Take notes. As the middle class slides down the rabbit hole, the middle class will encounter exactly what they think they left. The lower middle class. We welcome you to our hovel. I cannot read articles like this without thinking: Where are the poor in this. In Appalachia, we know how poverty snakes around. The experts have always known more than we do. Where do you find homelessness in this discussion. Americans see the homeless and they look another way. We disappear. We are rendered invisible in this piece, too. And we understand that this invisibility is what saves us from many things. It’s our contact with the Normals that we manage. We know a moral issue when we see one. Please, not another think tank paper on poverty. You’all pretend and pretend. You’re not willing to talk about poverty and homelessness. Economic politics.

As the middle class slides downward, you begin to discover exactly what I mean. Education does not mean us. Banking does not mean us. Elections do not mean us. A roof does not mean us. A job does not mean us. An environment that does not cause cancer would be nice. Our issues are not your issues. Until they are. We have an economy, too. It’s called trade. I bake bread in a wood stove. I trade the bread for stuff. Yesterday, nails. The kind you pound. A hammer for five loaves. Three trout for mittens. Three baskets of apples for a Nanny goat. Nanny makes milk. I collect herbs from the forest. I don’t want your economy because you all are so mean.