The Toll of the Great Recession

The ONLY solution is a strong economy, not more taxing, not more class and race warfare, not more handouts, not more government. We have been teetering on the edge of a double dip for a long time now and the current administration is clueless as to how this country became so strong in the first place. JMO

Rick wrote: The ONLY solution is a strong economy, not more taxing, not more class and race warfare, not more handouts, not more government. We have been teetering on the edge of a double dip for a long time now and the current administration is clueless as to how this country became so strong in the first place. JMO

Well Said.

There are many corporations sitting on tons of cash, but they are not willing to make more investments as long as the spend and tax Democrats continue to make business ventures more expensive and risky.

The latest problems in Cyprus underscore the problems of massive government debt. Idiots like Pelosi don't understand it, but investors do.

Billions of dollars in household income and wealth were lost when housing prices crashed and foreclosures rose. Even if they were paper profits and the result of a bubble, people took massive hits. And a lot of people who bought houses during the peak are still paying off underwater mortgages.

Science Chic wrote: 5 questions for the Gantz brothers about the toll of the great recession
Premiering on HBO on March 18, 2013, AMERICAN WINTER is a powerful and timely documentary that follows the stories of eight families struggling to survive in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and reveals the impact of rising economic inequality, cuts to social services, and the fracturing of the American Dream.
By Barbara Raab, Senior Producer, NBC News
Mon Mar 18, 2013

“Forget the dreams, how do we make it to tomorrow?” asks Ben, a husband and father who’s been laid off from his job at the credit branch of a car company, has fallen behind on the mortgage and is struggling to provide the basics for his family.

Ben is one of the distressed Americans trying to keep his head above water in “American Winter,” a documentary produced by Emmy award-winning filmmakers Joe and Harry Gantz, and debuting tonight on Monday, March 18th on HBO. It tells the story of the worst recession of our lifetime through the eyes of eight families in Portland, Oregon during one winter.

Working with the nonprofit organization 211info in Portland, the Gantz’s were given full access to monitor and record calls from families calling the emergency hotline for help. They followed some of these callers over the next several months.

NBC News talked with Joe and Harry Gantz about their film, and about what they hope to achieve with their firsthand view of the struggle millions of Americans are experiencing.

Thoughts? Critiques? Solutions?

No doubt it will be regarded by the neo-cons with the same disdain they have for proof of climate-change... The people featured in the series are "takers" not "makers"; they're part of the 47%; and even if they're disabled, elderly, veterans, non-educated, "it's their own fault...and they should go get a job.....Slackers."

Science Chic wrote: 5 questions for the Gantz brothers about the toll of the great recession
Premiering on HBO on March 18, 2013, AMERICAN WINTER is a powerful and timely documentary that follows the stories of eight families struggling to survive in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and reveals the impact of rising economic inequality, cuts to social services, and the fracturing of the American Dream.
By Barbara Raab, Senior Producer, NBC News
Mon Mar 18, 2013

“Forget the dreams, how do we make it to tomorrow?” asks Ben, a husband and father who’s been laid off from his job at the credit branch of a car company, has fallen behind on the mortgage and is struggling to provide the basics for his family.

Ben is one of the distressed Americans trying to keep his head above water in “American Winter,” a documentary produced by Emmy award-winning filmmakers Joe and Harry Gantz, and debuting tonight on Monday, March 18th on HBO. It tells the story of the worst recession of our lifetime through the eyes of eight families in Portland, Oregon during one winter.

Working with the nonprofit organization 211info in Portland, the Gantz’s were given full access to monitor and record calls from families calling the emergency hotline for help. They followed some of these callers over the next several months.

NBC News talked with Joe and Harry Gantz about their film, and about what they hope to achieve with their firsthand view of the struggle millions of Americans are experiencing.

Thoughts? Critiques? Solutions?

Thoughts, Critiques, Solutions....that is most of what is posted here.

Let's see. If now we know opportunity and valuable human skills are not nearly as secure or common as they were, the solution to the specific problem above is obvious. When you don't have confidence in your income for decades (anyone working for others should have a very low confidence in long term income)....don't get a decades long mortgage. This will keep you from being mobile and essentially trap you when you are in a bad economy...which most of us have accepted is somewhat common these days. When you are trapped in say one town, you start complaining like there is no opportunity, even if you have degrees and skills and such.

People don't realize that a mortgage for their dream home can have just as much negative effect on your career opportunities as your 4 or 8 years of college had a positive effect. If the job you could get and live with is 120 or 1200 miles away and you have no opportunity locally, but a $400 or $1600 mortgage - you have less job skills than they guy bagging your groceries who did not even graduate high school (you know, the guy with a local job). Think about this....and then people don't read and understand their mortgage. Where was our education system when it comes to mortgage education or tax prep education, why aren't these classes in high school (perhaps because teachers are not trained on these topics)? They are teaching humanities in many HS?

So, don't over obligate yourself. That is simply the solution. Don't buy into bullshit, like jobs last.

Or are you talking about a silly not going to work, let's fix society by forcing people to do something different than they are inclined to every moment to fix things that has never ever ever ever worked. But if you are going to do something like that, people are discussing fixing this with higher min wages and other restrictions, when in fact they have the opposite effect. There are little jobs because of the MYTHS that jobs are only good if you are not actually working hard physically and min wages raise wages for all when they just sent our jobs oversees because we happily accepted min wages and restrictions for our workers domestically, but did not extend our morals to require such things internationally on imported goods. We essentially, using govt policy, forced the jobs out.

Again you will not win this by fixing society over night or with one policy (partly because it is a bad idea, partly because you would have to force it, but mostly because it is impossible.) On a personal basis, those that got caught behind this economy have to realize they were not as smart or as well positioned as they thought and they need to realize they over spent and spend much less in the future. People need to fix this in their own families. No amount of forcefull LJ style policies is going to make this better fast enough without actually hurting another group and likely more so.

People need to take care of themselves and their families, regardless of the environment they are in, if you don't have enough money, you simply need to spend less or make more. These are your ONLY two options. Obama, 285bound and LJ will not be changing this fact only making it more real as more of us face it. Funny thing is, one of the reasons people cannot afford to take care of themselves and their families is that folks keep taking away their money to take care of other families that "everyone" feels need even more care. If this process works well...why isn't everyone getting rich after 50+ years of it?

The solution is not in the govt. it is in your family, regardless of what all the crazies outside your doors do, even as they work their way through your doors. This is the only place you have any real power or influence, so go use it and solve this problem. The solution is to stop trying to solve what you percieve to be other peoples problems. And if you mention the two sides of the useless, apparently eternal political debate, you clearly are just in it for the debate and the blood that comes from it, people and their lives you ruin and push around in the process be damned.

Before the bust it was super long mortgages some fifty years at high interest rates but now so many people have fifteen instead of thirty years and low interest rates. Will they take that extra income and be better prepared for retirement?

Still trying to sell that same old anti-tax AynRandroid Kool-Aid...When the numbers and the FACTS show that your argument is totally bogus...

Well, I would expect nothing less. You're right... Don't buy houses, or cars... That's what this country needs, is less consumption...at a time when the jobs are shrinking.

Fortunately, the younger generation of voters see through the politics-of-selfishness, and the louder the screams get from the teabaggers, the more we know that they are realizing that their failed vision is collapsing in on them.

Hey, guys, jus' keep doin' what yer doin'. You can't imagine how much I enjoy watching the Death March of the Dinosaurs into extinction... I think the Denver Post publisher was right. I doubt that we'll see another Republican president in my lifetime.

LadyJazzer wrote: Still trying to sell that same old anti-tax AynRandroid Kool-Aid...When the numbers and the FACTS show that your argument is totally bogus...

Well, I would expect nothing less. You're right... Don't buy houses, or cars... That's what this country needs, is less consumption...at a time when the jobs are shrinking.

Fortunately, the younger generation of voters see through the politics-of-selfishness, and the louder the screams get from the teabaggers, the more we know that they are realizing that their failed vision is collapsing in on them.

Hey, guys, jus' keep doin' what yer doin'. You can't imagine how much I enjoy watching the Death March of the Dinosaurs into extinction... I think the Denver Post publisher was right. I doubt that we'll see another Republican president in my lifetime.

Who are you referring to?

LadyJazzer wrote: Still trying to sell that same old anti-tax AynRandroid Kool-Aid...When the numbers and the FACTS show that your argument is totally bogus...

Well, I would expect nothing less. You're right... Don't buy houses, or cars... That's what this country needs, is less consumption...at a time when the jobs are shrinking.

Fortunately, the younger generation of voters see through the politics-of-selfishness, and the louder the screams get from the teabaggers, the more we know that they are realizing that their failed vision is collapsing in on them.

Hey, guys, jus' keep doin' what yer doin'. You can't imagine how much I enjoy watching the Death March of the Dinosaurs into extinction... I think the Denver Post publisher was right. I doubt that we'll see another Republican president in my lifetime.

We are using your policies and the world and the economy just keeps getting worse. Those are the facts. We tried my methods from 100-200 years ago when we built the world that you are now ruining with your policies. Even the conservatives you talk about usually are just arguing for mild versions of your policies.

I just suggested that people without resources stop spending them. They tried your methods of getting people to buy houses they could not afford with incentives, it did not work, so why would we do it again. You are now suggesting we do the thing that made the problem in order to fix it? People just spending is not a long term solution, it is not sustainable, it is kicking the can.

You just keep doing what you are doing. I have plenty of opportunity, my family will be fine, we know how to deal with all the regs, I am active for those that are stuck at jobs or cannot even get that far. Your next generation will vote themselves into more of a mess than this one. We can argue all we want. I have so much opportunity and everyone seems to be talking about a lack of it. I help people start companies almost daily, I help people get out of the job rut. If you want to help people stay there or help them get there, that just make more for me to do....thanks!

Just keep using your govt guns and your spending incentives and in a few years, you should have everything all bettou. I know the last 50 years was just not enough time, you just need a little more and your plan will come to fruition. We just cannot wait for all the prosperity that will come of it. The reduced govt you can provide once the job is done. Even if you get your way, I win, because now I am doing well off of a bunch of poor citizens, you make them stable, like you suggest you can, I will make even more and we all win.

So keep working for your utopia and I will keep working towards mine, just remember that those with skills and resources, like myself, will always be on top. Just with your policies, you will keep far more people on the bottom.