Biting the Hand that Feeds You

We have all heard the cliché, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” which is commonly known to mean that you shouldn’t ruin a relationship with someone who pays you or takes care of you in some way.

The expression is meant as a cautionary message to those of us who are dependent on “the man” (i.e., greedy corporations, predatory lenders, etc.) for our everyday needs and a reminder that we should be careful about offending or demanding too much lest he cut us off from his “generosity.”

Even though the reverse is also true – that “the man” benefits – often more -- from our labor and our sweat, the “hand” in the metaphor almost never refers to the hand of the worker who generously gives of her time and energy. And the teeth that are cautioned not to bite, rarely belong to those who profit from our work.

America's trickle down, capitalistic economy has rendered most of us too tired to bite – or even think about biting.

It's all we can do just to get through the work day only to go home and pay the bills, cook, clean, care for the kids or other loved ones – and for many, go on to work at a second or third job before having the time and opportunity to lay down to rest.

Of course working just to pay for rent and food is hard enough – but omnipresent advertising for unaffordable products on TV, radio, magazines, sides of busses, taxis billboards, etc., makes life even less satisfying knowing that - no matter how many hours you put in - the large screen TV, stereo, computer, ipod, car is always out of your financial reach.

They say that the free market abhors a vacuum, and thus “the man” – seeing an opportunity to squeeze that last dollar out of a thin wallet -- stepped in to “help” poor people get the stuff they previously could not afford.

Thanks to pay-day loans, rent-to-own stores, instant refund tax preparation services, credit-card companies, tote the note used auto dealers, and more recently, sub-prime mortgage lenders -- poor people can have all the possessions necessary to live the American dream. Or at least the American dream that was invented by advertising agencies.

Unfortunately for “the man,” the chickens have come home to roost and the poor, according to Barbara Ehrenreich, quit paying their mortgages and they simply stopped shopping:

"Both Wal-Mart and Home Depot announced disappointing second quarter performances, plunging the market into another Arctic-style meltdown. H. Lee Scott, CEO of the low-wage Wal-Mart empire, admitted with admirable sensitivity, that it's no secret that many customers are running out of money at the end of the month."

It seems the downtrodden have been trod on so long that they just can’t get up the gumption – nor do they have the resources - to shop.

Not quite the revolution anti-capitalists had hoped for, but the effect may still be the same!

According to an article in Business Week Magazine:

“[W]ages for the working poor have been stagnant for three decades. Meanwhile, their spending has consistently and significantly exceeded their income since the mid-1980s. They are making up the difference by borrowing more. From 1989 through 2004, the total amount owed by households earning $30,000 or less a year has grown 247%, to $691 billion, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data available."

And don’t believe for one minute that the LGBTQ Community is somehow better off and less likely to be affected by poverty. Despite the myths to the contrary, gay men's incomes are 11% to 27% below average and lesbians' are 12% to 30% below.

But of course the Federal Reserve Bank has stepped in to help the corporations and financial institutions that prey on poor people stay afloat -- as they stand by and watch the poor drown in debt.

And, why not? Capitalism is profits over people. Therefore, since working class and poor people purposefully got themselves into this mess, why should the Government bale them out?

“Nobody, poor or rich, is compelled to pay a high price for a used car, a credit card, or anything else." Some see the debate ending there. "The only feasible way to run a capitalist society is to allow companies to maximize their profits," says Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "That will sometimes include allowing them to sell things to people that will sometimes make them worse off."

Apparently, greedy capitalistic institutions -- in their desire to wring the last dime out of the hands of the poor -- may have discovered that by doing so, they were the ones who were effectively biting the hands that were feeding them after all.