posted on February 18, 2002 01:12:46 PM new
I'm sure alot of you feel the same way I do, look around you...job losses as we have not seen in a long time.Yet lies about how great everything is going to be once we get past all this.I can't think of a business in my area that is not in serious trouble right now.At my job they feed us a real line of BS trying to get what they are wanting only to face the worst year of problems they have never seen,which was not in the blueprint because they had planned for us to be layed off by now.I'm living from what used to be pay check to pay check.And by the way the internet sucks.I'm not one of the lucky ones getting rich or is that some more of the BS I'm being feed.Am I getting a poor view of this picture or do my glasses need changing,I hope not I can't afford it.
posted on February 18, 2002 02:20:42 PM new
MAH645, I don't know how old you are, but some things are cyclical (drops in stock prices, real estate values,inflation, tight job markets, etc.). Often times the markets do recover, but often the economy does change in ways that it hadn't before. I believe that the average person isn't compensated as well as he/she was twenty or thirty years ago. I'm not sure we should count on eBay for the same returns we saw a couple years ago. My BIL has a degree in computer science and was laid off from a job that he had for several years. He has two kids and a large mortgage. For about five months he had to take temporary jobs until something came through. But when it did come through, it paid him well enough for him to quit his second job. Good luck and I hope you benefit from any upturn in the economy.
posted on February 18, 2002 02:30:38 PM new
Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, said he expects unemployment to keep going up until the economy begins creating jobs at a rate of 150,000 or so per month.
"Without some really big shot in the arm, we're not going to get there until very likely late next year and possibly not until 2003," Baker said.
posted on February 20, 2002 06:45:48 PM new
You know your town is in serious trouble when the government removes its number 2 employer .... welfare.
Welfare reform here started an immediate downward spiral ... which continues to this day.
Kinda sad ... my grandfather used to say this was a one horse town .... and one day the horse would leave. He was right. Bethlehem Steel is gone ... and so are most of the people.
If you check the history of my town, you will discover that Johnstown was to be the major city ... and Pittsburgh the smaller suburb of sorts. The 1889 flood put a damper on things, the 1936 flood reminded everyone, and the 1977 flood just finished us off.
You wouldn't believe how many emails I get from people telling me how lucky I am that I still live here. Lucky? To stay you choose family over money. I am very glad I chose to stay ... but know my life would be dramatically different if I chose to live anywhere else.
Hey, but where else can you buy a house for less than a used car? lol
BECKY
[ edited by mrssantaclaus on Feb 20, 2002 06:47 PM ]
posted on February 21, 2002 10:23:22 AM new
I think something that the economists are ignoring is the costs of the terrorists attacks, and I don't mean the loss of life and property.
The costs of anti-terror security are huge both in actual costs and costs in lost productivity.
There is literally no end in sight for these costs.
A good example is the $500 million extra it cost the Federal govt for Olympic security. We have the same activity as 4 years ago, the same revenue, but now a huge added cost.
The added security costs are also present in the airlines, corporations/private sector, the Postal service, etc., and is costing billions. Every dollar spent on this security is a cost not present prior to 9-11. Most of you are small business persons and know how unplanned or unproductive added costs effect your business.
The question is how long this high security state can go on without further damage to the economy.
Either in time we will just grow lax and tired with security and risk getting hit again, or we will have to agressivly go after the networks that wish to carry these attacks out.
posted on February 21, 2002 10:32:23 AM new
REAMOND, you are right in saying that the costs are endless. Trying to protect everyone from potential threats that are less a possibility than China or Russia would launch a nuclear misle against us, IMO. You could take the entire federal budget, triple it, then spend every penny of it on the Unknown and it still wouldn't be enough. Isn't it time, rather, to agree with the inevitable conclusion alrready made by the economists, that we should stop going to such extraordinary lengths to protect ourselves from imaginary boggiemen?
Borillar
"Friends don't let friends vote republican"
posted on February 21, 2002 11:01:12 AM new
Imaginary ? Hardly. They just caught two imaginary "boggiemen" in Italy with cyanide and a map of the U.S. embassy water supply.
The only things in the realm of the imagination are possibilities of what these people will attempt to do, and some of it is beyond the imagination.
Don't let your politics lull you into a naive and untenable position.
