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Highlands Today

The poor, the rich and the in between

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By Raleigh Whiteman | Highlands Today

Published: August 13, 2009

While sitting in the "blood takers" reception room, I took the opportunity, while having to wait a very long time to be called to give my blood sample, to read a full article in a magazine about Dubai, the very wealthy city being built by the very wealthy Arabs in United Arab Emirates.

How very rich this country is, or maybe was, is difficult to describe. Today there are over a million living there but thousands who face debtor's prison.

Several thousand other foreign workers who came there to help in the massive construction haven't been paid in the last year and those who employed them cannot afford to send them back to their home country. Their visas have been revoked and are now facing debtor's prison.

Bailout mistakes
If our government has been bailing out United States bankers who have investments in Dubai, I foresee they will continue to go down the tube.

Regardless of the Arabs' rich oil reserves, I believe Dubai will continue its downward spiral and unfinished plans and building will be shut down.

I admit to being naive about just how rich the UAE federation is. They may be able to support Dubai's continued expansion and building. Perhaps there are still millions who will have enough to continue living that lifestyle most of us know nothing about.

On my last cruise I saw five cruise lines each with approximately 2,000-3,000 people on board. Just what does that mean?

But in today's world, the old phrase, "the rich get richer" no longer holds true. Even the rich are in danger of losing all they have tried to achieve by tricks and lies.

It may well be that this decade will come to be known as the age of the "great leveler of the classes."

Capitalism requires that there should be a certain number of rich, a large number of middle class, and for sure a much larger number of lower class people who keep the economy going by working as laborers and servicing for those above them.

Today's world was composed of too many very rich and the middle class had moved up to where they are also upper class as far as the income they were receiving.

Go to any of our coastal cities and visit any one of the many marinas and count the number of yachts and very expensive boats being sold and in the dockage or storage areas.

If you do not have a boat costing almost as much as a middle class home, you cannot be considered to be in the middle class of the population.

Those people who are losing their homes to bankruptcy or foreclosures are just the beginning of a much bigger problem the banks are facing.

The banks also have out billions of dollars in loans in yachts and other things that the wannabe upper class thought they could afford if the housing market continued to make them money.

Those of us who retired a few decades ago with what seemed to be very good incomes have found ourselves not being able to continue retirement without working for additional income.

Those who have lived their lives moderately and have a few bucks to spare are now having the opportunity to buy goodies and property at bargain basement prices as those who can no longer afford what they have bought on credit are willing to sell at bailout prices.

Raleigh Whiteman, of Lake Placid, is a contributing writer to Highlands Today. You can reach him on the Internet at rwwhiteman@comcast.net

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