Shantytowns Springing Up Around the Nation

In other news that the Second Great Depression is upon us, Shantytowns, similar to Hooervilles of the first Great Depression, are popping up around the country.  With homelessness on the rise, people have no where else to go.  Cities are stepping in to supply portable toilets and security but the homeless keep coming.  There are no easy or quick answers and as depressing as this news is, there still seems to be a silver lining…it sounds like people in these villages are banding together and making the most of a horrible situation.  While darkness brings violence and crime, it seems that many of the residents still have hope…both that they will see better days and in their fellow man.  At least that’s encouraging.

Cities Deal With a Surge in Shantytowns – NYTimes.com.

Jeffrey’s Meat Market offers Steak Dinner for $10 for “anyone suffering through these tough economic times”…

Jeffrey’s Meet Market helped people through the first Great Depression and now his grandson is helping victims of the Second Great Depression get their Certified Black Angus New York Strip Steak on for $10!  Just bring down something that shows you’ve been ‘suffering’ (shouldn’t be too hard for anyone to scratch something up-I wonder if they’d take a completely destroyed retirement or investment account statement?), get a ticket, make a reservation and then get your steak on.  I might try for it…this kid LOVES steak and SERIOUSLY can’

Daily News Story on Jeffrey\’s

Jeffrey’s Meat Market.

Mad about the bailout? Get enraged!

With the stock market gaining ground again and the administration declaring the economic meltdown to be over and the country back on the road to recovery, it’s important that we all understand exactly what happened, how it happened, and start working to prevent it from EVER happening again.  People are upset about the bailout but view it as necessary…was it?  Is it?  Dave Chapelle talked about the “real” white man and said that there are men you think control the world and then there are the REAL men…the few richer than god men who are actually pulling the puppet strings that control us all.  I’ve seen some things in my day that imply that’s actually the way of it…that the high rollers who donate the most get the meetings…they get the phone numbers that make the difference…and they have the name recognition that gets their calls put through.  This article talks about a great many things that should give all American’s pause…give us some things to think about…and some things to vote on.  It also talks about our good friend Joseph Cassano…of Che t-shirt fame!  Sounds like he’s pretty much a Grade A douche who enjoys parading around lawn parties wearing his Che T-shirt ironically…just like a hipster who doesn’t get the joke.

We need regulation.  That much is crystal clear…but how can we engineer change if the people who influence the most change are the same people engineered the market’s deregulation?  It’s just like the Obama administration not repealing so many of the Bush Administration’s executive power extensions…

Anyhoo, it’s depressing but important so please read it

The Big Takeover : Rolling Stone.

Economy blamed for rise in Japan’s suicide rate

I posted earlier that the Japanese actually have a word for working yourself to death: Karoshi

Now it seems that the economic downturn has increased Japan’s already high suicide rate.  The fact that they also have a “suicide forest” is pretty bleak as well.  But at least Japan takes things like working yourself to death and suicide because of unemployment seriously and have made treatment a priority…on the other hand, it seems fair to say that societal pressures have to be contributing and creating the problem to a certain degree.  It seems like the number of murder suicides in the US has increased but it’s possible that the media is just paying more attention to these horrible stories now as they seek out any stories that are even slightly related to the depressed economy and joblessness.

Desperate Japanese head to ‘suicide forest’ – CNN.com.

I guess my point is, it’s hard to tell when someone is crisis…sure I haven’t showered or gotten dressed today…but that doesn’t mean that I’m taking walks in suicide parks…on the other hand, there are plenty of people who mask the signs very well.  We have to look out for each other right now-those of us who are struggling with the pressure of being the only bread winner in the home, those of us who are jobless and feeling less than fabulous about it, and everyone else who’s just depressed about the current state of affairs.  Spring starts tomorrow and let’s hope its a fresh start for everyone.

How to help someone with depression-wikihow

American Heros: This Unemployed Gal

Cathy was just your regular gambling gal.  She lost her job and went on a four day gambling streak…and WON!  She’s officially my new hero.  What have I been THINKING?  Sitting here, applying for jobs???  CLEARLY I should have hopped the free bus down to Atlantic City with all the vagrants and cashed in on the free time the gambling gods have given me and taken some of that FREE MONEY!!!  I could have been Cathy!  Collecting prize after prize!  $50,000 is a lot of money!  Unfortunately, in this day and age…with the market bouncing up and down…it can be easy come easy go…but if you’re a gambler, like Miss Cathy, that money could make a fortune in a few days in the market!  The right stock tip and she’s set for…well at least a year or so if she stays away from the slots.  Also, she’s been living with her kids so hopefully this will help her move out, get back on her feet, and start gambling again!

Cathy’s situation and two commercials this week have brought something to my attention.  Apparently more parents are moving in with their kids for purely financial reasons-because of foreclosure or layoffs or what have you.  I guess I never really considered that as a possibility with my parents…until someone made off with their retirement nest egg all Madoff style…but now I’m wondering how many people are actually dealing with this.  I’m also imagining my parents showing up with their bags and bunking on the fold out sofa…that would be the awesome icing on the kick-ass cake…

Woman’s Winning Streak.

Soap Opera? Or the story of CEO of Citibank?

If you have some time on your hands and are interested in reading a long gossipy article about Vikram, here it is!  It’s a fun read and let’s you peak behind the curtain at the small group of men on wall street pulling the invisible puppet strings that keep us all dancing on these financial highs and lows.

How Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit Became the Most Powerless Powerful Man on Wall Street — New York Magazine.

Tired of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own – NYTimes.com

As my job hunt enters it’s fourth week and prospects are looking worse and worse, the idea of starting my own business is sexy and alluring.  No more bosses or offices!  I can work as hard or as not hard as I want.  Unfortunately, finding that *special* skill that separates me from the maddening crowd…that passion that drives me…that one thing I can bring to the internet market place that no one else can continues to elude me.  Fortunately, for this dude, jellyfish are hot right now and so is the technology that allows you to keep them in your home…as pets?  Oh and he also knows how to make the tanks!

In all seriousness starting your own business and doing your own work right now is a fabulous idea…and it’s new business ideas like this one that will help pull the economy out of recession and even depression.  But it’s important to avoid assuming too much personal financial risk when setting up a new business.  Suze Orman has a WHOLE book on it.  Check it out before you start your own Cash-4-Gold shop out of your basement.

Tired of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own – NYTimes.com.

How delightfully bourgeois

 

 

 

 

The kids at the New Yorker have made a charming list of (insert your favorite title for the catagory five financial shit storm we’re weathering) drinks.  I’ve had Trickle-Down Punch before…maybe even last night: 

Trickle-Down Punch
Let last drops of liquor trickle from spent bottles at recycling center into plastic cup. Serve with shame.

Splash of bitters

File this under “DEPRESSING”

 

Next stop on the Bad News Bus, apparently there is a new labor trend where people who used to work in management and professional fields have taken “survival jobs” as janitors and UPS delivery men after being laid off.  Aces! 

I’ve noticed that the job requirements for even lowly Admin jobs (always a decent fall back in tough times) here in NYC have jumped from “four year degree preferred” to four year degree and above mandatory”.  It’s troubling but the idea of working at a Verizon store is even more depressing…but liquor store…now that’s a place I could see myself…maybe slowly working my way up the liquor ladder to management…and maybe…just maybe…after years of hard work and building up an excellent reputation, I could get into liquor distribution!  I’m not even kidding when I say that liquor distributor has always been one my dream jobs.  I really don’t’ know anything about it except that everyone I know who’s been a ‘liquor distributor’ has been rich as Croesus.  I’d like to bite me off a piece of that action.  And, let’s be honest, liquor is something I kind of know a little bit about.  Along with my JD, I pretty much got a PhD in sauce (and I ain’t talkin’ BBQ).  Speaking of, I think there’s snow falling so it’s time for me to get my blizzard on.    

Forced From Executive Pay to Hourly Wage – NYTimes.com.

UPDATE:

Mark Penn looks at this trend as it pertains to the professional fields and it’s even more depressing.  At one point he actually instructs the reader to look at the homeless and imagine their lawyers there…Yay!  Happy Monday.  

Laid-off Lawyers and Other Professionals

But What does George Soros REALLY know?

What does George Soros know?  It’s not like he’s some sort of financial genuis who rose from nothing to become a billionaire…oh wait…I guess that is exactly what he did…with a side of possible insider trading…but I digress.  George Soros sees the writing on the wall and is calling our current economic crisis worse than the Great Depression.  ACES!

Also, thanks Captain Obvious-even I could have told you that it’s a bad idea for Barack and the American people to buy back all that bad debt…even though we kind of created it…unless we’re going to sue the mortgage brokers and banks that helped created it by lending to people who were credit risks.  Although no one has really explained to me why it’s a good idea to give all of these banks-the same banks who MADE these bad loans-MORE money…do I get MORE money now that I’m unemployed?  NO…  Do lawyers get more money when they lose a case?  NO-actually some lawyers don’t get ANY money if they don’t win.  It’s bullshit until someone can convince me otherwise.

Also…I can’t even imagine a 25% unemployment rate…that’s amazing.  And I hope to never see one.  Perhaps I should have paid a little more attention to that American Girl movie about the boarding house…

Cafferty File: Tell Jack how you really feel Blog Archive – Worse than the Great Depression? « – Blogs from CNN.com.