ETHAN AND PATRICIA STRUGGLE (CONtINUED)

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           None of this includes sales taxes, cell phone taxes, cable taxes, payment of copays and deductibles for health care paid out of their take home income reducing that $4,685.00 another $165.00 on average bringing disposable income down to $4,520.00 per month.

          With rent, utilities, food, transportation, clothing, cable, health care, rental insurance, miscellaneous expenses and expenses not planned for, always popping up as we all know, Ethan and Patricia are short each month. Their combined incomes are absorbed 100% plus more by expenses necessary to meet a minimum way of life with no room for savings.

         Ethan and Patricia reached out to their employer for a raise, a slight raise. No was the answer.

They turned to their government, local and national, for help with purchase of food and payment of rent. No help was available. They were told they make too much. 

          Help appears in the form of endless ads in the mail from credit card companies promising relief but in the end more debt is their life. Interest reaching as high as 28% means more hours of work to pay interest. And in a pinch is the ‘pay-day’ loan with interest of 400%.

         Ethan and Patricia are not alone but of a vast majority of Americans struggling each day coming up short at the end of each day. They are among the largest group of Americans working as receptionists, clerks of all types, secretaries, customer service representatives, sales agents, counter clerks, and workers in fast food restaurants. 

         When you shop at Walmart, look at the people working there and you will see how Americans work. When you buy that hamburger at McDonalds, you will see before you the face of the how American worker.

          Ethan and Patricia desire to have a family but dreams of a happy family are elusive, replaced with a life of endless stress for survival. 

         Medical care is a luxury. Transportation is hard. Sleep is a luxury. Relations are strained. Credit and debt are a trap. Dreams get smaller, eventually disappearing. An unexpected loss breaks them.

         The United States is not alone by far in possessing vast minerals and natural resources, but it is one of the few countries possessing the best workers. That is until recent days when the best of our people, the best of our workers, are trampled upon by a system catering to the few at the top in wealth and income pushing America’s best assets, its workers, to the bottom in wealth and income.

            Despite genuine and sincere efforts, the American workers are failing to live no better than the serfs of old European Feudalism.

            Ethan and Patricia live as the sunflower seed lives. Left alone the seed remains a seed. Left alone, Ethan and Patricia are just another young couple going nowhere. 

            But each, the sunflower and Ethan and Patricia, possesses potency and the actuality of the potency in the sunflower seed is the sunflower blossom. The actuality of the potency in Ethan and Patricia is achievement of productive and happy citizenship.

           The potency of the sunflower seed reaches its actuality when planted in the right soil receiving the right amount of water and sunshine. 

            The potency of Ethan and Patricia reaches actuality when receiving the benefit of the rules unique to their development.