I can't afford anything fancy myself, but I do love looking at all the pics of pretty coops. I don't know that I'd make ones like that unless it was for a business, regardless of how much money I had, but I still think they look fun. I'm just utilitarian by nature, in general.
My hens live in a couple of tractors in the front yard. We live in town and have no back yard, so that's just how it is for now. We used mostly new materials because I didn't want to wait around to find used. Before winter we are going to convert an old dog house the neighbor gave us into more permanent quarters.
All that said, we are geeks, so though our mini-van (we have seven people in our household -- so it's just the right size) is a few years old, and our house is on the low end, we do have some pretty nice computers.
I am very pro-social justice and much in favor of holding corporations accountable for wages, the environment, working conditions, etc. I know people that are extremely poor and are doing everything they know to do to make ends meet -- now keep in mind they might not know much because they were raised in very dysfunctional situations. A lot of people don't realize how much their innate abilities/intelligence and their environment growing up effects their ability to function and provide for yourself -- the US has less social mobility than a lot of European countries, for example but we are so saturated with the Horatio Alger-type propaganda that it's not even funny. Add that to all the social Darwinism that has become like mother's milk for so many and it's just not a pretty picture -- unless you like the idea of living in an society that resembles a Charles Dickens novel.
HOWEVER, the folks that are responsible for our rapidly diminishing middle class are most likely NOT the folks on this forum building fancy chicken coops. Most of them probably don't give a second thought to the conditions the hens laying the eggs they eat live in. Everyone has priorities and as a general rule, somebody else making a comfortable living does not cause me or my family any kind of hardship. I'm happy when good things happen to and for others as long as those things don't come at the expense of other people.
Haiti has been hundreds of years in the making. They are the victims of crimes going back to colonial days and from what I understand, the area is not abundant in natural resources. I have no idea what the solution is and as far as I know, Americans have been pretty generous with aid to Haiti. Our generosity is one of the things I love best about my countrymen, actually. We are a people of excess and generosity is no exception.
We are also excessive with our hobbies and our pets. But, heck, I'd rather see somebody spending money on something like that than a Hummer, to be honest.
