Is *THIS* what our country has been reduced to?

[El Pinko]

http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_8905314

As lending industry crashes, thousands seek jobs elsewhere

By Barbara Correa, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 04/13/2008 03:17:56 AM PDT

The subprime home-loan rush is history. But its impact on the state's work force is just beginning to play out as tens of thousands of real estate, finance and construction workers are left looking for work after a number of heady years.

A year ago, Ed Stush, a former senior vice president at a Fieldstone Mortgage office in Irvine, was earning six figures and enjoying the perks of senior management in an industry that seemingly had no growth ceiling.

Today, his former employer has filed for bankruptcy protection, and his income is zero. He can't even get an interview for jobs paying less than half of what he used to make.

.....

Torri Shack, 29, left the mortgage business in 2007 to become a personal trainer. After five years making lots of money, she ended up declaring bankruptcy for her business, but she says she is much happier now. Entrepreneurial at heart, she is launching a new dog boot-camp venture, a workout program for dogs and their owners.






This is what our country is reduced to now that we no longer have a middle class or make anything useful to the world economy. Trying to come up with ways of getting a few crumbs from the tables of the ultra-rich, by offering to aerobicise their DOGS.

:puke:

[marmar]

1. And it's just beginning to get ugly.....

Hold on to your knickers, people. :scared:

[gateley]

2. I don't think we can even fathom

what's in store for us. It is so beyond what we ever considered could be possible in our country. :scared:

[liberal4truth]

19. Do the years 1933 to 1945 come to mind?..

Fascism: American Style.

[gateley]

21. I'm been seeing the parallels since I heard

Naomi Wolf speak.

[liberal4truth]

31. Well certainly more homelessness,high unemployment,more people in food lines, prices for all goods..

going through the roof.....Oops..thats already happening NOW. :-(

[gratuitous]

4. Oh come on!

I just got Super Smash Brawling Brothers or some such game. Life can't be that bad!

[El Pinko]

5. Reminded me of the latest episode of "The Office"

Jan, who has been unemployed for at least a year has moved into Michael's sad social-climber condo, where they show off their 12 inch wall-mounted plasma screen and in one room, Jan has set up her aroma candle-making business, and of course they try to get their dinner guests to invest in it.

So sad, but so true to life. How many people are putting their last cents into these kinds of desparate schemes? And how does anyone not know that the aroma candle market is massively saturated, with dirt-cheap aroma candles galore in every store? How could an American possibly compete in that market with cheap overseas producers? The same goes for any number of other products and services. :(

[liberal4truth]

18. You betcha! We aint seen nuthin' yet! nt

[Juche]

3. Maybe it'll backfire

With a Leninist strategy, maybe the radical right wing will make life so damn miserable for everyone that they just get crushed in the elections, and we finally start getting politicians who revise the political code to protect the middle class.

Paul Krugman says the middle class were created via the great compression under FDR in about 10 years. So maybe after one too many college educated person who used to make 100k ends up working at walmart the whole system will collapse.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/09/the-great-compr.html

[tom_paine]

7. Disagree. The uber-rich made the "mistake" in the 20s and early 30s of tethering themselves

to the economy and therefore the fortunes of the peasantry.

I think it had something to do with the old Old American attitude that we were generally in this together.

(no I am not idealizing the nation of that time, it had plenty of warts and was a living hell for African-Americans, among others, in the 20s-60s, and yet in general we were still a proudly free people, unlike today, when collectively we aren't much more than a bunch of bootlicking toadies who will make fantastic concentration camp guards and neighborhood spies.)

At any rate, the Bushie Rich have for decades been rectifying this situation so when they finish looting the country, the impoverishment will touch them marginally not at all.

Instead of behaving like the wealthy Americans of the 30s (again, I am not idealizing this bunch, that's for sure, but I think some of them actually saw themselves as Americans connected to the rest of us, unlike the Bushie Rich today) they will behave like the Soviet Elite or the French Aristocrats of the late 18th Century.

Our impoverishment will not diminish them as it did in the 30s, for that reason. In fact, it will make them even more powerful, aristocratic, and detached from their peasantry (which is us).

Sadly, since what you describe would not only be justice for the looters and criminals but also another Great Compression would likely be just as good (in the long run) for Liberty and the Middle Class, as the last one was, I think it very unlikely that the uber-Bushie-rich will be touched by the disaster they are engineering by looting and hollowing out our nation, treasury, and economy.

[liberal4truth]

17. "Fantastic concentration camp guards and neighborhood spies". Amen to that! The only real growth...

industry here in the US that seems to have no end is the so-called "security" business, i.e. More police, more TSA agents, more prison guards and more prisons, all over this formerly "free" nation.

I wonder _WHO_ the "Powers-That-Be" are planning on putting in all these new prisons?

[gateley]

22. You hear all these stories of huge

detention-type facilities out in the middle of nowhere. Who, indeed.

Not too many years ago I would have dismissed any consideration of this horrifying thought as :tinfoilhat: Not anymore.

[liberal4truth]

32. Yes, it does seem that some of those stories might be true..

like you I thought it conspiracy stuff but there seem to be a few abandoned railroad facilities and old military sites that are being "renovated" lately for unknown reasons and under secrecy. There was a cable program about one in Indiana and it certainly looked like no railroad shipping yard or facility I ever saw before to me, and I work in transportation of freight. I must admit that I was referring to all the new prison complexes that are under construction in many states, but secret "Kamps" are even more foreboding, if indeed that is what they are.

[treestar]

6. He was making six figures for all those years

And could have banked some in case of this happening. Sorry, but I feel sorrier for the poor.

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Could be how he was raised

A lot of people have never known economic hardship and they expect, or were led to believe, that the good times could never end.

[Selatius]

10. George Carlin said it best. It's called the American Dream because you gotta be asleep to believe it

Those people were asleep to reality.

[liberal4truth]

20. 21st Century American Dream: Staying out of a jail cell and off of the streets.

No, that isn't funny at all, just the truth.

[Art_from_Ark]

27. No doubt about that

When one's world has always been roses and rainbows, there's no reason to believe that it could ever change.

[Selatius]

9. I find it funny the bank boys at Bear Stearns got a bail-out, but everyone else suffers.

Funny, indeed.

[Initech]

11. I cant take much more of this crap.

This fucking display of excess (I mean really, I have dogs, but why would I need an exercise program for them? They get plenty!), combined with reality shows like MTV's "The Hills" and "My Super Sweet 16" really make me understand why the French killed Louis XVI.

[lonestarnot]

12. What was the name of that Russian elite family whose bodies were all

discovered not long ago? All wiped out, murdered every one of them. Damn! Can't think of their names. and on edit I'm not suggesting anything like that of course, just trying to remember my history. Getting older by the day. LOL

[El Pinko]

13. The Romanoffs?

NT

[Manifestor_of_Light]

14. Nicholas II and his family. Yup.

they finally found their bones (except for the boy) and identified them thru DNA.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

15. I was making jewelry.

Stringing beads and making original designs. I had a website.
Paid for a shopping cart system and all that.

Results? A grand total of one sale for a $12.00 pair of earrings, in one year.

[El Pinko]

16. Wow. I'm sorry. I hope the investment wasn't too much.

Maybe you could retool the shopping cart system to make it into something else innovative that would work in our new crap economy.

Like an online flea market of sorts.

:shrug: I have no idea. If I knew of good ways to be making money, god knows I'd be doing it.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

29. Uh, I can tell you about the flea market thing on eBay. My other failure.

The people who license the shopping cart software are owed a few hundred dollars so now they bother me with bill collecting calls all the time. :banghead:

I consigned some of my stuff to an eBay store. You take your stuff to their office, they research the value and put it up on eBay. If they sell it, you get 50% of the sale price.

They've had six or eight boxes of my tchotchkes (china, glass, Bavarian porcelain) for a year. One of the ladies called me and told me to take it back, they didn't have room to store it.

They sold one group of depression glass that was four glasses and two platters. I made $77.00 as my half of that sale. One year of my stuff on eBay, and one sale.

I've sold a truckload of my stuff (literally a truckload) at an auction house in a little town and I'm sure it was far less than it would have sold for if the boxes had been unloaded and the small items sold individually, or if it had been sold in a big city.

I'm just baffled as to how to sell my extra stuff and get a damn dime for it. :shrug:

I sure wish this society would support musicians and artists. If it did, I could make a living.

[Quantess]

23. Well, I have to admire Ms Shack's positive attitude.

She seems to enjoy her new career as an athletic trainer for dogs, even though she isn't making the bucks she used to. Many people in her situation simply curl into a ball and cry. Or drink a lot.

[mwb970]

33. That's what I was thinking.

I'm not so sure that a story of someone who set up a company to provide a service that matters to her is the best example of how low the country has fallen. Isn't this entrepreneurship in action? When I lost my job in 2004, I set up an on-location recording company and have enjoyed this work so much more than my other job. (Of course, it doesn't pay anywhere near as well!) Now I am writing a series of eBooks about music that I plan to sell online. There's always a way!

[drmeow]

24. I'm trying to get estimates

to convert my yard to desert landscaping. I had a meeting today with the originally person I spoke with a few weeks ago and the new person (owner's son) who is taking over bidding my job because the first guy's been laid off because they don't have enough work. I did NOT ask them if they'd voted for the shrub.

[Jeff_The_Man]

25. Why do you want to re landscape?

[drmeow]

34. Mostly to save water

I'm putting in lots of native and low water use plants that will attract a lot of wildlife (especially hummingbirds and butterflies). Also putting in a trees to shade the house from the brutal desert sun on the south facing side to save on A/C costs. Yard currently has 1 tree (north side, high water use - will be removed and the trunk given to a friend who is a carpenter for him to mill and turn into something ... who knows what - to be replaced with a native tree), 1 shrub (low water use and staying), a raised bed with desert landscaping which I planted (staying), and the rest is nothing but far too much grass, weeds, grass, weeds, and more grass and weeds. Not only does is suck up water but it also means more mowing (which means more pollution), more fertilizer (OK, I'll be honest, I don't fertilize but I need to), provides no wildlife habitat or shade ... and is BORING!

[taught_me_patience]

26. The hubris of these people knew no bounds

I know because I worked at CFC at the height of the bubble. I have no sympathy for this fool.

[defendandprotect]

28. More economic "shock and awe" . . .

Could Cheney/Bush be thinking that some more CHAOS would keep our minds off their criminal activities?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. Remember what Cheney said?

He said we could all make a living selling our stuff on eBay, remember????

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :puke: :puke: :argh: :argh: :puke: :puke::grr: :puke:

:puke: :grr: :argh: :argh: :banghead: :puke: :grr: :grr: :puke: :grr: :spank: :spank:

[SoCalDem]

35. I'm ashamed to say this, but my son & his wife spend BIG bucks

every week for Sophie to go to "Doggie Daycare".. Creeps me out, but it's their money..and what they pay every week is providing jobs for the people who take care of Sophie..

[slackmaster]

36. The same thing happened in the early '90s

I worked for financial institutions from '83 - '90.