15th
Why do the poor stay poor? Reason #27
Because, like a wayward billiard ball crashing across the green, knocking against other balls at random, the poor make virtually every decision in a fog of desperation. Knowing that one wrong move means a missed mortgage payment, or less food for the week, or at the least the emotional disembowlement feeling that comes with money lost needlessly, they react towards every decision, every confrontation, and every potential opportunity with fear. They have no cushion, no room for error, no second chance to get it right, no leisurely time to pause and consider and aim and then fire. It’s like they are a blind man trapped in a room with a loaded rifle trying to shoot bulls-eyes on targets tacked to the wall. Every chance they take is taken as a Hail Mary at the close of a football team when the losing team has but one last desperate heave left before annihilation. A few dollars in your pocket equates to little precious time to accomplish the dreams inside your head, wheras a fortune means a century of chances to do what you want.
Bluntly, in the uiniverse of chance, the poor have but one spin at the roulette wheel. Miss and they, like so many before them, go home, retreat into the darkness to become like muddied bricks to support the future generation of poor to follow. But the rich have many spins at that same wheel. And only occasionaly, as though by dumb luck, do they crap out. But mostly, like the carefully aimed billiard ball shot towards its easy prey beside the hole, they find their destiny secured, if at the sacrifice of a few misses.
