Direct from Alan Beggerow
An early morning commenter on the blog this morning was none other than Alan Beggerow, recently featured in the New York Times story on "Men Not Working," on which I posted earlier this week. It turns out that he has a blog that provides some additional details on his situation. My excerpts:
When the mill closed I was eligible for unemployment, but chose to retire instead. I have not collected one dime of unemployment since retiring.
When the mill closed I was eligible for retraining money. I chose to retire instead.
I paid off my house years ago. We took out a second mortgage to assist in the payment of medical bills not covered by insurance after my wife's accident and to purchase another vehicle, as hers was totalled in the accident.
There is so much more to life than bustin' your butt, my friends. Money is a necessity, but you would be surprised how much you can get by on if you have to, and if you want to. I got to the point where I no longer owned my possessions. They owned me. The material side of life no longer has the spell on me it once had. Even with things getting tighter financially, I know we will get by with the basics that we need. Our life is frugal, but good.
I'm glad to read more of the details. My one remaining question is, "Why doesn't Alan include Google and Amazon ads on his blog?"
3 comments:
And, his story undercuts Krugman's story about the 'real' unemployment rate.
Beggerow has a post on his blog that shows a 'save_the-rust-belt' mentality about economics, which probably explains his freely made choices:
http://winkle52.blogspot.com/2006/07/free-market-economy.html
Alan doesn't sound unemployed; He sounds independent.
Greetings again!
Alan Beggerow here. I appreciate that my clarifications were brought to the fore. I had an interview Wednesday with Tucker Carlson on his show, if you can call that an interview. I figured that he would be his typical self and I wasn't disappointed. After I collect my thoughts I'll write a piece and post it on my blog about the experience.
Having your life analyzed and judged by a few hundred words written in a NY Times article has been quite an experience. I'm glad I did it. The issues the article deals with need to be brought forward and debated. I must say I didn't expect the debate to range quite so passionate and wide. But I intentionally threw my hat in the ring, so no complaints from me. After working thirty years in a steel mill, my hide is pretty thick.
My wife is having a little more trouble with things. There's been some pretty nasty comments made about the both of us. But she understands why I did it, and continues to be in my corner, as I am in hers.
The ads for Amazon and Google on my blog are a great idea! I'll include them when I figure out how, and I get my lazy, dead-beat self off the couch :)
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