class wars

There's a lot going on in my life right now (now a certified phram tech - CphT!, new/repeat boyfriend, my first "comission" - my cousin wants me to write music for his wedding), but one big theme in my life right now is lack of money. I didn't really realize that I was doing ok before, until my rent checks started bouncing and started eating refried beans with rice for several meals a week. Working where I do, I really can't describe how stupid the middle class looks to the lower class sometimes. I can't count the number of times a nice middle class lady has come to the counter at the drug store to buy some fancy face cream for 7.99, and thought, "seriously, you could buy dinner for a week for that. What's wrong with you?" I think more disturbing than little things like that, though, is the overall picture of Americans it gives me. Our priorities are so skewed - how can we spend millions of dollars a year on home improvement products, when our houses are generally ok, and when our neighbors have no place to live? And it's not like your trading-spaces-style room makeover is really gonna be in the pages of Architechural (sp???) Digest anyway. Why not save to do something fantastic? Why does no one want to do something fantastic?