"What's Going on Here"

I've been down the last few days. However, today was my turn to feel bad for others way worse off than me. I went to the grocery store and coming out of the parking lot I saw a very senior man (75?) in a wheelchair holding a sign that said, "recovering from a stroke and penniless". This wasn't one of those people where you wonder if they are really destitute or just don't want to work. This guy was a different story altogether and I was shocked seeing him sitting there in wheelchair holding a sign asking for money. He looked very sad.

Then about an hour later on the other side of the street, when I was headed to my car parked in a big lot, a young man (turned out to be 23 yrs. old but looked 19) approached me and was clearly distressed. He wanted to know if I had any work for him to do. He would mow lawns, pull weeds anything. He said he didn't want to just ask for money, he said he wanted to earn it. I had no work for him to do really and no cash on me but my friend gave him ten dollars. He showed me his SDSU student ID card I guess as a way of proving he wasn't a bum. I gave him my phone number and told him to call me later if he had no place to stay. I would put him up for a few days. He seemed legit to me. He never called.

Both of these things were right out of Grapes of Wrath, so heart wrenching. It feels like 1931 all over again. I know the economy has been in the dumper for 2+ years now but things are getting worse and worse. No jobs, and people being displaced left and right.  I know I teared up and so did my friend. I was still shook up hours later. "What the hell is going on here"?

What is going on in this country when people like this college student can't find a job and old people must beg for money from a wheelchair? How can our country have come to this? Have we learned nothing from our own history. The excesses of the 1920's and the irresponsibility of the financial sector in the twenties gave us the depression. We are living it out all over again only instead of it being stock market foolishness we have a  toxic housing industry. This is right out of a Charles Dickens novel about a greed filled wealthy class exploiting the lower classes and getting away with it. This must stop not only in this go round but in the future. Steps have to be taken to see to it that this doesn't happen again. This isn't what the founders of this nation envisioned or wanted.