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Jay Shackford
Trash Talking
Come on, Nori. Don’t claim poverty and play us for fools. On this very forum years ago, you bragged about your “big, beautiful life” messing around in the theater, going to Broadway shows, and romping around Florida and the Caribbean Islands every winter (you claimed you even lived in the Bahamas for awhile) while we common folks were freezing our asses off in DC and the Northeast. You even posted pictures getting a tan on the beach sipping a margarita or some other exotic drink.
You don’t do that on a trash-man’s salary. Talking about trash, a couple of weeks ago, our trash pickup was delayed. When it arrived at our cul de sac (I live at the end of the cul de sac and down a pipestem) late during that July day when temps were in the mid-90s, there was one big truck and a single driver. The two helpers who rode on the back of the truck and picked up and dumped the trash into the truck were missing.
We live in the last big Planned Unit Development (PUD) in southwest Fairfax County about 18 miles from the White House with a mix of nearly 6,000 housing units — single family homes, townhouses and walkup apartments that was build over three decades (1970s, 80s, and 90s). We also have more than 500 Section 8 units reserved for lower income households — households that pay 30% of their incomes for rent with the federal government making up the difference between the 30% paid by the household and the market rent for the unit.
Burke Centre has five pools and community centers, 16 tennis courts, two strip shopping centers with office space for doctors and other professionals, a private indoor tennis and swimming club (where Nina worked for about 20 years), one library and two elementary schools. When you break down our conservancy dues paid quarterly, trash pickup is the biggest item on the list and we’ve gone through a couple of trash companies in recent years.
To get back to my trash story, I yelled out to the driver, Julio, “Where are your two helpers today?”
“Ice,” he responded. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Word on the street is that ICE will be raiding trash companies this week in Northern Virginia,” Julio responded. “They are scared and hiding out. That means you guys will probably have one rather than two pickups for a couple of weeks. It takes me more than twice as long to complete my route by myself.”
Look, Nori, I don’t have anything against people building wealth or even marrying into wealth. That’s the American way. I’ve been poor, head of a struggling family trying to make rent every month, and, during most of my career, pretty well off financially. Believe me, having some money in your pocket is a lot better than being poor. But the lessons learned from those lean years give you a perspective and sense of empathy that you seem to be missing.
What’s happening on our streets of America today is shameful. Masked ICE agents picking up people of color indiscriminately (these are not the murderers, rapists, and worst of the worst) that Old Bone Spurs, Stephen Miller, and dog-shooting Kristi Noem are talking about. No due process, no reading them their rights — nothing like that. Handcuff them and shove them into a van — taking them to unknown detention centers or flying them to black sites halfway around the world.
Meanwhile, the world moves on. Putin was meeting with Xi of China and Modi of India in China last week in what appears to be a new and potentially dangerous alliance that has been triggered by Trump’s bat-shit tariff policies. Hey, if the U.S. is going to mess up the world order with its crazy tariffs, then China, India, Russia, and other nations will make their own alliances and develop new trading partners.
We are still the biggest and most powerful economy in the world — with our total economy totaling about $30 trillion. But China is catching up with an economy rising to $20 trillion. Germany, Japan, and India are next in line. Russia is poor and in 11th place, behind the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, and Brazil.
Inflation has been rising since Trump took office, with the latest numbers on inflation and employment not looking good. Threatening the independence of the Federal Reserve Board and firing professionals who have been collecting economic stats for Democratic as well as Republican presidents for decades won’t change the underlying economic problems that seem to be leading us to a period of “stagflation.”
Think late 1970s and early 1980s when inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all in the double digits — with mortgage rates reaching 16% levels in 1981 and 1982. Thanks God for FED Chairman Paul Volcker, with President Ronald Reagan’s backing, who stood firm in late 1979 and brought down runaway inflation that threatened to permanently damage our economy. In 1983, the recovery began.
America needs to face the facts. The middle class is being hollowed out. Young families can’t afford to buy their first homes. Medical care is getting more and more expensive, and once the “big beautiful bill” goes into effect, 12 to 15 million Americans will lose their health coverage. Thousands of rural hospitals will be shut down. If you get sick and go to the ER this winter, you will probably end up in the waiting room for hours or on a gurney in a hallway before being treated.
And inflation is gaining momentum since Trump started his second term after it had been declining for months under President Biden. During Biden’s last week in office, I paid $2.81 a gallon to fill up my SUV. Last week, I paid $3.13.
On public health, RFK, Jr.’s anti-vaccine philosophy and his recent firings at the CDC should send shivers down your spine. Childhood diseases are reappearing. CVS and Walgreens won’t provide COVID shots this fall because of the chaos created by Trump and RFK, Jr. Other pharmacies are likely to follow suit. What’s next, flu shots? Pharmacies are where most Americans get their vaccine shots. Funding for new vaccines, cancer, and other medical research at NIH and universities has been cut by the billions.
Look, Covid 19 killed 1.5 million Americans and 30 million worldwide. The next pandemic is out there just waiting to strike, and the U.S. is less prepared than it was in 2020 when COVID first hit.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump told top donors that he wished he could brag about Operation Warp Speed — his big win in his first term. But he won’t because he’s afraid of offending his anti-vaccine supporters. Now that’s leadership!
More than 85% of the nation’s elderly — the most vulnerable — were vaccinated in the first nine months after the COVID vaccine became available, saving millions of lives. In Russia, where they did nothing, the per capita death rate was at least three times higher.
The message is clear. Get your facts straight and develop some empathy, or before you know it, the trash will start piling up in front of your house.
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Adult loon, doing drama.
