I was reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle last week and could almost feel the desperation of his characters as they fought for work and to have enough money to live. And when I read accounts of people's lives in our current recession, I can also feel their desperation, as below:
"So many homes in Las Vegas have been foreclosed upon that banks rarely bother to hang a "For Sale" sign on the front lawn anymore. Instead, visitors identify bank-owned properties by the brown grass and the 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper taped to the front door or the garage.
On a cul-de-sac in the once-pleasant neighborhood of Silverado Ranch, Larry Wood is the last remaining resident. Two of the four homes are in foreclosure and a third is a "party rental" only occupied by rowdy tourists on weekends. One of his neighbors made a few bucks before abandoning the home, he says. "They sold all the palm trees and just walked away from it," says Wood, sporting a "Freedom Isn't Free" T-shirt. "It's a great neighborhood. I guess that people weren't financially set up to get through the crash."
Nevada has a greater concentration of economic misery than any other state. The state's unemployment rate, which in June edged up to 14.2 percent, has risen faster during the past year than it has anywhere else, and nearly six percent of all homes across the state's desert landscape received a foreclosure filing in the first six months of the year."
Reading is such a wonderful thing -- you can peer into other people's lives, both real and fictional, and feel so much better about your own lot.
1 comments:
When I read the Jungle I was shocked at how the people were treated. Amazing that we once behaved that way in this country.
Post a Comment