Is Anybody Listening? The Real Faces Of The Economic Crisis
By Nicole Belle Saturday Mar 21, 2009 12:30pm
When AIG attempted to rationalize the bonuses given as the only way for them to retain "the best and the brightest" in the workforce, it was all I could do not to lose my lunch. Those guys--who drove the corporation into the ground are the best and the brightest? Mais non.
Meet the real best and the brightest: Michael Steinman's Advanced Placement English class at Village Academy High School in Pomona, California. These are the real faces of how this economic crisis has hit America.
Steinman led his students in a discussion of the American Dream following the novel The Great Gatsby. Steinman discovered that his students' idea of the American Dream was far more utilitarian than the acquisitive Buchanans or Jay Gatsby: a refrigerator with food inside; no fear of homelessness; employment for their parents. When he discovered that every student in his class was touched deeply by the economic crisis, he encouraged them to put their stories on video. The video, entitled "Is Anybody Listening?", was sent to then presidential candidates Obama and McCain as well as uploaded to YouTube. In the video, students talk about how economic realities have infringed on their hopes and aspirations for the future.
"We're all businessmen and doctors and lawyers and all this great stuff, and we have all this potential, but the way things are going, we're not going to be able to do that," said Yvonne Bojorquez, 16.
The video reflects life in a community where unemployment is at 12% and half the adults did not finish high school.
Village Academy is housed in a former department store, in an abandoned mall that now contains an indoor swap meet and a beauty school. More than 89% of the school's 521 students receive free or reduced-price lunches, an indicator of poverty. One-third are learning English as a second language. Yet the school consistently beats state and federal goals, and last year was named one of the nation's 500 best high schools.
The student video, as well as the coverage both on Newshour above and ABC's 20/20 last night are heartbreaking and put real faces (as I've tried to do on this post as well) as to who exactly are the victims of the de-regulated marketplace, where hedge fund managers and CDS traders still feel they're entitled to seven figure bonuses despite the bailout. This should once and for all quell the attempts to minimize the importance of those bonuses. It's not about the percentage of the overall bailout that matters...it's that these people's actions have taken food out of these children's mouths and roofs from over their heads.
As it turns out, someone was listening to the students of VAHS. President Obama, during his tour of LA this week, took time out to visit the students that inspired his speech on education, timed fortuitously with legislation that will help these kids and their future:
For starters, the video brought some welcome attention to the relevance of the Early College High School Initiative, a growing nationwide movement of more than 200 schools, including Village Academy, designed for low-income youth, first-generation college students, and other groups that are disproportionally underrepresented on college campuses throughout the nation.
Sponsored by various private foundations [..], Early College schools are paired with area colleges, or "post-secondary partners" to offer both high school and college courses. Some Early College schools are district schools or charter schools and thus eligible for federal and state funding. The college portion is funded in a variety of ways that include tuition waivers and scholarships for high school students to take college courses. By the time Early College students graduate from high school, they have earned two-year-college degrees or enough college credit to transfer to a four-year-college as college juniors, all without paying a penny for tuition.
The timing of the YouTube video's impact was notable as well. The day before Obama visited Village Academy, Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.) and Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.), introduced the Fast Track to College Act of 2009. The proposed legislation would create a $140 million competitive grant program to support Early College high schools and other "dual enrollment" programs, and $10 million would go to states for planning and technical assistance.
As a parent, this video breaks my heart. These children have so much potential and yet they live with so much stress and so much fear. Anyone who would like to donate should contact Village Academy High School, 1444 E. Holt Ave., Pomona, (909) 397-4900.
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I worry about your heart.
without tears... my husband as well. Thanks for posting this, Nicole! Hopefully we'll all start seeing with our hearts and take action to help out those less fortunate than ourselves. It's about frickin' time!
but my parents were foster parents, so we always had the awareness of how lucky we were.
I have to go to LA next month for a family wedding. I'm strongly considering taking some supermarket gift cards and giving them to VAHS while I'm there to pass out to some of the neediest families.
I wish I could do more, but unfortunately, we've been hit hard by the economy as well. One of the companies I do contract work for has decided to shut down, effective next month.
we didn't realize how poor we were growing up because so many of us were in the same boat (air force brat)... and our parents didn't speak too much about it.
If you're taking some gift cards, let me know how I can contribute, okay? (I felt so sad when we saw Chris' fridge and the few contents... I'd love to cook them a whoppin' huge dinner!) Seriously... if there's somewhere I can send a check, just let me know. Thanks for doing all you do. I've always believed the world is an abundant place when we take what we need and give all we can.
I'm going to call the school on Monday to see if they have something set up.
I'll give a call as well to see how we can help out.
My parents were children of immigrants from Sicily and back then people sort of had a problem with Sicilians (understatement).
I remember sitting at Bova's Pizza in our small town in Jersey (it's where all us dagos hung out)and hearing my father talking with his friends. The one thing they all said was if things don't change we'll all be on streets. I was young and I'd go to sleep in our two bedroom upstairs apartment for the six of us thinking about that line and wondering what it would be like if it happened and scared it would happen. It was a scary time. But my parents and their friends worked hard at what they did and realized the American dream. Bought a house, and sent their kids to college.
It was a different time when the American dream still had a chance. Now days those fears are closer for these kids than it was for me. I shared their feelings and my thoughts and prayers go out to these kids. Now days it's not enough to just work hard and achieve. They have to deal with the political aspect of the right wing just not caring about them and the corporate greed destroying the middle class.
"What a bunch of losers!"
I would love for anyone to make a split screen montage of this video on one side, and Mr. Santelli's rant calling their families "losers" on the other...
Don't forget "A Nation Of Whiners!"
-- Phil Gramm
'The Nattering Nabobs of Negativism' - Spiro Agnew.
It's not just the likes of Santelli making such claims. I was really shocked yesterday to find a post by one of my favorite liberal sites calling people who got screwed in the housing crisis idiots. My comment that it's important to see these people as individuals and not a faceless group (and included reference to several in my own life who've been victims) was attacked with venom and derision. My point here is to say that these videos bring to light one of the most important tactics we have in countering this need people have to put people into generalizations--real faces of real people. These kids and their parents are not losers, quite the opposite in fact. Poor people trying to better their lives and getting caught in traps doesn't make them idiots. Not having a decent education while striving for the American dream doesn't make you an idiot or a loser. We're all affected by poverty, we all live here together, and we all have a stake in making sure people beyond Wall Street succeed.
this simply underscores how dead the consciousness of our country is.
Other countries take it as a matter of course to invest in the future. It's call BIRTHRIGHT. Another term is pedestrian common sense. That's why the u.s. is doomed.
What is happening to these families is happening to MILLIONS. Everybody is saying awwwwwwwww Obama pays them a "special visit", singles out a Poster Child and the next day he announces buying toxic assets from banks against their future.
As the high and dry safe in their castles cluck with pity, taking a brief break from donating to every charitable organization but the desperation next door (Ooo-Ooo, too close darling let's move away). And one of the kids in this story has joined the army (!), an unhighlighted point on how youth is being CORRALED into choiceless choices (maybe he'll survive to go to college). This is DELIBERATELY engineered to erase his options! This so-called cause by the way has been REDUCED on message to a pity cause RATHER THAN NEGLIGENCE and therefore doom of investing in our very own future, our very own lives, our very own survival.
We ARE the dumbest society on the planet.
We separate everybody out. We give all the press to special interest groups. We divide, pick something to burn in effigy, some singular scapegoat to distract from what is REALLY happening and therefore overlook our own demise. Hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless.
We have twisted this situation SO BADLY there truly is no hope unless the entire bullshit house of cards (and I hope the high and dry castles along with it) falls with a loud crash.
Poor kids have had these worries for decades in this country. Their teacher is to be ultra commended for helping them get the word out. If St Ronnie had not slashed housing assistance for the poor by 75% during his term in office, many of these people could be a lot less frightened, a lot less insecure, and their kids could go about the business of being kids.
I hope people wake up to the fact that it behooves us all to help one another, to be more concerned about our neighbours' abilities to feed clothe and house themselves, than whether or not one can be the first person in line for the newest piece of shit gadget that is not a necessity.
It's immediately clear to me who the bright ones are... these students and not the snot-nosed hedge fund managers, CDS traders, or CEOs of failed companies taking bailout money that more rightfully belongs to these kids' families. Amazing isn't it?!
And Miss K, I agree it's time for people to wake the eff up! Enough already...
Speaking of listening, one has to wonder why C & L is not listening to what these patriotic protesters from this link are saying, unless it is because it may put Obama, the [alleged] antiwar president, in a bad light.
[Deleted. I am breaking the link, but leaving the comment, since it's gotten so many replies. You are more than welcome to bring this up on a thread where it is germane to the topic, or an open thread-Sitemonitor]
Erroll, give me a break. We do cover protests, we have been anti-war and we haven't exactly been overly forgiving of Obama for things we disagree with.
I find it really offensive that you would insinuate otherwise, especially in a post where I am trying to show the real faces of our future and how the class warfare set by the elites are affecting them.
Could you try to stay on topic and not insult us?
...to know that Chris Schultz, the young man afraid for his younger brothers (one of whom has Down's Syndrome) being homeless has decided to put off his college dreams (at VAHS, he gets dual high school and college credit) by joining the army.
One can only hope that this sad economic necessity will not prevent him from someday going to college. I hope he survives wherever he is stationed.
One thing in Chris's favor is that the Pentagon as announced the phasing out of stop-loss program.
what nicole said.
People expect their favourite blog to do EVERYTHING. Do you expect that out of anything else that you use?
...Duct-Tape
but you gotta PAY for duct tape...
:)
This thread has nothing to do with that... but you just couldn't help yourself, could you?
You had to turn a thread about the misery these poor kids have to endure, into something completelly unrelated in order to satisfy your own agenda. There were plenty of other threads dealing with what you claim this site does not deal with.
There are times and places to talk about what you linked in your post, this thread is neither of them.
[Deleted. Off topic. And the answer is NO. NOT ON THIS THREAD. IT'S OFF TOPIC. I hope I've made it clear enough for you-Sitemonitor]
an open thread?! That would be a better place for you to go off topic...
So just because you don't see the post that you want when you want it, you can assume that it won't be covered?
How fucking arrogant of you.
Get on topic or go away. No more warnings. If you pull this shit again on any other thread except an appropriate one, I will personally put you on a time out.
Are you crystal clear?
the post you were referring to was deleted.
I feel very strongly about this post, so maybe I'm reacting a little more than I normally would.
My father, as part of his doctorate in sociology, ran a halfway house for troubled/homeless teens not far from where this school is. In a different decade, it's not inconceivable that some of those kids would have been under my dad's care.
It's hard to imagine how these kids view their future.
[Erroll, you're using a word- one that begins with an "r"- that could quite appropriately be turned right back against you. If you would like to see a certain topic addressed in a blog post, there are two polite ways to do so: in an Open Thread or in an e-mail to the site. If you feel that you need to discuss this any further, write to the monitors at sitemonitor1[at]gmail.com , and we will discuss this privately. If you decide that you MUST continue this in the comments section, I'll have little recourse but to ban you from commenting here. Thank you. Site Monitor]
Sat, 03/21/2009 - 14:33 — Nicole Belle
Are you crystal clear?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzgVPB5dpgg
Flagged. Offtopic.
and when you multiply the situation of these people by millions, it is gut-wrenching.
Those good kids, their families and that teacher have my utmost respect.
is just that: a dream.
My great-grandparents came here from Ireland during the great Immigration peak through Ellis Island.
They felt the chances were too limited in Ireland and really bought into the whole concept of the American Dream. They were able to start their own businesses (my great grandmother was the first female owner of a taxi company in NYC), raise and educate their children through college and own property.
My grandfather's side of the family (Irish) has a similar tale, only his ancestors started up a business on the backs of African slaves. The times have not changed all that much. My grandmother's side, on the other hand, has managed to keep a family farm going in southern Germany for 250 years with no slave labor. They've survived some pretty hefty wars.
CEO Wankers. They need to be forced to watch this video.
they should have to go out get real jobs too. Ones where if you don't perform, you get fired not bonuses!
We've all seen the outrage over the bonuses and so have they. How many have you seen come out and say they either wont accept the bonus or give it to charity? You could show these scum a picture of a kid being raped and murdered and tell them one dollar could save these kids and they wouldn't even blink. These people are the most arrogant heartless fucks (next to Cheney) in the world. They deserve the attention and protest in front of their homes.
and cried. :(
How positively awful. Poverty is so stressful on kids, and they aren't allowed to be kids. And seeing as these are teenagers, they have just that much more burdens to carry in their families than the little bitty ones...
There was a time once when my grandfather was pulled out of school in 8th grade permanently to work. And my grandmother was pulled out of school permanently in 2nd grade to attend to child care, so that all the adults could work, so the family could eat.
I hope to God we do not see anything like that in our future, but seeing as my ancedote here dates back to the Great Depression, it would not surprise me if we see some repeats of that scenario...
The financial industry is populated with slimy pond scum specimens... They have no shame.
than the overfed leeches who have sucked the life out of this country.
*
Slimy pond scum specimens do their fair share of the work on this planet!
My sincere apologies to pond scum! ;)
Thank you.
who expect a public-financed set of bonuses for being a key player in the creation of the same circumstances which have put the families of these kids in such dire straits...
Instead of his bullshit deposition the other day @ capitol hill. Mr. Liddy should have forced to sit down, shut the f*ck up, and made watch this video.
said it! Thanks!
Those same bonuses that were paid for by the families of these kids. Trickle UP theory at its best.
The sad sad truth is extreme poverty has always existed in the US.
So long as we have a Corporate Capitalist economy it will always be so.
The Corporations have substituted themselves for all the various services the traditional community provides. And for Corporate Capitalism to succeed, there must always be a real threat of going homeless, going hungry, dying forgotten on the streets.
Until we - as a government and a society - create a real safety net that is there for everyone, it will always be so. That real safety net would guarantee housing, food, health care, and education - for everyone. Not as commodities to be "earned" but as RIGHTS guaranteed by our government.
When I was 10 years old (in the late 50's) I met an Austrian journalist travelling the States. I asked him, "What has impressed you most here in the US?" His answer stunned me. "The poverty," he said. "It is not possible to live a life of respectable poverty here."
And it's still not possible.
break your heart?
.
and, though I haven't been back to see the area for a couple of years, it looks as though I might not recognize it.
Truly a
fineshameful legacy of bushco."The proposed legislation would create a $140 million competitive grant program to support Early College high schools and other "dual enrollment" programs, and $10 million would go to states for planning and technical assistance."
----------------------
Gee, seems like those "token" bonuses might just cover it...
and privatizers. Arne Duncan is a "reformer" the way Donald Trump is an "environmentalist."
The obama "plan" is a betrayal of the spirit of public education in the name of valorizing meaningless test scores and placating the know-nothing fukt-on-faunix morons.
Tests only measure how well students take tests.
The correlation between academic achievement and family wealth approaches one. Always has, always will.
What works in school is: small, diverse groups working cooperatively on meaningful projects which stretch the known to include and explain the strange. Learning is a social effort, occurring in the direct, explicit exchange of relevant information among more-or-less equal participants...Watch any child teach another less skilled.
Obaama and his education dwarves want hard "scores," and do not give a fuck if anybody learns anything. With "scores" you get a kind of spurious--but useful, for the tubes--accountability...
More tests, merit pay, ending teachers unions: those are the academic wet-dreams of the busheviks...
show me some change of shut the fuck up...
but by all means don't let it stop you from using it as an excuse to rail against Obama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHN6AViJAvI
Thanks for sharing this Nicole. These are the faces we don't usually see on the news. There may be two US wars going on overseas but there's even a bigger one at home that must be won, the war for the future of our children. How many times have we seen something like this from a Hannity, Limbaugh, Malkin etc...
NEVER!
They're to worried about the AIG CEO's not getting their bonus and screaming class warfare. These are the real faces of the class warfare and they must win.
1. The advent of technology to allow the delusion to grow to gargantuan proportions
2. The mass-media indoctrination of the sheeple to accept the messages from TPTB
3 The sheer increase in the world's population.
We need jobs, jobs, jobs! College just means more debt to banks which force people into doing menial work, just to pay if off, since no one professional is hiring. And personally, I think there should be at least some form of statistical affirmative action in which new businesses are required to hire at least the minimum amount of people needed to run the place, since they like under-hiring to cut costs, and get away with it fairly easily.
This is a special charter school within Pomona for the most promising kids. Their classes, in conjunction with a local community college, gives them simultaneous college and high school credits. These really are our best and brightest.
I did a similar program myself when I was in high school. When I graduated from high school, I already had one year's worth of credits towards college under my belt, cutting my tuition expenses to just three years.
Their parents need jobs. Did you watch the videos? These kids are sometimes the only ones in their family able to earn money, because they will get hired for the fast food restaurants, etc. Chris Schultz's dad is an accountant and unable to find work after a year. His mom is a teacher's assistant whose hours have been cut back due to budget restrictions in California.
I just think college is a waste of education nowadays, especially with the Internets. They're just paying a fortune to hear smug professors talk about why their POV is better than anyone else's, or a Rube Goldberg-like description of scientific processes which have no actual value in their daily lives. They don't get any practical skills, and they end up losing to people who happen to have more mechanical and technical experience from specific classes than they get from a degree. Believe me, the only people benefiting from college are bankers who charge interest on loans. The system's got to change before you just enroll more people, because there's a reason that the rest of the world is better prepared than we are for professional work. And the fact that their parents have even less options than they do just underscores my point about how we need to invest in jobs first.
I guess you've never been to college yourself.
I have a relative who had a friggin' masters in chem, and it took her forever to find decent-paying work during the Reagan era; and she couldn't find work outside of the job she landed, because it was so specialized. And now she's got seniority as the next strike against her; and the only reason she's surviving lay-offs is due to disability, even though they actually admitted they need more young blood to be trained at the place.
The old saying about who you know being more important than what you know is true, or Mike Brown would not be allowed anywhere near the premises of the FEMA office. And Barry went to the best college in the country. But he only got elected because the economy went to shit. Until jobs are actually guaranteed outside the classroom, no one is going to blow that kind of money anymore on education.
Seriously, if people with a Ph.D. are forced to work at McDonalds, because the good jobs got outsourced to India, what's the motivation for the rest of us? We're just being lied to in order to help prop up a legalized Ponzi scheme, plain and simple.
she's got a four year degree, and got laid off. SHe can't get work for all the MBAs and PhDs getting picked over her.
No one says it's a guarantee you'll get a job. Nothing is guaranteed in this life, except that it will end at some point in time.
However, being educated is not a minus.
And I guess you missed the part about scolarships and grants these kids are smart and motivated and now have lots of moral support.
going to school is not a Ponzi scheme. Is everything going to be labeled a 'Ponzi Scheme' from here on out?
The only ones who get them in this country play sports. Everyone else is forced to write a fuckin' pointless essay no one actually reads; and even then, they have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting money from those organizations. Hell, I had higher-than-average grades for my college, and I made the Dean's list, and I only got enough cash to cover a semester, while a guy I knew who ran track got at least two years' worth of dough. Sure, he took an AP class, but if he didn't, his grades would be lower than mine, since those classes just inflate your GPA, and make you look smarter than you are in reality-yet another problem which needs to be fixed.
Anyway, the fact that your sister has to go back after her years of actual experience just proves that
the jobs aren't there, and that her qualifications are being devalued by a market more interested in maintaining profit margins than production capacity. Thus, they try to hire more people who make their company look good, rather than people who make the company perform well. So if she blows all her dough on another piece of paper, she'll find out later that they want her to have years of experience in a particular field of expertise. It's total bullshit, and we need to stop convincing people to buy into it.
Really, check out "Strapped" and "Generation Debt" to see how they're screwing over bright young people out of their futures.
ever hear of a Fulbright Scholarship? Rhodes Scholarship? OK those are quite the rarity, but there are literally 10s of thousands of scholarships to be had. These kids have drive and support from adults, and they WILL find them and they WILL get through school. They'll also be eligible for Pell Grants.
My sis can't go back. She can't afford it. She's unemployed
you can't even get your foot in the door without a degree.
These are kids who aspire to be doctors and lawyers and scientists.
I don't know about you, but I want those people to have degrees.
But it ain't happening, even if they get their education for free. You have to force most businesses to hire people, or they'll just make their regular staff work longer hours and "multi-task" to cover other vacancies.
We do this country no good to cheat our best and brightest of educations.
Yes, this economy sucks the big one. I just wrote down thread about friends of mine who have a combined total of 12 years of graduate level work and they're having a tough time making ends meet and will likely lose their house if something doesn't turn around really soon.
But we need an educated workforce, not just now, but ten, twenty, thirty years from now. How horrible to tell these kids, who show so much promise, that they should just consign themselves to menial work because that's all that's available now anyway.
who WANT a higher education, get too discouraged by watching their parents (many of whom have higher education) struggle vainly and are forced to give up. All are at a critical stage where adult encouragement and stability are needed to keep kids going in the right direction.
And if schools aren't there to keep them involved, the gangs of Pomona are always looking for new recruits.
My brother doesn't live too far from there and it's a really economically depressed area.
for the some time. The real estate boom turned mediocre post-War tract homes into $400K-500K "starter" homes for people who didn't want to commute all the way from San Bernardino, Fontucky, etc. Of course, many people got into these "starter" homes on the crappy mortgages that have been the bane of our recent existence. And being a blue-collar town, it and its attendant businesses have, of course, suffered the most under this downturn.
We need a well educated population, to make democracy work.
I'm more interested in having an educated population so that we can solve problems creatively and live interesting low-impact lives.
And, as I've said a few other places, I think that as a society we MUST acknowledge food, shelter, health care and education as Citizen's Rights instead of Consumer's Options.
Nicole:
What good is an education if the idiots are the ones doing the hiring?
Well that is all available to them. They can click their heels all they want, but a piece of paper is no more a ticket to their success than a financially overvalued house or website.
Mountainman: If you're busy trying to survive on a shitty income, you don't have the time to vote.
The problem is, Tequila, as realistic as you see your nihilistic take is, it will not help. Not in the long term for us as a country or as a democracy.
Giving up now at the age of 16 and 17 and surrendering to misery seems like a good idea to you?
I just think the emphasis should be on providing them with work first, so that education has a point to it. Otherwise, they'll be unemployed and in debt. And if that means forcing entrepreneurs to hire people, or lose their licenses, them I'm all for it, because they're not going to do it out of the kindness of their own hearts. And the way things are going nowadays, the next Einstein or Hawking would have a tough time getting a professional job.
nobody can ever take your education from you. you can get a job, can get experience and have an education. they're not mutually exclusive. this nation can choose to invest in people's education, the well-being of its elders, a rational economy that sustains a vital work force, good health care and infrastructure. this film gets us back in touch with these core values.
can mountainman vote absentee? or this doesn't fit in scenario you paint? or because a person works hard, long hours--they just don't engage in any thought? barely sentient, unable to form cogent opinions on own or family's or community's well- being? and if they can't vote because ineligible, can they still support a cause in some way, perhaps by setting a good example?
These kids are probably grant and scholarship material. and if St Ronnie hadn't cut off funding for higher education in CA, higher education for these kids would have been free to them.
And a lot of shit changes in 4 years. Some of these kids have higher aspirations than just 4 years of college, and a lot changes in 6, 8, 10 years.
And if "[w]e need jobs, jobs, jobs!" what the hell are these kids going to do if not college. There'll be people with 4 year degrees beating them out for work all over the place. Not a great way to start life in the adult world. They'll smell of desperation before they even get started.
Everyone helped create this (US annual household savings rate -0.8% 2007).
Stop pointing the finger and get to work!
Government is supposed to be representative of the electorate. So, the last 30 years, guess you reap what you have sowed.
really. so the fact that it was not a majority who voted for Bush in 2000 is lost on you? WE DID NOT SOW THIS. We were robbed and defrauded.
and the average US household doesn't have 7 credit cards? Whoa, thanks for clearing that up.
you just read that in my last comment. I suppose that was lost on you. I have no credit cards, no debt. I don't know how to make this clearer.
So the theft of 2000 election is down to the average US household having 7 credit cards? Whoa, thanks for clearing that up.
Obviously you had trouble with reading for understanding aka comprehension. My condolences on your inability to grasp fairly basic concepts.
This isn't about YOU! unless all 300 mio residents are similar
when did I say it was. Point it out, Einstein. You came here and laid blame for this economic bullshit on everyone.
Non sequitur much? You aren't very skilled at wordplay, missy. Quit while you're only a bit behind, mkay?
We did not ALL help create this. I did not do this shit. I did not vote for the fuckers who did. I don't have much in savings, since my status as a disabled person receiving public funds precludes me from maintaining more than 2K in savings, but I carry no debt.
When you win, you win together. It works the same way in the other direction.
If you don't agree with the people around you, try to fix the situation. Find a solution instead of blaming, business, foreigners, rich people, poor people..... etc.
(by the way, try not to internalize everything).
That's the most idiotic bullshit I've ever heard
Thanks for being so overtly patronising in your response. I'dve never caught on if you'd gone all subtle on me...
Suzie. Are you in the employ of BillO or Neil Cavuto???
"Find a solution instead of blaming, business, foreigners, rich people, poor people"
I see. And you're not blaming anyone, right. Just people with credit cards.
That was good.
Uh, no.
There was a very discrete number of elites that created this mess. Those brokers and traders who came up with CDS and traded phantom money to break the banks created this mess.
Believe me, these kids' parents would LOVE to be able to save, but their savings have been eaten up by hand to mouth subsistence.
Stop blaming everyone. I know a couple who were in an upper-middle class bracket. Responsible people. 401k, savings in the bank, the whole bit. They were ADVISED by their financial adviser to purchase their home on a minimum down payment adjustable rate mortgage because her health executive job has been moving them around every couple of years. That adviser didn't think the housing bubble would burst in California. That adviser told them that the stock market and mutual funds were long term smart investments.
Guess what happened? The housing bubble burst. They now owe more on their house than it's worth. The banks are REFUSING to renegotiate their mortgage, and they have a huge adjustment coming in June that will make their house unaffordable.
The husband's job in the high tech sector was downsized six months ago, he can't find work. The wife's health care job was just downsized two weeks ago. She had been with them for 20 years. Nothing to show for it.
Their 401k is now 1/2 of what it was six years ago. Savings can pay for a few months of mortgage, but not when it adjusts.
Do you still think it's this couple's fault for not saving enough?
because according to her, the average US household has 7 credit cards...
Sheeesh.
That used to be considered a good thing. Now, I'm wishing I had at least one to "buy" food...
I didn't have a need for one for the most part.
I just recently got one with my husband, because we realized that we could make our dollars go further if we bought things on the card, got points towards other purchases, and paid the balance off each month.
Worked great last year. Our card points enabled us to save HUGELY on our vacation to Europe.
lesson learned.
to believe I could pay off the balance at the end of each month.
That figure represents total US households, not just elites.
What the hell are you talking about?
Show me how lack of savings contributed to the banks failing.
Go ahead.
To spend more than you earn or have requires borrowing. Borrowing against future income or assets. Assets (houses) are put up as collateral to the banks....
Need I go further...
You have yet to explain how the banks failed from this.
To keep meeting demand for lending requires banks or other lending institutions to create new products. So, supply meets demand and everyone is happy. What happens if the situation keeps perpetuating itself?
On the whole, yes. I place blame on the US society for promoting a culture of consumerism.
You learned economics from watching Schoolhouse Rock. You show a really incomplete understanding of what happened.
This isn't an issue of supply vs. demand per se.
You need to learn about credit default swaps. Those derivatives are what put us where we are. It had absolutely NOTHING to do with individuals' savings other than the lack of which sped this process along. To save time:
These people were creating phantom value with these derivatives. And then when the time came that people defaulted on their mortgages (and how many people could actually save enough to pay their mortgages for more than a few months realistically in this economy?) and it was time to pay the piper, there was no money there, because what they were trading wasn't real value.
THAT's what took down AIG and the banks, not lack of savings.
Listen, stop while your ahead. I have been working in finance for around 7 years and know a bit more about the products. I'll be polite and leave it at that.
Uh huh.
I'm sure you do work in finance. That's why you're blaming lack of savings on the part of individual citizens instead of a larger problem of unregulated derivative tradings on the part of greedy corporations.
Sure.
You're real name wouldn't be Pandit, by any chance, would it?
Nice attempt to deflect being pwned, but it's obvious you know nothing.
I love this.
If someone disagrees with your world you can always write them off, can't you.
How sad.
You have yet to reply once with anything substantive.
Tell me how lack of individual savings contributed more to the economic plight than derivatives trading.
Go ahead, edumacate me. If you dare.
Suzie.
So you push some numbers around at a bank, and suddenly you know, in your infintie wisdom, EVERYONE else is a bunch of losers. My first lover was one of those, and we're not together any more.
How about come back to preach from your finance pulpit after you wipe Santelli's spooge off your chin.
That's right, I push numbers. I'm such a pussy. I'm soo stupid.
a cogent statement.
Derivatives don't feed the kids, honey. You deal in toxic products.
we find ourselves in... with "luminaries" like you working in finance.
NO! my fucking brain is burning on all the bullshit you've been throwing up on the board.
I want to hear how all these people with no savings took down the economy.
I really, really do.
I'll shield my eyes and delicate sensibilities...
:D
Suzie.
Statistics don't lie?????? That, right there, is enough for me to see clearly you know absolutely nothing.
You can make stats say whatever the fuck you want. GO work for Fox 'News' if you don't already. You are well matched to that brain trust.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is part of a phrase attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and popularised in the United States by Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." The statement refers to the persuasive power of numbers, the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions.
Learn something.
Suzie. I took a quick poll, and it indicated you are a dipstick. As we all know, statistics don't lie. Any questions? Please do.
Their are no jobs to "get to work". Sure you can scream go work at McDonalds as everyone always does. But the biggest industry hurt by this recession is restaurants so even McDonalds is not the answer. Where do you suggest they "get to work" at? Have you looked at the unemployment numbers?
As far as savings rate going down do you have a clue why? You really want to blame it on the individual? I can help you out on this one. People who don't work can't save without an income. Even people who are working their income is going down because of the inflation, fewer hours worked (lose of wages), increased health insurance cost. The big one, health insurance cost have gone up 75% in the last eight years while income has gone down. All you need is ninth grade math to figure that one out.
work has many meanings. People can always help each other.
"Work" doesn't have many meanings. Work is employment for which you get compensated.
Remember those savings you think everyone should have? You don't get that without employment.
I guess feeling good about helping someone isn't compensation.
Thanks for clearing that up. I am glad that I finally understand the US now. "Won't work unless compensated (and I mean cash)".
Thanks.
Tell me how that oh-so-good feeling about "helping" people will put money in their bank accounts.
That's the problem, according to you, isn't it? We aren't saving enough?
Suzie.
How many days have you worked for free (no cash)this past year? Ten or more?
to be exact
Commendable.
...
what job in the financial industry do you hold? What sort of degree do you have in finance? Do you have your CFA? When did you get it and from whom did you get it?
.
miss kitty. I'm willing to believe her. I've already attacked enough of her character. Suzie, you may be a loving and altruistic person for all I know, but I think you need to open your eyes to a larger picture. These kids are suffering, their families are suffering. Some of them may have made bad decisions, but to blame EVERYONE is just NOT ON!!!!!! I think people are upset because you seem to be giving the banks and financiers a pass. (Your posts read that way.)
.
I appreciate the questions. Yes, I do have my CFA and have worked primarily in Equity Capital Markets.
so do you have a series 65? Or what?
If you do have your CFA, you should know statistics DO lie.
As I said, my first lover (he was American) was a banker. He lived and breathed the bank, bought bank stocks, parroted bank talking points (day and night) and was totally brainwashed. After 22 years of undying service, they canned him outright because of cutbacks. Beware, the beast is not always what they tell you they are. He was devastated and out of commission for 1 1/2 years!!! Total disbelief!!!
Ouch!!
Otherwise, we had some good times. I'm sure he's embarrassed looking back, especially after getting canned. Swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
:)
Sorry Edwin...
Many who are loosing their homes are losing them not because they are upside down, but because they lost their jobs.
"As it turns out, someone was listening to the students of VAHS. President Obama, during his tour of LA this week, took time out to visit the students..."
I wonder if bu$h would have. (Not really.) He may have shown up and told them he was gonna take a piss, so see if any of it trickles down on you (losers), hyuck, hyuck, hyuck. That's exactly how I feel about bu$h and his ilk.
Babs, "This has worked out very nicely for them."
They are the real losers. They have lots of money, but don't know love and compassion for their fellow man. That's a sad place to be.
forwarded the videos to their nearest army recruiter.
Well played.
I was as poor as these kids in the 60’s and 70's with three other kids being supported on a secretary’s salary. We moved over 15 times before I graduated high school because we ran out of money for rent every now and then. I would get two pairs of pants, four shirts, a bag of socks and underwear at the start of school if I was lucky, and one pair of shoes that had to see me through to summer. Other things too, but they only matter if you experience them yourself. They don’t sound important to most people.
Now that I am turning 52 Monday and see things from a very different point of view than I did then or even a decade or two ago, I find myself trying to tell people that the American Dream that so many people allude to is really the American Myth. Nobody I know from similar experiences as my own talks about the dreams, not in the sense of having more than you need or wanting more than you can earn yourself, even so we got scammed. We were lead into the idea of a materialistic view of life and started to see who we are based on what we have. With every year we would get more and more anyway we could and tell ourselves that this is what we are. The other side was that we would work ourselves to death hoping that we would be able to do more for our kids, our community, and our country. But the work was often wasted because all you would have to do is miss a couple payments and you had what you were told is yours taken away.
This economic low is not all bad. It has ended the ability of advertising to delude us, it has made reality much more near to us because it is clearly inescapable, and if nothing else it will show, as it must, that the politicians and the political parties are not representative of people, but only power that is not influenced by want, need, desires and dreams. This is the cold slap in the face that we needed for a long time and it will hurt for a long time too. But in the end for these kids as life has proven to me, we will survive with a much more human and humane view of ourselves, or community, and our nation.
but nonetheless, I primarily agree with Nicole and everyone else who feels it's tragic and wrongheaded to tell these kids to more or less give up or set aside their hopes for higher education.
I'm 3/4 of the way through a dual History and Anthropology Associates degree. Some of you may remember that I've had to temporarily leave college due to not being able to afford the books at this time.
I had every intention of finishing this degree, going on for my Bachelors, perhaps getting a job as an educator, and then hopefully going for graduate school and eventually becoming an academic.
Between the situation of the economy, the time it's taken to recover from a situation that's had me on disability for a while, and the uber long time it's taken for me to progress through this one little degree, things have taken a strange turn, and it now appears my future is in the fashion industry, both designing, and managing the business of getting my work out to the public.
This is something I literally have all of 1 unit of formal community college education in (I took a course in E-Commerce before I began selling my work). I am pretty much totally self-taught and all that good stuff, and yet things are progressing pretty far pretty quickly, to the point that it's clear I have a future with it.
BUT
I am one of the lucky ones. Yeah, my original dream of a formal education has been deferred, but I have found something I love doing that I have a natural talent for, and don't necesarily go to school for years before I can make it in, as it's already starting for me.
Not everyone is that lucky. Some people's passion and drive are naturally inclined towards career and life paths that require quite a bit of schooling, and a personal discovery like mine of something else they can do may not be forthcoming for them.
It's wrong on so many levels to tell them they have to settle for working at McDonalds the rest of their lives. I see nothing wrong with them maybe doing that to help themselves through the first couple years of college, but we should all do what we can to be sure that young people can get the education they want and need.
As for me, who knows, maybe I can get this darned Associates finished and possibly work on a fashion history related degree at some point?
Most likely somewhere close to where you live you have shelters, or in my case a christian Rescue Mission, that provide housing for the homeless and most needy, those with nothing. These places are always in need of the most basic foodstuffs. Bread, coffee, peanut butter, boxed rice, canned goods, fresh fruit, any kinds of meats, or coldcuts, they are also often short on mens boxer shorts, shirts, towels, washcloths, and other essentials. Find one of the lower priced supermarkets (we have a great one called Sav-A-Lot, it sells in bulk, generic brands) and these shelters for the needy are very grateful when you stop by. Give them your receipt and they can list your donation and send you proof and its tax deductible. But more importantly those donations are greatly needed, and appreciated
We have a Rescue Mission 40 miles away, so it's near impossible for me to make it over there to donate clothes and foodstuffs because I'm rarely able to make it over, but I do donate cash when I can thru the internet, and it's one of the charities I've designated for me to donate part of my little jewelry design profits to. :)
Also, there's a Catholic charity 90 miles away in the other direction that operates a food bank for the poor and a counseling service for addicts, so whenever I see one of their workers collecting donations when I'm at a store in town, I clear out my purse for em! :)
This isn't tax deductible, but I think it would involve volunteering more than anything else, look around for your nearest chapter of Food Not Bombs!
There's one about 50 miles away from here, over in my birthplace, but again, that's too far away for me to go regularly. Damn me and my not having transportation! :(
toiboi: They can't take your education from you, but they can make you feel like a bigger idiot than them with the cards they wield. And yeah, we can invest in everything of value to our society, but we've spent more money on pointless classes than we have in the type of training needed to actually make it in the working world. That's why even liberal parents are getting sick of not getting any returns on their kids' schooling, since it's not actually paying off in landing a job.
As for people too busy to vote, even if they can do it by absentee ballot, they're often too busy to study on the issues and vote in their own interest. So they either unintentionally vote wrong, or they don't vote at all. The only reason they acted now is they had "free time" due to unemployment.
Anna: I think it's more wrong lying to people that education is the key to financial success, since, as we learned from Mike Brown and that asshole who ran that tainted peanut butter factory, that's really not the case. Christ, Obama can't even hire qualified people for his Cabinet, because they're either tax cheats or owned by corporate lobbyists. And the one time he does with Solis is the one time they hold him to the fire. The whole system's rigged in favor of idiots right now, I'm afraid.
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