Chasing the American Dream with $25

[Capper]

How’s this for a crazy idea: a guy moves to a randomly selected city with $25 and plans to have a place to live, a car, and $2,500 in the bank—all within one year. Adam Shepard performed this exact feat and then wrote a book about it, titled Scratch Beginnings (SB Press, 240 pp, $13.95). According to Shepard, his experience proves that the American dream can come true.


In college, Shepard read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, which argues that only government intervention can rescue the working poor from what Ehrenreich portrays as a desperate plight. Shepard doubted her thesis and wanted to test it. So after graduating, he went to Charleston, South Carolina, with a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, $25, and a made-up tale of woe. He spent the first two months in a homeless shelter while he worked as a day laborer. He later found a permanent position with a moving company, which gave him a stable income. This allowed Shepard to buy a (very) used pickup truck, rent and furnish an apartment with a coworker, and start saving.

Chasing the American Dream with $25 — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

[screwballl]

good stuff... even those at the bottom can work their way up... but the key phrase to end that is "if they choose to"...
We need something to force or encourage them to work their way up rather than be happy living paycheck to paycheck and living off the government...

[Dread]

Let's face it, most people are lazy and when they learn to abuse the system they get comfortable living off of our tax dollars. Why work for it when you can get it for free?

[stevensonmat2]

This Ehrenreich lady sounds like the exact kind of person who would see our country cripple itself with dependency on the government. Seriously, why is everyone so against survival of the fittest these days? Let the working poor fail if they choose to.

[drew and not u]

Originally Posted by stevensonmat2

This Ehrenreich lady sounds like the exact kind of person who would see our country cripple itself with dependency on the government. Seriously, why is everyone so against survival of the fittest these days? Let the working poor fail if they choose to.

You talk as though we already haven't.

[stevensonmat2]

I should screwball-edit 'further' in before cripple and call you dumb.

[screwballl]

Watch the movie Idiocracy to see one very possible direction of this country