I’m not whining about my own life, SDR. I can’t even buy food in quantity unless it freezes or it will spoil. I think $2.88 for 5 lbs of clementines, $3.99 for an 8 lb sack of naval oranges and $2 whole chickens is a good deal. I can barely eat a lg pkg of fruit before it spoils. And I also have a drawer full of 8-cent pkgs of oatmeal from broken boxes at the store and 11-cent pkgs of Ramen for my kid. Since persons of my immediate family were dead by the time they were my age due to hypertension issues, I don’t eat Ramen seasoning due to its high sodium content. We DO eat lots of potatoes and very little red meat. I didn’t grow up with a “silver spoon” so know how to make EVERYTHING stretch.
I get tired of having to cope, too (continually conserve gasoline/wear heavy clothes inside on cold days, get up to a cold house, etc). Everybody’s got the same problem. However, I DO see light at the end of the tunnel for my situation. I’m not so sure about workers who have a lot further to go than me. I will make it, no matter what because I don’t have high expectations. My “coping” skills are very good, I am very resourceful and I don’t have a P.O.S. quality of life, either.
Of course, one can’t be sure, but I will make an educated guess that hardly anyone who posts here is worried about where their next meal is coming from. And we are fortunate in this region that we don’t HAVE to run the heat to survive.
If the worst-case scenario happens, SDR, as you describe it, consider all the US farmers and ranch owners currently PAID by the government NOT to grow or NOT to have cattle or dairy cows. Don’t you think we can pay them instead to produce more commodities to feed our struggling nation? I think we can!
Don’t believe me?? Drive up I-5 towards Sacramento or SR-99 towards Fresno sometime and check it out for yourself. You will be intermittently surrounded by the vacant and idle farm/ranch land sitting smack in the middle of one of the nation’s most fertile “agricultural baskets.” There’s something terribly wrong with that picture :={
