose the house (So much for me moving back in with my parents if the need would ever arise. Hell, my parents are already bracing themselves to move back in with THEIR parents), his cars, and everything else he worked his whole life for. And where in the hell is a 52 year old man, with nothing outside of a high school eduaction and skills for a soon-to-be obsolete job supposed to work? All the other jobs in his field are already long gone.
Where the fuck does this leave me? I can't even get a job delivering pizzas. It seems you need to be 40, and with a college education to get even those jobs now. Fuck. I suppose when my lease is up in November I could always try get the hell out of this stinking shithole and find a better place to live, where there are actual careers instead of settling for part-time work for Wendy's. Good luck to me there.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. I'm just a bit pissed off lately and I didn't mean to go so far off subject. My apologies.