Posted on 02/29/2008 7:54:58 AM PST by SE Mom
I have a new story today about Michelle Obama's visit to Zanesville, Ohio, where she met with a group of women at a local day care center. According to the U.S. Census, Muskingum County, where Zanesville is located, had a median household income of $37,192 in 2004, below both the Ohio and national averages. Just 12.2 percent of adults in the county have a bachelor's degree or higher, also well below the state and national averages. About 20 percent don't have a high school degree. Nevertheless, Mrs. Obama urged them to foreswear lucrative professions like corporate law or hedge fund management and go into the helping industry, even if the sacrifice is great:
-As she has many times in the past, Mrs. Obama complains about the lasting burden of student loans dating from her days at Princeton and Harvard Law School. She talks about people who end up taking years and years, until middle age, to pay off their debts. “The salaries don’t keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you’re in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids,” she says.
“Barack and I were in that position,” she continues. “The only reason we’re not in that position is that Barack wrote two best-selling books… It was like Jack and his magic beans. But up until a few years ago, we were struggling to figure out how we would save for our kids.” A former attorney with the white-shoe Chicago firm of Sidley & Austin, Obama explains that she and her husband made the choice to give up lucrative jobs in favor of community service. “We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.” Faced with that reality, she adds, “many of our bright stars are going into corporate law or hedge-fund management.”
What she doesn’t mention is that the helping industry has treated her pretty well. In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office. And that does not count the money Mrs. Obama receives from serving on corporate boards. She would have been O.K. even without Jack’s magic beans.
Mrs. Obama also bemoaned the amount of money she has to spend — nearly one-third of the median household income in Zanesville — on piano, dance, and other lessons for her two children. But she was grateful for the concern her husband's supporters have shown for her. "Everywhere I go, no matter what, the women in the audience, their first question for me is, 'How on earth are you managing it, how are you keeping it all together?'" she told the women.
02/29 08:19 AM
Someone should look into how much time spent performing her duties for the Univ of Chicago. Word is “she was never there.” Her position appears to have been grease to the wheel.
Nurses and social workers often work for privately owned facilities like nuring homes, some hospitals. If nobody goes into business management who is going to be able to own and operate these facilities and provide these jobs, hmmmm Michelle?
Socialist idiot.
Plus, just who in the hell is Michelle Obama to try and tell ANYONE what they should do with their lives?!
sorry for the second post
:^)
I know we all carry our own burdens, but I’m sure Michelle doesn’t wash her own dishes, scoop up the dog’s poop in the backyard, iron her husbands shirts, drive her children to school, does her own nails, prepares 3 meals each day for her family, or scrubs her own toilets.
I think its’ great that many people in this country CAN hire people to do these things. But let’s not sit around talking about things we don’t have to personally deal with. Complaining about how much someone spends on riding lessons, piano and dance lessons, is a little bit like complaining that you don’t like the color of your personally chauffered limo. I’m glad she was finally able to pay off her student loans (I’m 43 also, and will be paying them off when I’m 50).
But being a woman who has class, and integrity, and privilege should require that she conducts herself with a little more humility (I would think) and a LOT less “ghetto”.
And I’m sorry — I don’t think a 43 year old woman is old enough to be the 1st Lady. Just MO....
:-)
Exactly. So few Democrats seem to speak Liberalese well enough to understand who they are planning to vote for. Michelle Obama is basically telling them they should be serfs and not aspire to anything better or more challenging careers.
If Liberals would stop telling people they are victims, the ‘helping’ professions would see high unemployment.
“Shouldn’t she be correcting essays or changing bedpans instead?”
Mrs. Hussein is a typical RAT/lib/socialist/commie — “Do as I say, not as I do. Good for me, but not for thee.”
I think if elected, Michelle will be the Marie Antoinette of our times. She has the perfect princeton/harvard superior/eltist attitude. “Let the peasants eat cake” while she and Obama dine on lobster and steak at the palace, er White House.
You speak for many of us:)
what a bitch, if no one finds he’s cheating on her harridan arse I’ll be shocked.
he is after all, Gawd.
I didn’t think I’d see the day when a presidential candidate’s wife told voters to NOT go to college, get the best education possible!!! Mrs. O is an IDIOT, and an arrogant one at that. I hope the white lib feminazis go after her on this.
A college education is the one GREAT EQUALIZER in America!! Both my parents grew up desperately poor in rural Arizona, children of menial laborers. Both parents learned the value of a good education and somehow put themselves through college. They have lived comfortable middle class lives for decades. They also set a brilliant example for their children, who also went to college.
Both hubby and I put ourselves through college and graduated without debt. We had to live dirt poor lifestyles while we were in school: no cars, no fancy clothes, rarely eating out, no money for boozing or spring break vacations.
At age 52, hubby and I are closing in on a net worth of $2 million dollars (not including our paid-off house). We did this the hard way: working as corporate cogs (LOL), paying ridiculously high payroll taxes, and living within our means.
I cannot stand this woman...
MIchelle Osamabama will be our best ally going into the election...she will turn off more voters than her husband will.
You are SO right!!
Exactly, however, they did put her there just as General Motors, GE and several others put people in office.
Bet you she’s a big fan of the WNBA.
More so. She's an affirmative action Hillary. Without the charm.
The CHOICE to go to a very expensive ivy league school requires working, loans, or some sort of benefactor (I suspect she would want the government to be the benefactor).
The CHOICE to have children is the biggest sacrifice of all.....time, money, etc....I suspect that Ms. O also would want the State to take care of this.....THE NATIONAL DANCE LESSONS PROGRAM!
Hillary has charm?!?!? lol
SO if everyone takes her advice and works for the gov’t, who pays for the gov’t?
If the Republicans are wise, they will point out that the difference between Senator McCain's captors and an Obama administration is not a matter of kind, but degree.
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