Quote:
Originally Posted by desertsun41
Who needs twisted statistics. Twisted to show what ever the reporting agency wants it to look like.
The real truth can only be verified by living it. Look around you. The jobs in the Sunday newspaper have shrunk to a few pages. Pawn shops all over are reporting record numbers of people selling their jewels. Prices on every single item we must buy to survive has skyrocketed. Companies no longer give raises (except govt or union jobs) and those who do, the better ones toss a token quarter an hour per year. 45% of Americans are one pay check from disaster. 72% of Americans are one illness away from financial ruin. Over 80% of Americans have a medical debt on their credit rating.
We have a foreclosure rate that is worse then the 1928 crash when you take the total homes VS the population % of the time. People are walking away from their homes all over. These people have marked their credit in such a way that they will not be able to buy another home for 7-10 years. That takes hundreds of millions of home buyers out of the buyers market for a long time. Car insurance, health insurance, home owners insurance....all out of the average persons reach.
The rich keep getting richer and the poor and middle class continue to get poorer.
You mark my words. We are heading for a complete economic crash. A complete collapse. Todays news said gas will be $6-8 a gallon by 2012. That is about $200 to fill up for the average car. 19% of Americans live below the poverty level now and that is just about their total weekly earnings after being raped for taxes.
Here we are here reading this on our thousand dollar PCs hooked up to a provider for another $40/m and many dont even know those "other" people exist. Just because you dont see them driving into the driveways on your block does not mean they dont exist. Their numbers are increasing fast.
Recession? By the time this govt admits that word we will have by then be in a depression.
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I can't agree more. My husband and I just shake our heads in disgust when we hear the local news and read the local papers with their boosterism and rah-rah cheerleading about how "good" this area (Central ORegon) is doing. ha ha
The local (and biggest employer here) wood products manufacturing plant laid off over 200 people in the last year. The boat manufacturing plant in the county laid off almost that many people in the last year. There are no other big industries here to take up the slack. Lots of meth, crime, burglaries, people out of work. The newest commercial venture here is a fried chicken place (woo-hoo, more minimum wage, service jobs!!) and a new hotel with a clock tower that looks like Tom Terrific's funnel hat. Ditto on the wages. I don't know how people are going to make it anymore except with getting on the government (read, taxpayer) funded dole. With more people out of work, where will the money come from?
I predict that we will have mass unemployment, worse than we have seen in our lifetime, except for the Great Depression. It is the domino effect. Here in Central Oregon, the housing market was so overpriced and overvalued that builders and contractors are losing their shorts, have lost their shorts, or are going into foreclosures. Too many spec builders and people wanting to get on the greed gravy train. Attendant jobs have gone by the wayside.
I predict we will start seeing more abandoned vehicles. When people run out of money, out of gas, out of work, & can't get to work, they will either lose their rented homes/go into foreclosure, or start living out of their vehicles. People who can only afford (!) driving older, cheap gas hogs will not be able to afford the gas and low mpg, or the insurance (if they are even insured).
We may even have a return to the Hoovervilles of the Depression. It would be like starting a Third World country within this great nation. People building squats to live in out of whatever they can salvage, just like in Mexico outside of big cities.
I predict we will see more abandoned animals. Pets of all kinds will be turned loose to fend for themselves. Shelters will be overflowing. I think that is pathetic. Dogs dumped in rural areas will form packs and run livestock and chase humans, before getting shot by local ranchers.
I predict a stock market crash. Our dollar is weakening rapidly. Again, the domino effect. The world has depended on our country's economic and financial health for so long. This could be a very serious, world wide depression.
My only advice is to become as frugal as you can be, and then some. Believe me, my grubbing powers are well honed. I have done this for years. Use it up, wear it out, make it do, go without. I know by memory how much everything costs and what I won't buy unless it is on sale. The Dollar store is your friend. We don't buy paper towels, we use old clothes for rags, wash them, or throw them away if gunky. Thrift shop clothes and shoes are fine. We have no cable TV, no cell phones, no gadgets, no Internet, no eating out, no trips to other towns, no frivolous purchases. (I am writing this on my lunch break at work). Make all your stops in one trip when running errands. Pay your bills first, then put something in savings, then buy groceries and gas. Look down the road. Stop your bad habits (cigarettes, booze).
My husband has been out of work almost a year. He is at that age where people don't want to hire older workers (59 1/2). (Industrial Engineer, BSIE, Purdue University). He is a Veteran. He can't get employers to consider him, although he has had a few interviews. We have a stack of reject letters/applied-to jobs over 6 inches high. He has been to numerous job fairs and done the unemployment $$. They didn't help him at all. Self-serving State jobs.
We have slipped from subsistence living to a negative cash flow. There are no government programs to assist people who make a tad more than the poverty level. I take my lunch to work, eat ramen, scour the mark down sections at the grocery store, buy outdated foods. We don't go anywhere, don't do anything, except on our property. We have a garden. We innovate.
I am getting a 28 cent raise per hour this year. It will just pay enough to cover the increase in the cost of my "insurance" (that I can't afford to use) that is connected to my health savings account. I have worked here to 13 years and make $10.75 an hour. There is nothing else here unless you "know" someone. I won't go into that because it is too depressing. I have fibromyalgia and have prescriptions. I can't afford to pay for them without the health savings account. It would eat up 1/4 of my income every month.
The recession is here and I think it has been a long time coming, just various factors contributing for several years. It will get worse, no doubt about it. Stop spending on things you don't need or can't afford. You won't regret it a year from now.
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