The Rich Get Richer

Over the last ten days my life has gotten increasingly focused around the placing of small pieces of numerical data in various odd places around these here internets. People are paying me money for this peculiar activity; I am now an Independent Contractor doing Data Entry. It's kind of fun in a really strange way and I get to sit here all day, just like I did when I was unemployed, wearing pajamas or their equivalent, with Theo under my feet getting in the way.

Yesterday I opened a savings account, because I can't be trusted not to spend all of last years tax refund money that's in my checking account and I need to save money for a) Christmas, b) heating oil and c) taxes. I have been warned by many people to put away about 1/3 of my income for taxes, which is depressing, since between my two "jobs" I am now making before taxes about what I made at the museum - after taxes. People say encouragingly, "Hey, that's great money for Asheville!" and they're right. It is good money for Asheville - nowhere near enough to live on in Asheville, but why quibble? I'm quibbling, a bit, because I'm funny like that and I'd like to be able to work full time and make enough money to live on with a little left over, even, for Christmas and heating oil. But you know, that just seems, more and more, to be asking too much and yet, it's one of those conversations that never makes it into the national media, where everyone is rich. There are lots and lots of rich people. I see them all the time and I'm astonished; I don't understand how they got rich, how they stay that way, what they do, here in Asheville, where anything over $8 an hour is considered really good money and the housing is the most expensive in the state.

I am working hard; putting this data here and there isn't easy and because I'm not in an office I'm actually working much harder & more consistently than I used to. There's nobody coming in and out to chat, no phone ringing, no decisions to make, no politics and noone to have lunch with, so I just work, solidly. As a general rule in America, the less money you make the harder you work. People who make lots and lots of money are not usually paid by the hour, so they aren't tempted to work lots and lots of extra hours; they don't do manual labor, so they're not out in the sun and the cold and the rain digging up other people's gardens and risking their lives making houses; and, something I thought about yesterday, they don't have people hovering over them making sure that they are actually working, god damn it, I'm not paying you to go to the bathroom. The further down the income scale you go, the more ridiculous the restrictions on you get, like the call center job I turned down a few months ago, where I was told that my personal belongings had to be left in a locker, I was allowed 2 bathroom breaks per 8 hour shift and 1 lunch break, I had to be on the phone at all times and so on and so on, ad nauseum. Nobody told me shit like that when I was a middle manager - it was assumed that I was an adult capable of managing my own time and my own deadlines, and I did.

So I went to the bank and I opened a savings account and I thought about buying a CD but I'm afraid that I might need that money before a CD would be up. The savings account rate of interest is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% and the CD was 4.14%, which was tempting, until I realized that that meant I would be making approximately $18 for not touching my money for 6 months, and even I can probably sell a birdhouse or two to make $18. Then I came home and started entering data and suddenly the data kind of clicked and I realized that what I was looking at was, essentially, interest. Rates of return. Now, if you have half a million or more to invest, let me tell you, you can do considerably better than 4.14% and I bet you can get your money out anytime you want, but if you're not so rich, than your investment opportunities are, essentially, nil. I wouldn't even begin to know how to invest money, and I have a sneaking suspicion that my carefully garnered and saved $500 isn't enough to take to an investment firm. My mother told me the other day about a local investment firm who won't take you as a client unless you have at least $5 million. Once you have your $5 million, even 4.14% looks a lot more appetizing, and if you do it right, your rates are going to be closer to 11%. If I could get 11% interest I'd happily bid farewell to my money for 6 months. So the rich get richer, and the poor hope they have enough money for heat next winter. And this is okay, this is the natural order of things and here in the United States I always feel like it's a dirty little secret, that we just won't mention the fact that, you know, as James McMurtry has so memorably said and I keep telling you about, We Can't Make It Here Anymore.