Change for the Poor?

 You can fool some people sometimes; but you can’t fool all the people all the time - Bob Marley, Get up Stand Up.

Courtesy of Seattlepi.com

In the wake of everything that has been on the news of late with the Occupy movement, I found it odd when I came across the story of the couple in Seattle that has been scamming the welfare system since at least 2003.  Here is a link to the article .  For those of you who are either too lazy or just didn’t feel like clicking the link, the jist of the article is that a couple has been receiving welfare checks (totaling over $1000 a month enough for over $130,000)  all while living in a million dollar lake front house and driving Jaguars.  Did I mention the husband is a chiropractor? 


I have a few issues with this obviously.  You may be surprised to know that I’m not mad at this couple.  In fact, kudos to them.  They were working the system to their benefit and in all actuality should be commended.  The issue I have is with the government.  How the HELL does this go on for at least 8 years without any red flags?  Part of the money they were receiving was for Section 8 housing; apparently there are no “home inspections”?  I say shame on our national government, shame on the Washington State government, as well as the local Seattle government.

Courtesy nps.gov

This is exactly what’s wrong with America.  It’s not corporate greed or the 1%.  It’s our government.  As I’ve stated before, the problem is in Washington.  Our Congress makes the laws with the loopholes that encourage businesses to go overseas.  They make the laws that allow the couple from Seattle to get away with this for at least 8 years.  You think this is an isolated incident?  Hardly.  Without going into too much detail, it’s rampant.  There are people that are on public assistance that apparently can’t afford to pay for their own kids’ lunches, but they have $80 Polo Shirts (5 different colors/styles), IPhones, Xbox 360s,  $100 sneakers and drive far nicer cars than a lot of working people (like myself).  There are people that actually are better off not working and collecting welfare.  In all seriousness though, who can blame them?  Again, kudos to them for knowing how to and having the balls to work the system.

Despite this, the outrage is placed elsewhere.  Why?  I have a good reason and I’ve stated it before on this blog.  Protesting for welfare reform is not sexy.  Why not occupy that?  Maybe if our government wasn’t wasting so much money on dumb shit, there wouldn’t be as many problems.  But it’s sexy to protest corporate greed, the death penalty, and animal abuse.  That’s why the whole occupy movement annoys me.  Welfare reform would help the government save money and it definitely would help the people that need it the most.  Maybe it’s because some of the Occupiers are abusing the system??? 

I don’t know what the best solution is but I’d start with putting certain restrictions on what people can buy.  I worked in the grocery business for over 12 years before becoming a teacher so I saw how people abused the system.  You’re on food stamps?  You don’t get Filet Mignon.  I have a fucking job and I don’t get to eat Filet.  You’re on Welfare?  No lottery tickets.  There is no need for you to spend $50 a day on the lottery.  Gambling is not an appropriate or sensible retirement plan. Sorry, if you can’t pay for your kids lunch, no Polo boots.  You want public assistance?  Take a drug test.  You fail, you’re booted out.  Most people have to take a drug test for their jobs so why should you get high on the government’s (i.e. MY dime?).  You don’t like it?  Get out then or find a job that allows you to get high….good luck with that.

What is the answer for Welfare reform?  I don’t know but the current system sucks.  When I see or hear stories like this couple from Seattle it pisses me off.  Not at them or any of the people that abuse the system for Polo boots, lottery tickets, and Filet.  I do say kudos for them. 

Courtesy of logoeps.com

They found the loophole and much like the big corporations that take their business overseas, they are using it to their advantage and in fact are pretty much encouraged to cheat the system.  The problem lies with our politicians who allow these loopholes to exist.  How bout we occupy them?  After all, the ugly, non-sexy causes need love too.  Until next time this is Jimbo saying, I like Filet.

Sorry, It's Occupied

A lot has been said recently about the Occupy movements, even on this blog.  As I’m watching the news this morning it hit me that these people have lost their minds.  I’ve said before they have every right to protest and more power to them.  I even agree with some of what they are saying, just don’t protest everything all at once.

 I saw that the some people of Occupy Philly are giving the mayor a hard time because he has asked them to move their protest due to a planned construction project at City Hall.  Hmmmm….isn’t one of the things your protesting; lack of jobs?  Explain to me how not moving helps.  This is giving people jobs you dopes.  I don’t get it.   I guess they are protesting common sense?  #Occupy the Wizard of Oz to get a brain.

It seems that the whole Occupy movement has jumped the shark.  For those that don’t know, jump the shark basically means when something has reached it’s height of popularity and has no place to go but down.  It comes from an episode of Happy Days, when Fonzie literally jumped over a shark on water skis. 

Why do I say that the Occupy movement has jumped the shark?  First of all, up at

Occupy Wall Street

the people are getting pissed because the city has asked them to move so they could clean up.  Huh?  This is insane.  #Occupy Sanitary Conditions!  That will show them.  It’s just getting clearer that a lot of these people have no idea what they are protesting or even why they are there in the first place.  They are protesting anything they can. 

Courtesy of occupyphilly.org

In Philly there are people getting raped in the “Tent Cities”.  Come on.  This isn’t a bit overboard?  #Occupy Occupy Philly?  Since our beloved Eagles are tanking horribly there have been calls to #Occupy Nova Care Complex (their practice facility) until Andy Reid is fired.  It appears that everyone in our country feels the need to protest anything and everything, hence making the entire Occupy movement jump the shark.  I wonder if this movement was around back in the 70s and 80s, if there would have been an #Occupy  Happy Days movement???  After they jumped the shark obviously....

This got me thinking.  I’m over leaving for work at 7 a.m.  #Occupy mornings!  Better yet, let’s march to the sun and camp out until it agrees to come out later in the day.  #Occupy the Sun!  What if Christians grew tired of the commercialism of Christmas?  It is after all Jesus’s birthday.  Let’s go #Occupy the North Pole.  Down with Santa and the deplorable working conditions of his elves.  It rained on my day off.  #Occupy Mother Nature.  Damn her greed!  She should give me a nice day when I’m off.  I can’t believe I got stuck in traffic on

Kelly Drive

this morning due to construction.  #Occupy Traffic Construction.  Damn those bastards. 

Well you get the point.  I know it seems ridiculous but as ridiculous as not moving your campsite so somebody can clean up your shit or complete a construction job? (and get paid for it by the way, so not moving is actually costing jobs, you hypocrites!)

Well just something to think about.  The Occupy movement has made it’s point but like most things it’s time for it to end.  When people are protesting by living in shit you’ve lost me.  If you want to Occupy something how about #Occupy Obstructed Views?  We sure could use the traffic to the site, and we won’t make you move to clean up your shit.  At least they're not #Occupying Michael Vick anymore…..  Until next time this is Jimbo saying #Occupy your brain.

Be My Guest

Back in June when Kyle and I launched Obstructed Views we had no idea what we were doing.  (whether or not we do now or not is still debatable but I digress)  All we knew was we both loved to write and obviously have strong opinions and a lot to say.  Ideally we’d love to turn it into something we could make a few bucks off of and possible parlay into other ventures.  However, like anything else you want in life, it takes a lot of patience and hard work.  

Having a love for writing but not much knowledge of the blogosphere we have done a lot of research and Obstructed Views is still a work in progress.  Through blogging groups on LinkedIn, we’ve met a lot of talented and amazing people in very similar situations.  We all work together and support one another.  One of those people is Nikki Hoskin who runs a few different blogs.  Nikki has reached out to us to be a guest blogger on her Thoughts from the Underground blog.  We were ecstatic.  

She asked me to write about Occupy Wall Street, so I happily obliged.  You can check out that post here: Occupy This.  Please take the time to not only read our post but check out Nikki’s other posts and follow her blog like you do with ours.  She is very talented and is in the same boat as us.  My hope is that this is the start of great partnership that will help all of us immensely.