QuotePlenty of folks who owned homes got evicted during the Great Depression for owing back taxes.  That of course was the fate of Tom Joad's family of Okies and many other poor farmers.  You have been fortunate enough to first get a job with Paul Allen that allowed you to finish paying off your McMansion, and now you have both Social Security (nonexistent until after the GD) and a pension, plus your current Slave Wage job to cover your tax bill.  I remember how close you came to falling off the cliff before you landed that miracle job with Paul that allowed you to weather the storm.  Had you not landed that job, the outcome likely would have been quite different today.

I was fortunate to get the job but lets be clear.  That job did not 'save' me.  I was able to get the job because I had the training (masters degree) and experience 20+ years to do it.  I was not in debt when I took the job and had savings.  I passed a credit check to get the job. 

I would have found something else had I not found the job restoring old computers for Paul, and I would have saved money.  But less for sure.  I was fortunate.  I was making the kind of money that TV sitcoms pretend everyone makes.  It was good.  It was good that Paul made sure his people were paid a little bit better than what Bill was paying in Redmond.  We had better medical and I saved every extra dime. 

Taxes on the house are a fraction of what a mortgage payment would be.  SS can cover it were I broke, and I won't even have to eat dog food in the near future.  Good we have SS which the great depression did not have.  With my social security I can live like a king on a McJob, and you live a hundred times better than you would on the streets of Anchorage.  It is sad we have had to endure fear mongers talking about the end of social security for 50 years.  When SS is actually taken away, it will truly be game over. But anybody who takes it away before game over will be dead.

Take it away before game over, and the pitchforks come out.



I really don't consider the house to be a McMansion.  There are plenty of them in our neighborhood, but a McMansion to me has beaucoup wasted space.  But you have been here, and you call it a McMansion.  So it must be.  But to me McMansions have an element of pretension about them that this house does not have.