How has the recession affected your life

[d.mcc]

How has the recession affected your life?

1. Got laid off.

2. Have to listen to right wing clowns tell me "there are plenty of jobs out there, people are just too lazy to work".

Laid off since Feb. 12th.

Barely scraping by with bills, loans, debt

Literally hundreds of applications, cover letters, resumes, and portfolios...

Listening to people say all unemployed are lazy and sucking off the government...

[ZRX Doug]

Laid off since Feb. 12th.

Barely scraping by with bills, loans, debt

Literally hundreds of applications, cover letters, resumes, and portfolios...

Listening to people say all unemployed are lazy and sucking off the government...

Well, you know..if you'd quit sitting around listening to people and get off your lazy ass, you could probably have a job by now instead of having to suck off the government..



I just had to do it.

[ZRX Doug]

Just a suggestion..but how about if all you folks who are out of work add your qualifications to your posts?
I know of a few job openings, I'm sure there are others here who also do..let people on the site know what you do, maybe some of us will connect point A to point B and put a few people back to work.

FWIW, someone up the line mentioned letting their car & appliance repairs slide to save some cash..that's something I could help out with, betcha there are plenty more here with other skills to barter as well.
Lack of cash shouldn't mean lack of everything else if you've got a skill or product to trade amongst a good sized community like the DYES forums..

[Jimaz]

Lack of cash shouldn't mean lack of everything else if you've got a skill or product to trade

No kidding. Check out time banking. It could be a life saver in some cases.

[ccbatson]

First step is to realize that honest work is good work, nothing is "beneath" a person.

[Lorax]

First step is to realize that honest work is good work, nothing is "beneath" a person.

Let us know how that's workin' out for ya after you've volunteered at the local soup kitchen, which we know will never happen.

[East Detroit]

First step is to realize that honest work is good work, nothing is "beneath" a person.

First step for you is a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Your replies are just completely clueless. Your "insights" have absolutely no value in the real world. I can only believe that you are either jams pretending to be a jerk or someone just lonely and trolling for attention by being obstinate, on purpose. I would rather believe either of those than believe that people as selfish as your opinions and running of the board demonstrate can actually exist on this planet.

The recession has changed me by making me less tolerant of people who make snarky and insensitive remarks about the plight of PEOPLE. I am tired of hearing their stupid crap while watching good people face true hardships.

[ccbatson]

Fiction EastDetroit...interesting to watch, based on a idea, not reality.

[Detroitej72]

Fiction EastDetroit...interesting to watch, based on a idea, not reality.

Gee, kind of like Atlas Shrugged or any other fictional works by Rand.

[Bobl]

Back to the question:
No more weekend trips. Few nights out to see and hear live music. Will likely never buy a new car again. Fortunate to have found a job this summer, after a year and a half of unemployment, working for what I earned in the 1980s. Barely paying the bills. No savings.
But the worst thing, by far, is the realization that ten years after the Gramm Financial Services Reform Act was put in place [[with the acquiescence of Bill Clinton), the financial sytem has nearly collapsed as a result. Worse, in the year since the meltdown, there are still no sensible financial regulations and the foxes are still in charge of the henhouse....after collecting billions of our dollars in bailouts.

[MoparDan]

I found the job market to be quite well in Texas, while the cost of living is lower [[you don't even have to pay state taxes).

No, but the property taxes will eat you alive. The job situation here is better than the rest of the country but it also depends on what you do & where you want to live. A good part of my job is traveling around the state to meet with local law enforcement officials. I've seen a lot of depressed & dying towns along the way; people are moving here but it's to the cities & suburbs.
We're also in the midst of a 2yr drought in central & south texas; water restrictions have been in place for several weeks now. High tech companies such as AMD & Samsung are laying people off. A neighbor was told he could transfer to New York or be let go; they're moving. Caterpillar is building an assembly plant outside San Antonio; the site was vandalized a few days ago & a lot of construction equipment was damaged. Welcome to Texas, Cat Power!
There are very few places in this state I would want to live, central being one of them.

Back on topic. Despite my wife & I both having stable jobs, we have cut out frivolous spending. There was no vacation this year. I've also tried to pull as much reserve duty as I can to pad my wallet; so much to the point of using vacation time since I've run out of military days from my employer. One major thing we did to help ourselves was to kill a 19.9% credit card account by transferring half the balance to another card at 9.9% then take out a personal loan at 9.9% to pay off the bill altogether. The savings we're getting from not having that finance charge is fantastic.
I really have to feel for the lot of you up there struggling in this economy. Back in the recession of '92 I was laid off twice after getting out of the military, so I can understand the frustration & aggravation in trying to find stable employment. I managed to stay off unemployment by also working for temp agencies but that is very unpredictable. Just like the other jobs, I walked in one morning & was told the contract was canceled so I was let go. It certainly wasn't a case of avoiding work that was "beneath" me but trying to find jobs I was remotely qualifed for or convincing hiring managers I was THE guy they needed. At one point I had a physical confrontation with some clown pontificating to me about "being lazy" & "not trying hard enough".
When the tech bubble burst back in 2000 a lot of companies disappeared overnight eliminating jobs & livelihoods. My agency had three openings for desktop support & we interviewed forty-five people; those candidates were selected from over a hundred applicants. The area has bounced back from those days but I don't take anything for granted.

As a side note: I plan to take a number of clothing items to Goodwill, IE Land's End T-shirts, Levi's blue jeans & possibly some Dockers slacks. The stuff is clean, in very nice shape & I'm not asking money for them. The shirt sizes are large & the pants are 32/34. If any of you are interested, shoot me a private message on here & we'll see what we can do about getting them shipped up there.

[ccbatson]

Mopardan is describing a personal example and illustration of one of the main problems with the current economy and why this is going to be a long and deep recession [[likely in waves). It is a lack of confidence at the heart of this [[for good reason). To restore confidence, we need to get the government out of the way [[for the most part). 2010 and 2012 elections will hopefully helped to do just that and set us back on the right track.

[Bobl]

"...we need to get the government out of the way..."

Huh?
That premise has been proven wrong. The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 got the government "out of the way", with disastrous results. Long before that, the Savings & Loan deregulation served as a trial run for the disaster.

Putting the foxes in charge of the hen house never works, except for the elite few who are allowed to take advantage. The rest of us bail them out.

[tahleel]

I was able to find great deals on houses, infact, I bought two.

Thanks recession!

-Tahleel

[Lorax]

"...we need to get the government out of the way..."

Huh?
That premise has been proven wrong. The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 got the government "out of the way", with disastrous results. Long before that, the Savings & Loan deregulation served as a trial run for the disaster.

Putting the foxes in charge of the hen house never works, except for the elite few who are allowed to take advantage. The rest of us bail them out.

Exactly.

Privatize profits while socializing losses. The mantra and raison d'etre for the Rethuglican Reich.

[ZRX Doug]

Yeah, just listen to what Republican posterboy John F. Kennedy had to say on the subject..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma0goZOSVl8
Oh, right..nevermind.

[oladub]

"...we need to get the government out of the way..."

Huh?
That premise has been proven wrong. The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 got the government "out of the way", with disastrous results. Long before that, the Savings & Loan deregulation served as a trial run for the disaster.

Putting the foxes in charge of the hen house never works, except for the elite few who are allowed to take advantage. The rest of us bail them out.

True enough. However, each state also regulates its own banking. In states that had stiffer regualations, very few savings and loans went bankrupt. A very high percentage of the bankrupt savings and loans were in Califronia and Texas which had lax banking regulations. These two states had benefitted from their respective loose S&L regulations during good times having the advantage of expanding their economies faster than states with tighter regulations. The pity of this is that when CA and TX S&L's went bankrupt, the federal government stepped in to bailout CA and TX with taxpayer money from other states. So, in the end, CA and TX benefited on the upside from loose regulations and federal largesse when things went sour. As Lorax noted, "Privatize profits while socializing losses."

Bush's Wall Street bailout [[note to Lorax: Also heavily supported by Democrats including Obama) was an even more preposterous example of this. It was the large 'too big to fail' banks that the feds helped out while smaller state banks are allowed to go bankrupt. The FDIC is about broke now so we shall see how long this lasts. Rumors are that the FDIC is overlooking some situations now to avoid paying out money it doesn't have.

[ccbatson]

Check the basic premise...get the government out of the way of?? what?

If you unfetter free enterprise, we win. If, on the other hand, you unfetter the corporate socialist banking industry [[Freddie and Fannie as examples), you open the flood gates for government corruption by putting the inmates in charge of the asylum [[or having nobody in charge at all)...THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED resulting in the bubble bursting and the economy crashing.

[exdetroiter]

just a suggestion..but how about if all you folks who are out of work add your qualifications to your posts?
I know of a few job openings, i'm sure there are others here who also do..let people on the site know what you do, maybe some of us will connect point a to point b and put a few people back to work.

Fwiw, someone up the line mentioned letting their car & appliance repairs slide to save some cash..that's something i could help out with, betcha there are plenty more here with other skills to barter as well.
Lack of cash shouldn't mean lack of everything else if you've got a skill or product to trade amongst a good sized community like the dyes forums..

great ideal!!!!!!!!!

[ccbatson]

Most importantly...no honest work is beneath a person and most often a person must start at the bottom and work up.

[Lorax]

True enough. However, each state also regulates its own banking. In states that had stiffer regualations, very few savings and loans went bankrupt. A very high percentage of the bankrupt savings and loans were in Califronia and Texas which had lax banking regulations. These two states had benefitted from their respective loose S&L regulations during good times having the advantage of expanding their economies faster than states with tighter regulations. The pity of this is that when CA and TX S&L's went bankrupt, the federal government stepped in to bailout CA and TX with taxpayer money from other states. So, in the end, CA and TX benefited on the upside from loose regulations and federal largesse when things went sour. As Lorax noted, "Privatize profits while socializing losses."

Bush's Wall Street bailout [[note to Lorax: Also heavily supported by Democrats including Obama) was an even more preposterous example of this. It was the large 'too big to fail' banks that the feds helped out while smaller state banks are allowed to go bankrupt. The FDIC is about broke now so we shall see how long this lasts. Rumors are that the FDIC is overlooking some situations now to avoid paying out money it doesn't have.

Total agreement from me. Since when have I kissed Obama's ass? I have never said his support or that of Democrats was warranted. If you vote like a Bush, then you identify with Bushian policies. I wanted the whole system to wash out, lay blame clearly where it would have and should have been laid, at the feet of corporate America. Now we're only reinflating the bubble [[I started a thread on the subject with much success, I might add).

I'm far too socialistic for the Democrats. I would support Bernie Sanders for president, so you know where I'm coming from.

[oladub]

I'm far too socialistic for the Democrats. I would support Bernie Sanders for president, so you know where I'm coming from.

In that case, I hope you are supporting S604 which is sponsored, not co-sponsored, by Bernie Sanders, who has had it with the arrogance and lack of transparancy of the Federal Reserve.

[East Detroit]

Most importantly...no honest work is beneath a person and most often a person must start at the bottom and work up.

Who are you lecturing now?

Got a cite to show that there is a job available for every unemployed person?

If not, then shut up.

[Lorax]

In that case, I hope you are supporting S604 which is sponsored, not co-sponsored, by Bernie Sanders, who has had it with the arrogance and lack of transparancy of the Federal Reserve.

Absolutely.

Haven't met a Sander's sponsored bill I haven't liked yet. Still waiting for something coherent from Dems/Rethugs.

Medicare for all, please.

[jams]

Most importantly...no honest work is beneath a person and most often a person must start at the bottom and work up.

You really have no clue about reality?