1 in 7 in US live Poverty (including me)

[Surlethe]

On the bright side, the rich got even richer during the crisis.

Where did it say this? I'm very skeptical, because rich peoples' incomes is extremely volatile. It spikes when the economy is trending up, and drops precipitously when the economy is falling. This is because most of their wealth is invested, so their income follows the stock markets.

[K. A. Pital]

I bet the problem is that the relative share of the rich vs. the worker class in consumption increased. Or, perhaps, in a more direct way, like in Russia, where the number of billionaires doubled during the crisis due to a massive concentration of capital.

[Broomstick]

I don't have it particularly bad. Life is hard, but I do, in fact, have health insurance. I do have some employment. I have a place to live and enough food to eat. A lot of those folks living in poverty are worse off than I am. That still doesn't alter brutal facts like I've needed new glasses for about a year now and I am struggling to get enough funds to get an eye exam and a new pair. The little indignities of poverty and all that. But enough about me.

Check out Zenni Optical (http://www.zennioptical.com/home.php). We just got new glasses from them for pretty awesome prices.

I did. The cheapest pair of glasses I can get from them is around $139 and they can not give me my exact prescription, only an "approximation". Yes, my eyes are that bad. I basically have to have lens blanks custom made instead of off the shelf, which seriously increases the price. Zenni won't make custom blanks, so I'd have to make do with one that they say is "close" but isn't, in fact, what I need.

I can have glasses made locally for "only" $50 more that are, in fact, my proper prescription. For something I wear 16 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year getting it right is sort of important.

It is getting seriously annoying - I'm having to do stuff like copy posts from this message board or other websites to a text program that allows me to enlarge the text enough so I can read it, and even so I'm winding up with a lot more spelling errors recently because I just can not see clearly what's on the computer screen. Fortunately, my distance vision is unchanged, so I can drive safely, but I'm losing my ability to read normal print. It really is time for bifocals. Which, of course, cost more.

[Broomstick]

The irony, of course, is that if I was actually legally blind I'd have far more access to assistance than I do now, but because my crappy eyesight is correctable to normal I have no help. Nevermind that without glasses I can't drive, read, or safely do things such as cook a meal or cross the street without assistance - if I break them I am without recourse, even though without them I can no more function normally than a one-legged man can walk without a prosthetic.

Currently I have one pair that is scratched all to hell and the lens material starting to craze - using them is like looking through yellowed fog, but they are currently the best I have for close vision. My other pair is not not so badly scratched/fogged, and better for distance vision, but it's very hard to read with them.

I remember having clear vision corrected to normal. I do miss it. It's one of the indignities of being poor that it is taking me months to save up enough money to fix such a basic problem.

[Netko]

Broom, this won't help with the root of the problem, but you don't need to copy/paste stuff to get it enlarged - all modern browsers support zooming directly. In Firefox and IE it is in View->Zoom. You can select to only zoom in (enlarge) text.

[Shroom Man 777]

You can press CTRL and use the mouse wheel to increase or decrease the size.

Broomy, ever thought of getting your eye grades, and then telling it to some person in some Third World country where glasses and stuff can be made on the cheap, and then have it mailed over to your place? I don't think glasses here would cost a hundred plus dollars.

[Starglider]

I remember having clear vision corrected to normal. I do miss it. It's one of the indignities of being poor that it is taking me months to save up enough money to fix such a basic problem.

Trying to read without glasses is only going to make the problem worse. PM me your email address and I'll send $140 via PayPal.

[Broomstick]

Broomy, ever thought of getting your eye grades, and then telling it to some person in some Third World country where glasses and stuff can be made on the cheap, and then have it mailed over to your place? I don't think glasses here would cost a hundred plus dollars.

Yep, I have - Zenni Optical, for instance, which produces their eyeglasses in India. I've checked out several other such companies, and it's always around $120-180 for my glasses. Even in the Third World, apparently.

[Liberty]

Broomy, ever thought of getting your eye grades, and then telling it to some person in some Third World country where glasses and stuff can be made on the cheap, and then have it mailed over to your place? I don't think glasses here would cost a hundred plus dollars.

Yep, I have - Zenni Optical, for instance, which produces their eyeglasses in India. I've checked out several other such companies, and it's always around $120-180 for my glasses. Even in the Third World, apparently.

Are you sure it's still that expensive with Zenni Optical? Neal and I just got glasses from them (they came a week ago); we got three pairs for $43, and Neal's prescription is pretty crazy.

I couldn't give a higher recommendation for Zenni Optical, by the way. The glasses are awesome, and they cost us $14 each including antireflective coating and shipping. And they're made in Hong Kong.

[Broomstick]

Yes, yes, and yes. I really did go to Zenni optical with my copy of my prescription and they really did price out new glasses for me at a minimum of $120 US. Really. More if I want bifocals, which is what I suspect I really need at this point.

[Edi]

My father has vision that is screwed up in seven different ways and when he goes to get glasses here, it typically sets him back something on the order of 600 euros. Don't know if he has done a whole lot of shopping around the cheaper manufacturers, but he has trouble finding suitable frames and he has the same problem as Broomstick with the lenses. He does have bifocals.

Which reminds me, I need to get myself a new pair of glasses and relegate the current ones to backup. I'll need to go to Tallinn, though, because the glasses are absurdly cheaper there. Spending 30 euros on a boat ticket will save me 300 in the price of the glasses.

For reference, you can get good quality binoculars with a shitload more optics for half the price of glasses here, that's how bad the racket on eye glasses is.

[Broomstick]

I do that, too - keep my most recent prescriptions as back up. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

Back when I had money I was able to keep two pairs with a current prescription. Ah, luxury! Also sank some money into some very sturdy yet attractive titanium frames, which I'm hoping I can get new lenses fitted to - finding frames that can hold my lenses can be troublesome as well.

[Simon_Jester]

Binoculars are standardized: you can set up a factory to turn out a thousand copies of the necessary lenses automatically. Glasses, especially the kind that people with truly bad eyesight need, not so much.

The price of anything that has to be custom-made by skilled operators working on specialized precision equipment goes through the roof in a hurry; it's not just glasses.