We've been following the recession and the layoffs and so we know about the numbers. Its when you hear the individual stories about people in their 50s running through their life savings and now forced to live hand to mouth that you get bummed.
In truth, if we were to add up all of the wealth in this country, there is plenty. But we just don't work that way. There is charity, and there is giving, and people try to help out but we don't know how to do it as a group. Its usually done in individual cases. The stories are individual ones, not collective ones, generally speaking.
The other thing is, most people work with some degree of trauma in their lives. I was assaulted by a gang almost two years ago and I have to deal with that. Other people have had illnesses, lost loved ones, lost a lot of retirement money, all kinds of things. So most people experience harsh things and they are traumatic things. Well, imagine that all that happens and then there's no work, no more money at all. Call it financial trauma, call it whatever you want, but its pretty ugly and it is very traumatic.
NY Times: U.S. Job Seekers Exceed Openings by Record Ratio
...employment prospects are still getting worse.
Job seekers now outnumber openings six to one...
“I’ve worked my entire life,” said Ms. Kransky (51), who lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. “I’ve got October rent. After that, I don’t know. I’ve never lived month to month my entire life. I’m just so scared, I can’t even put it into words.”
1 comment:
It's worse then just no work friend. I was a small biz guy most of my life and to be honest the small biz sector is even worse off and small biz creates most of the entry level work in this country. I repeat as I have here many times if you don't have a job or are in some way connected with either BIG BIZ or BIG GOV'T your screwed in this economy. Between the two everyone else is being squeezed to poverty. People who work for Gov't don't get it they just think $$ grows on trees and it does if your working for the Oligarchs BIG Corps. We've returned to place very much like it was at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century when the BIG Trusts owned everything. Teddy Roosevelt busted up these companies because he understood what allowing monopolists to own everything meant. FDR did something similar to what his cousin did 30 yrs. earlier. The GOP has spent 70 yrs. doing everything it can to reverse what these two did and they've succeeded. Today America is slowly descending into the status of a 3rd world country like Mexico.
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