There is a slew of reports this week that paint a pretty bleak picture. The Labor Department has placed the unemployment rate at 9.4 percent (the highest since 1983), If you add “temp workers” the rate is higher. In the meantime, another report indicates that over 16% of personal income of the United States is now coming from the government.
while
With jobs cuts continuing, we are now at an unemployment rate of roughly one in ten Americans — not including temp jobs or low wage service jobs.
The good news is that the loss of jobs is slowing.
However, we are now seeing the impact of our crushing deficit spending. The government has been pouring out money and it is now endangering recovery according to the Chinese who hold $768 billion in our Treasuries, here.
I’d keep on writing but the combination of these reports and the invention of a new robot teacher has led me to start a subsistence garden.
For the unemployment story, click here.
rafflaw,
I am very sorry to hear of your and your brother’s situation. I’m glad you were able to find a job and hope the same for your brother.
gyges,
Pets are expensive and I know it would be hearbreaking to give up your dog. I truly hope you will not have to do this. It has always sounded to me that there was a lot of love in your new family and I’m glad for that.
I thought you all might be interested to know that the Health Insurance Companies that have a stranglehold on our helath also are extremely heavy investors in tobacco companies and products.
That seems perfectly apt for the screwed up system we have in America.
http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/richard-noggin-saturday-health-insurance-companies/
GWLawSM:
Me too!
Mespo writes Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.”
—Winston S. Churchill
thanks, doll.
I knew there was a reason I’d like this place.
Gyges You wrote: I’m trying to decide if we’re lucky to be going through our young poor (and I mean poor, our choices aren’t “should I sell a hand bag” they’re “do we have enough to keep our dog”) couple living on love stage right now or not.
YOu are lucky to be in love while you don’t have much money. love will get ou through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no love. I paraphrase Jerry Garcia who once said “pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no pot”
My squeeze and I went through our young poor stage when he was a grad student and then a post-doc making $600 a month and I was lucky enough to find a $7 hr job. okay so it was 28 years ago and our rent was $350,but we were budgeted down to out last 35 cents each month. My parents loaned us $10k to buy our first house when interest rates were 18% and they had to co-sign the loan and gradually we worked and saved and climbed up the food chain. even so, we were not impoverished or afraid. we knew that our educations would pay off and we’d get raises and promotions and we refinanced the house a few times and then moved around every time my husband’s company moved his job to another state. As a thank you for going along with being uprooted every 3-5 years I’d get a slightly grander house and maybe a nicer car. we raised the kids and gave them every advantage we could afford and then it all ended.
I am happy to report that love is once again getting us through times of no money. and I would not give up those early lean years for anything.
rafflaw writes: GWMom, I hope your situations improve as quickly as possible. Keep the faith and continue to visit here and share your thoughts and emotions. It will help all of us.
thanks. I’m not looking for sympathy although I do appreciate it. I think I’m seeking redemption for living in a nearly delusional state for all my life. It was a delusion of the most insidious kind of grandiose thinking that I’d be unaffected by things that have no morality or IQ but are completely random. I do feel for every American in my place who through no fault of their own find themselves in much worse straights than I myself experience. times are hard for lots of people.
dig this: something like 1 in 6 children in the country live in the most back-breaking gut-wrenching poverty one can imagine… like India poverty… and yes, I’ve been to India and have seen the crowds of orphans that beg at every rail station, some carrying dead infants, many intentionally blinded.
1 in 10 children in America is homeless or will experience a protracted period of homelessness. we are like 27th in literacy worldwide and below most first world nations in infant mortality. A huge percentage of Americans are forced to use emergency rooms as their primary source of health care at rates around $600/hr.
something will happen for me, for my family. we won’t be like this forever. someone somewhere that my husband helped will connect him to a job and we’ll dig ourselves out of this hole and once we do I will never again take my good fortune for granted.
Beulah/GWLawMom:
I can add nothing to ease your burden save this line from Churchill I remember from my youth. My father, no stranger to hard finacial times, always used this little saying when I met some disappointment. It didn’t buoy my spirits then, but it should have.
“Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.”
—Winston S. Churchill
I’m trying to decide if we’re lucky to be going through our young poor (and I mean poor, our choices aren’t “should I sell a hand bag” they’re “do we have enough to keep our dog”) couple living on love stage right now or not.
Lotta You wrote: there is no excuse for the betrayal of the working class in this country
working class? who’s working class? not me. I’m a mid-century princess reared by parents who escaped the holocaust and suffered thorough the depression to give me and my sibs the best that american suburban life had to offer. I’ve never known hunger, financial insecurity, and except for the people who worked for us as domestics, never saw people who did. Not to sound like some snotty oblesse oblige stereotype, e were not the wealthiest in the neighborhood but I never went without shoes or clothing or medical care. My dad did well in his profession, even if he was kept from medical school due to anti-jewish quotas, and my mom was a fund raiser for a huge 501C3 that made her financially independent and we all lived very well. we belonged to the jewish country club and the right synagogue with the best youth groups and vacationed at the house my parents rented in malibu every summer.
I never questioned my place in the world, and never thought I’d go anywhere but higher in the food chain. I’m extremely well travelled and well educated and have just enough neurosis to make me interesting at a cocktail party. I hang out with artists and writers and for a short time in the late 70’s got a little bit famous writing poetry and had a few affairs with men whose names you’d recognize.
If I met myself tomorrow I wouldn’t even know me. and its not because I overvalue my background and life story. Its because I never expected that anything could penetrate the insulation of advantage and affluence that I’ve had all my life. My expectation that it would continue uninterruptedly is the pie in my face. Bad stuff does indeed happen to others I just stupidly thought I was immune.
As one who was out of work for 6 months last year, and with my brother who has been out of work for over a year now, I can understand what is going on in this country. I do believe that things are slowly getting better. The market’s rise the last 3 months may be beginning of the recovery, but I do believe it will be a slow recovery.
Mike S., I enjoyed your comments and Beulah and GWMom, I hope your situations improve as quickly as possible. Keep the faith and continue to visit here and share your thoughts and emotions. It will help all of us.
Not even sure where to begin since economics is rarely discussed here. I’ll use a broad brush.
I agree with Mike that the government is actually run for (and by) corporate and banking interests. The system we are now living under has evolved into full fledged corporatism, where corporations keep politicians in power in exchange for contracts and favorable legislation from the government.
Everyone knows how this worked with Halliburton back when Dick Cheney came into office. Many know about ethanol and ADM. People are now catching on to firms like Goldman Sachs and the incestuous relationship between much of the financial sector and power circles in government. It’s everywhere, and it’s not capitalism.
The ultimate scheme protected by the government is the Federal Reserve Bank, a corporation given monopoly control over money creation and interest rates. The Fed’s role as a central bank allows the federal government to borrow unlimited amounts of money. The removal of any kind of constraint on the size of the money supply (like a gold standard) removed the last limits on the reach of government. This continues to play out, perhaps until the currency collapses.
This combination is how our government can even rob future generations through massive debt creation and inflation! This lets the government pay for its continuous expansion, our US empire, our wars, and for entitlement program spending that predictably facilitates the re-election of our ruling class in both parties. All this without having to tax the people at anywhere near the level of government spending! Magic.
I heard last night on ‘The Ed Show’ that 60% of all bankruptcy’s are caused by medical costs. And single payer is off the table. Ed is the working class Olbermann.
GWLawSchoolMom and BuelahMan, I am so sorry to hear of your difficulties, there is no excuse for the betrayal of the working class in this country and Mike S’s analysis is absolutely correct but it couldn’t have been done without Congress and most of the traitors that enabled Regan et al are still there, doing what they do.
‘Where are the Puerto Ricans now that we need them?’ has crossed my mind more than once in the last few years.
Thanks, all.
I just want a fair shot. But the ones getting the shots are rich bankers who took their HUGE companies past the point of devastation mine is in and they get bailouts while me and many more like me get squat.
As Jill points out, the spending priorities are wrong. We are an Empire and being an Empire is costly. Enough to equal what the rest of the world spends to “keep them in check”. Many of the other countries that benefit from our Imperialism have Universal healthcare, which would help my situation tremendously (I have paid premium health insurance through BCBS for MANY years).
We spend huge amounts of money on the “war on drugs” when marijuana is the best medicine my wife could use, but won’t because it is illegal. She would be considered a criminal in this state to get the best meds available (she has tried them all).
We allow the Treasury to be overtaken by the very foxes that killed all the hens to begin with. We have elected into government, people who are enriched and empowered by the Corporate criminals that have brought our manufacturing base to a standstill… which, in turn, turns my life and the many hundreds of thousands of other lives who depend on it into messes like mine.
Thanks for all the well wishes. That does help my sanity and gives me a ray of hope.
BuelhaMan,
My friend said Oprah now does her own nails to save money. I’m certain that tip will help you and many others out.
Actually,
I’m really pissed off about what you’re going through. I’m so sorry. It is unacceptable. The many people who pointed this out are correct to say this is not the story of one or two people, but of so many of us in our nation. Govt. spending in this nation is “priority wrong”.
BuelahMan,
You never owed me an apology and I never expected one. I am angry at what Bush et al. has done to this once great Nation and the corruption that abounds throughout government distresses me to no end.
The government is not there to give us everything, and I know as a small businessman, you will likely agree. However, the government has hindered and squandered opportunities for small businesses while lavishing gifts and tax breaks on the wealthiest businesses and they in turn have the money to buy their way out of paying taxes through tax avoidance incentives.
As a man who devoted his life to government as a workaholic, I thoroughly abhor what I now see as those who are in government taking advantage of their secure positions while forgetting that they are public servants first and foremost.
I am a middleclass retiree who is okay as long as the full faith and credit of the government is still viable. I certainly do not have the answers and nothing seems to make any sense nowadays with anything our government is involved. As a lifelong Republican, I put the majority of the blame on George Bush, who himself stood on the shoulders of a corrupt Nixon and a charismatic, but inept Ronald Reagan and his now denounced and disastrous economic policies. Clinton also added to the financial market instabilities with his laxness of market regulation.
We middleclass workers are partly to blame because we were greedy for our small share of the less than $100,000 gross of the bloated/inflated American Pie and because we did not watch over (regulate) our Congresspersons while assuming they had our best interests in mind (instead of lining their own pockets and golden nest eggs).
Do know that there are people who empathize with your situation. As you noted, others are filling your ranks so the government is going to be forced to do something to help and help they should since those in government are mostly to blame for letting big business control and regulate government instead of vice versa.
BuelahMan,
There was a story this week where over 50% of bankruptcies come from medical costs. With your surgeries and dealing with your wife’s disorder my guess is that you’ve really been through it. There are no words of comfort I could give you without just being glib and inane. Please understand though that my heart goes out to you, to GWLSM and to the untold millions of Americans who are bearing the brunt of this cruel con game.
We have been betrayed by the corporate and banking hucksters, who were sold to us as business geniuses, but whose only loyalty was to the almighty buck and their overweening egos. This endless bloodsucking of the American people must end and it is up to government to help pull us out of the hole. Those who might object to the government being the rescuer are blissfully ignorant of how much largesse the government bestowed on the wealthy elite these last forty years and indeed it has always assisted the haves, to the detriment of the have nots. It’s time for the rest of us to get the help and the money needs to come from those who’ve used the system to satiate their endless greed.
Mike S You wrote: GWLSM & BuelahMan,
To say i understand what you are going through, would be to trivialize it. I cannot know the pain and fear that both of you must be feeling. I have had my own experiences with this in my life and I know how I felt. I wish for better times for both of you.
What is expressed by these two people is going on all over this country in these times. I get enraged with those who have no sense of the disruption that these economic troubles have upon people and families. To those who say that it is not the job of government to try to lessen the burden on citizens in need, I say that they are ignorant bastards, with no sense of what our system has really wrought.
Me: thank you.
see. the thing is that I am not so different or special. I’m like millions of other people, what is the number up to now? 7 million who have lost their jobs in the last 8 months, who are struggling and uncertain and who have no answers, dwindling resources and growing obligations. how we will manage is yet to be determined. our future is uncertain and I am too old for this shit.
I don’t feel betrayed by my government, I feel betrayed by big businesses that have no loyalty to employees that swept up big piles of money laying around on the ground, make their organizations run smoother and more efficiently and then go and shelter their assets off-shore and do not pay corporate taxes. I feel betrayed by a system that allows CEO’s to make 500% of what the average worker makes and whose failures are rewarded with golden parachutes that insure that their feet will never touch the ground.
Thanks, Mike.
I am just pissed and little things set me off (like this altercation with FFL). There was a time that nothing bothered me. I was confident, secure, financially sound with healthy wife and child.
But then Insurance skyrocketed and medical bills from my back surgeries, my wife’s back surgeries and her Bi-polar have simply ravaged us. I have spent $23K out of pocket on average for medical alone for 4 years running. During that 4 years manufacturing has been dying, especially in the last year and a half.
I went from over $120K/year in commissions 4 years ago to what appears to be less than $10K or 20K this year if some miracle doesn’t happen.
We had to sell our dream home and now rent (err, live in my Father-in-law’s rental home free), depleted our meager savings, cashed out my retirement, and are still $50K in debt with my business, which caters to manufacturing, tanking (not a significant sell in 4 months). Plants I call on or integrators I sell to are laying off, shutting down or barely limping along. No one is spending money on needed equipment.
I am truly down to nothing in the bank and creditors calling several times a day (thank goodness for Caller ID).
The only reason I still have internet service is due to my business.
I see no light at the end of the tunnel and all I can do is warn people that it is coming for you, as well (unless you are fabulously wealthy).
So, yes, I post some funny crap on my blog, but if you ever read there, you will see that most of my stuff is communicating how the Corptocracy has totally taken over this country and has apparently finally done what I have been predicting for so very long.
I apologize for the rant and the cuss out, FFL.
Leo You wrote: GWLSMom: When you were discussing your child’s law schooling, I was wondering how viable that might not be. The best of good luck, Ma’am.
I don’t know about viability. more than a few of her recent L3 friends graduated last month with no jobs to go to, firms withdrawing their offers or deferring their offers. All we have is hope that the economy will improve in the next 2 years and her bona fides will be well established and she’ll get work that will bring her satisfaction and joy.
I am grateful for this place and as I’ve grown to feel safer among you and have started to disclose personal stuff the good wishes that I get from you decent and thoughtful people lift me from much of the despair I feel.
Thank you.
GWLSM & BuelahMan,
To say i understand what you are going through, would be to trivialize it. I cannot know the pain and fear that both of you must be feeling. I have had my own experiences with this in my life and I know how I felt. I wish for better times for both of you.
What is expressed by these two people is going on all over this country in these times. I get enraged with those who have no sense of the disruption that these economic troubles have upon people and families. To those who say that it is not the job of government to try to lessen the burden on citizens in need, I say that they are ignorant bastards, with no sense of what our system has really wrought.
The boom or bust cycle is a holdover from the 19th Century and is artificial, created by the wealthy elite as a money making scheme. At the same time this elite reaps most of its’ benefits from government, while they complain about high taxes. In the end we have changed little from the days of feudalism, where the peasants toiled to aid the luxury of the nobility.
To me the answer to this is not Marxian, because down that path leads to essentially the same world with just a different elite. We can make a capitalist economy work, if we grasp the lessons of the two Roosevelts, Franklin and Teddy. Corporate power must be tightly controlled and a viable safety net must be in place. I would add that health care and a higher education must be available/affordable to all. We are heading into very tough times and it is vital for us to at least be able to approximate in our hearts, the pain and fear felt by those, who played by, yet were failed by the system.