Contemporary Love

One day, seated in the back seat of a cab returning from an assignment, I heard this on the radio: "Me and my husband make 500 dollars a month, we pay the rent and the bills and we stay with 150 dollars for the rest of the month. We have a daughter, you know? People don't have any idea about how difficult is to survive."

I disagree. I think the people of my country know exactly how hard it is to survive here. Never before have I heard so many people talk about going away (emigrating).

Let's take a close look. Our minimum wage is less than 400 dollars a month. Now, let me tell you that house rent is never much less than that, unless you a find a place whose only similarity to a "house" is the fact it has a roof. Basic things like light, water and telephone don't cost less, altogether, than 100 dollars (if control yourself very well) a month. Join this to the fact that people need to eat, feed kids, and pay for transportation to go to work, and you have a large number of Portuguesese people in a very, I mean very, tough situation. Our legal "minimum wage" is not a living wage. It is a prescription for disaster.

You see the beneficiaries of our minimum wage every day in the streets. Poorly dressed. Without good coats for the cold. Packed like sardines in the bus, taking two hours to arrive home after work. Speaking loudly about how they wish their kids would study to have better lives, a dream that keeps them warmer than their clothes.

But will their kids have better lives if they study? Let's take a close look at the majority of people that come out of our universities.

Most of them never find the job for which they studied. The ones that conquer that (what is already a big victory) spend a lot of time working for free, or working for a miserable amount of money and waiting years and years (against the law) to enter into the staff. Meanwhile, they get paid with "green receipts" (no contract), which means that, by law, they are independent contractors so they can work for more than one company. Seems like a good law, but from a practical point of view, it results in a big lie. Most of the time these "independent contractors" work normal hours (eight or more hours a day) for one single company with no time to work a second job. And if they don't spend at least eight hours a day at the job they are kicked out because they didn't work hard enough, according to their bosses.

What do the unions do? Nothing. They are very happy when they conquer a 2% raise, which amounts to an eight dollar a month increase for someone earning four hundred dollars. Ridiculous, right? Well, prepare yourself to laugh a little bit more.

Despite our miserable salaries, we pay a fortune in taxes. To give you an example, when I was receiving less than 450 dollars a month with no contract (green receipts) I had to pay the IRS 100 dollars a month and almost another 100 dollars to Social Security. You don't need a degree to understand that my real salary was 250 dollars. Could I work a second job? No way. I always worked the normal time (eight or more hours a day).

Who helped me? My father. But who helps our parents, most of whom are in the same situation?

Are the taxes worth it? What a joke. You go to a public hospital and you wait more than five hours to be seen (not to mention those who, literally, die waiting for help). You enter a public school and you want to run away fast.

What about the cost of living in Portugal? Well, it's the same as Spain (not very different from, for example, Los Angeles) and the Spanish receive an amount three times our salaries.

How can we live? I believe we are a fantastic people. Almost miraculous people.

BUT, let's take a close look again. After all, we do see streets full of cars. How? Well, not counting the large number of people that live in poverty and the people that are just now entering the market, we do have a "middle class" (we could call them the next generation of poor people). They see a lot of TV and they buy a lot of magazines, so they continuously receive the "global village" message about "the good life". Naturally, they want to be part of it, or at least pretend, so they run to the bank for credit. It's unbelievable the number of Portuguese that are with a rope around their neck for having so much credit at one time. In the end, even if they win a little more than most (like 1000 or 1500 euros a month -- in very good cases) they end up in the same situation as our "minimum wage" earners.

And yet the prices of common goods and services are getting higher and higher. Wonderful, right?

But what about the rich? Yes, sure, we see a lot of Mercedes and BMWs around here.

Well, most of those people run companies and most Portuguese companies are still small to medium sized. What happens most of time is that to avoid paying higher wages or taxes, these small companies close saying they can't afford to stay in business, thereby increasing the unemployment, and nobody from the government investigates them. I don't remember one single case where the owners were condemned in a court for closing a company for illegal or fraudulent reasons. They keep the Mercedes and find a way to run from the taxes while their unemployed workers pick a train or bus to look for a new job, where, if they are lucky enough to find one, they can start all over again.

And how many of these bosses speak about how lazy the workers are? Well, with salaries like that, motivation would require more than a miracle.

What about the big companies? It's a mystery how they are able grow with such a small mentality. Yes, salaries there are a little better, but not a big deal; and the hope of entering the staff is a mirage in the desert, an iillusion. And if you complain they say you are a communist and that you don't want to do anything, blah, blah, blah....

But, what is really amazing is that for the bosses there are always big salaries, gold cards, and fine cars. In a country where the salaries are miserable, bosses live like the rest of western Europe. No wonder they believe we are Europeans. Well, If I am a European, I really consider myself (and the most of the Portuguese people) the poor cousin. You know, the one that nobody wants to imitate.

More amazing than that is that millions and millions are given to football players and spent building football stadiums. Imagine those millions invested in hospitals, schools, scientific investigation, or culture (the poor cousin of the state budget). Would only make sense to build a new football stadium when there are no more hungry children in Portugal.

How do things seem to me? That we have three problems. A problem with priorities, therefore, a problem with the quality of the decisions made, and, therefore, a problem with the bad actions that result. And, by the way, a fourth problem: soft, very soft people.

To be continued...

Regards,

Proverb