From Dangerblond in New Orleans

I have been monitoring the situation in New Orleans, in which the powers plan to tear down public housing units in the city, at the same time that affordable housing is at a premium and often non-existent. Sharon Jasper, an elderly black woman, is not crazy about the housing that the powers have arranged for her. She would like to be back in her apartment in the St. Bernard public housing complex, which the powers want to demolish instead of repairing.

Dangerblond, a New Orleans blogger, wrote this in the comments to her post, titled "elderly black woman caught with big-screen t.v.; lacks proper level of humility and appreciation", on her blog, named, of all things, Dangerblond:

I don’t think people realize that our economy would collapse if employers were required to pay all their workers enough to afford a family-sized home, either a rental or mortgage. We subsidize corporations by providing cheap labor and housing for the workers. It is vital that large numbers of people remain uneducated, for if they were educated they would need better jobs, and there aren’t enough of those to go around. Many people work at jobs that don’t pay enough to afford housing, that’s the way it’s set up to work.

I met Dangerblond at the Rising Tide Conference in New Orleans. She is a force to be reckoned with, I can tell you. Her statement above is profound and true. I believe that our economy is set up to work just as she says.