Ruby's Dream
Helping to change the world one person, one family at a time.

What good are high-minded ideas and ideals unless they can be put to practical use?  Let's find out together.  Here's the scenario:

I have known Ruby for almost six years.  In that time, she has always presented an upbeat and optimistic demeanor. I have seen her work hard, and long hours.  She has always been friendly to me and I have come to learn many things about her and her family.  This Thanksgiving Ruby, one of her daughters and four of her grandkids spent the holiday to share Thanksgiving dinner this year.  I spent a little time talking to her grandkids about education and what possibilities they could have if they finished high school and went on from there.

As I have gotten to know Ruby and her family's situation better I came to realize that her problems and dilemmas exemplify a great deal of the problems our society promotes. 

Namely, the incorrect ideas that the fantasy lifestyles currently presented in the  popular-media are real and sustainable; that living the fast life is cooler than finishing school; that living for the moment is better than planning for the future, and that the government is there to bail everyone out who falls through the cracks. 

These ideas are incorrect and costly to both the people who believe and try to live them, to the people who pay the taxes and to the government and society itself.  It is my contention we are slowly destroying ourselves via a popular and media culture that feeds on us when we are young and naive and continues to distort truth until we educate ourselves or are consumed by the lies.

It is also my contention that everyone has a stake in the situation and the outcome, these costs are exponentiating, and we all end up paying for it either with our own situations, or with the increased cost of government to try to clean up the messes we are creating for our own society.  To me, these costs are unnecessary wastes that can be avoided by fixing the places our current society leads people astray. 

Ruby's situation is difficult to solve but not impossible because Ruby does work hard and desires to work hard.  With that one important building block, we can try to find a way out of the difficult situation that has been created.

As I said to her, "Ruby, your story has it all."  Only now it does not affect just one person but your entire family.  The costs are large economically as well as personally.  After two generations of making the same mistakes and relying on the failed great society programs from the 1960's to set things right, Ruby is at a crossroads.  She is trapped in a low-paying job due to her lack of education and need for benefits; she desires to break out and run her own cleaning business (she has been cleaning homes/offices/hotels/apartments/condos most of her working life) but does not know how to do so and maintain the benefits she needs for her family while  developing the stable client base she needs to break out on her own and become a net contributor to society.

The stakes:  Ruby has four children.  One of whom finished school and is working in a support capacity in the legal profession, with a granddaughter currently on track to finish high school and who wants to go to college to be a lawyer.  The other three have followed similar paths to Ruby, or worse and there are three other grandchildren that Ruby takes care of as well as her own mother and a daughter whose husband recently was killed.  The point is that now society is paying for more kids and grandkids because the problems were not stopped or solved.  If the cycle continues, the costs will double again in the next generation of children growing up surrounded by gangs, a culture of drugs and violence, and a disdain for school and education anywhere but "the streets" and hip-hop culture. 

I don't know about you, but I don't want taxes to increase to pay for these unnecessary mistakes.  I want to see everyone of the grandkids graduate high school and go on to further education and have the opportunity for stable careers.  I want to stop the problem, turn things around and get her family on the right course: finishing high school (including finding a way for Ruby and her other daughter to go back and finish, eventually) getting them off the government merry-go-round by helping Ruby establish her cleaning business where she can be an independent earner and contributor instead of a dependent member of the working poor.  Providing her as a role model of how to break the cycle by working with her and her demonstrated ability to work hard and making it work for her instead of her wondering what will happen next.

If we cannot accomplish this, we increase the costs to all taxpayers for having to clean up the mess later on--future government programs and higher insurance costs for you and me, as well as increased costs for crime, policing, etc...  You get the idea, and I'm not making this up...these are all real "career tracks" in the neighborhood she deals with, and she does not want her grandkids to get caught in those traps of fast money and negative consequences.

Now, it is worth mentioning that Ruby's situation started before the great society programs of the 1960s existed, and are only worse today, despite the "assistance" of the government programs.  More government welfare is not the answer.  She is working hard, but needs help making that hard work payoff. 

With an independent job where she can have a real chance to earn a living wage, and the benefit of a private Health Savings Account, where she is not trapped in a dead-end job for the benefits, she has a chance for a better life and perhaps to someday finish her own high schooling.  She has a chance then to show her grandkids that doing things the right way and trying to be a good person pays off better than the "fast life" presented to them daily on TV and hip-hop culture.  What would YOU rather their destiny be?  Even if you don't care about people in general, if you care about your pocketbook, you will want to reduce your own tax burden by finding ways to help people like Ruby directly. 

See, the truth is that the answer is not just throwing money at a problem, or letting the government set up yet another failed program.  The way to end poverty is to get personally involved, examine the situation, and find viable solutions that empower the person themselves.  Can it be done 100% of the time?  Probably not.  But even if this private-sector approach to doing things helps reduce the current situation by 50% we have then saved our country (and thus ourselves) 50% of the cost of all those ineffective government programs.

And so, this is an experiment and a test of what kind of America and society we live in, and what kind of America and society we want to live in.  My bet is that if we find ways to lift up and educate all people, find ways for them to earn living wages and empower people with responsibility and self-determination, we will save ourselves and our government a tremendous amount of money, time, lives and families.  If we do not, then taxes will rise, government will seek to control more of our lives in the name of baby-sitting our problems, and we will lose the true freedoms this county was founded to establish for all its citizens.

Those are wastes and costs I am not willing to throw money away on.  Are you?  Who do YOU know that needs an exceptional cleaning service (home/condo/office/etc..) from someone motivated to prove she can be a positive contributor to society as an example to her children and grandchildren?  Click on the link to view the webpage we've donated to her dream:
Ruby's Dream Cleaning

Ruby's Dream Cleaning To Do List
Here will be posted a current list of the things Ruby will need to break out of her cycle of poverty.  As we help her acquire them, we will set her on the road to freedom, independence and being a positive net contributor to society and establish her as a role model for how to break the cycle of poverty without using any failed government programs.

Client List (names may be withheld upon request)
Estimate that Ruby will need 20-25 steady clients for her cleaning business to successfully start.

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Health Savings Account
Estimate that Ruby will need to establish and fund a HSA for covering her and her family's medical needs, as well as providing them a savings vehicle for future retirement if they do not need the money in any year.

Working Computer
with basic software and simple accounting business software for invoicing and tracking expenses.

Fund for additional expenses related to running a small cleaning business: supplies, transportation allowance, misc. expenses.

©2003-2006 Christopher, Philosopher;
PG, Inc. All rights reserved