Old photo from a local Chamber of Commerce telling men to keep walking—don't ask for jobs here.

December 15th, 2009

by Michael Luo and Megan Thee-Brenan
- New York Times

WebNote:  Read this column then check out the comment section on the NY Times site. Looks like Americans might finally be getting mad enough for that R3volution.

More than half of the nation’s unemployed workers have borrowed money from friends or relatives since losing their jobs. An equal number have cut back on doctor visits or medical treatments because they are out of work.

Almost half have suffered from depression or anxiety. About 4 in 10 parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they attribute to their difficulties in finding work.

Joblessness has wreaked financial and emotional havoc on the lives of many of those out of work, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults, causing major life changes, mental health issues and trouble maintaining even basic necessities.

The results of the poll, which surveyed 708 unemployed adults from Dec. 5 to Dec. 10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points, help to lay bare the depth of the trauma experienced by millions across the country who are out of work as the jobless rate hovers at 10 percent and, in particular, as the ranks of the long-term unemployed soar.

Roughly half of the respondents described the recession as a hardship that had caused fundamental changes in their lives. Generally, those who have been out of work longer reported experiencing more acute financial and emotional effects.

“I lost my job in March, and from there on, everything went downhill,” said Vicky Newton, 38, of Mount Pleasant, Mich., a single mother who had been a customer-service representative in an insurance agency.

“After struggling and struggling and not being able to pay my house payments or my other bills, I finally sucked up my pride,” she said in an interview after the poll was conducted. “I got food stamps just to help feed my daughter.”

Over the summer, she abandoned her home in Flint, Mich., after she started receiving foreclosure notices. She now lives 90 minutes away, in a rental house owned by her father.

With unemployment driving foreclosures nationwide, a quarter of those polled said they had either lost their home or been threatened with foreclosure or eviction for not paying their mortgage or rent. About a quarter, like Ms. Newton, have received food stamps. More than half said they had cut back on both luxuries and necessities in their spending. Seven in 10 rated their family’s financial situation as fairly bad or very bad.

But the impact on their lives was not limited to the difficulty in paying bills. Almost half said unemployment had led to more conflicts or arguments with family members and friends; 55 percent have suffered from insomnia.

“Everything gets touched,” said Colleen Klemm, 51, of North Lake, Wis., who lost her job as a manager at a landscaping company last November. “All your relationships are touched by it. You’re never your normal happy-go-lucky person. Your countenance, your self-esteem goes. You think, ‘I’m not employable.’ ”

A quarter of those who experienced anxiety or depression said they had gone to see a mental health professional. Women were significantly more likely than men to acknowledge emotional issues.

Tammy Linville, 29, of Louisville, Ky., said she lost her job as a clerical worker for the Census Bureau a year and a half ago. She began seeing a therapist for depression every week through Medicaid but recently has not been able to go because her car broke down and she cannot afford to fix it.

Her partner works at the Ford plant in the area, but his schedule has been sporadic. They have two small children and at this point, she said, they are “saving quarters for diapers.”

“Every time I think about money, I shut down because there is none,” Ms. Linville said. “I get major panic attacks. I just don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Nearly half of the adults surveyed admitted to feeling embarrassed or ashamed most of the time or sometimes as a result of being out of work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the traditional image of men as breadwinners, men were significantly more likely than women to report feeling ashamed most of the time.

There was a pervasive sense from the poll that the American dream had been upended for many. Nearly half of those polled said they felt in danger of falling out of their social class, with those out of work six months or more feeling especially vulnerable. Working-class respondents felt at risk in the greatest numbers.

Nearly half of respondents said they did not have health insurance, with the vast majority citing job loss as a reason, a notable finding given the tug of war in Congress over a health care overhaul. The poll offered a glimpse of the potential ripple effect of having no coverage. More than half characterized the cost of basic medical care as a hardship.

Many in the ranks of the unemployed appear to be rethinking their career and life choices. Just over 40 percent said they had moved or considered moving to another part of the state or country where there were more jobs. More than two-thirds of respondents had considered changing their career or field, and 44 percent of those surveyed had pursued job retraining or other educational opportunities.

Joe Whitlow, 31, of Nashville, worked as a mechanic until a repair shop he was running with a friend finally petered out in August. He had contemplated going back to school before, but the potential loss in income always deterred him. Now he is enrolled at a local community college, planning to study accounting.

“When everything went bad, not that I didn’t have a choice, but it made the choice easier,” Mr. Whitlow said.

The poll also shed light on the formal and informal safety nets that the jobless have relied upon. More than half said they were receiving or had received unemployment benefits. But 61 percent of those receiving benefits said the amount was not enough to cover basic necessities.

Meanwhile, a fifth said they had received food from a nonprofit organization or religious institution. Among those with a working spouse, half said their spouse had taken on additional hours or another job to help make ends meet.

Even those who have stayed employed have not escaped the recession’s bite….

Read more at the New York Times

Related articles by Zemanta

• Poll Shows Mounting Toll of Joblessness on Nation (nytimes.com)
• Michael Tomasky: Too much power for one man (guardian.co.uk)

Without a doubt, President Obama & Co., including Senator Edward Kennedy, intend to do elective surgery on our health care system and to force national health insurance upon us. This despite the fact that if our health coverage is nationalized, the Canadians will no longer have the benefit of the American health care they have become accustomed to. Why? Because we will soon be in the same boat they are in now; very long waits—up to three years and more for elective surgery and other elective procedures.

Why? How many physicians worth their salt elect to be employed by the U.S. government, if they can help it? The number is minuscule. Actually the number of competent physicians is shrinking daily as it is. That is due in part to government meddling in health care.

The same is true for nurses. It has gotten so bad that we are scouring the earth for nurses. Notice I did not say competent nurses. We will accept a certified—yip; usually they are still requiring that—nurses as long as they are breathing and not so wide that they cannot navigate hospital hallways. (Oh yes, I have seen some in the Philippines that might not be able to pass that test.)

It’s bad enough that we can no longer get enough American nurses, but, while we are getting nurses from other, usually very poor countries, we are taking nurses those countries can ill afford to lose. We are thereby turning America’s problem into a problem for those other countries; countries that cannot afford to put up a diplomatic fight with the American government to keep their nurses; nurses whom they desperately need.

We must stop this socialization of the American economy

There are two things a sensible person can do between now and the next election. One, is pray Obama & Co. don’t succeed in their quest to drive the last nail in the coffin of the best large health care system in the world; and, two, work to unseat all politicians who agree with Obama & Co.’s push to create a socialist system of government in the U.S. A socialist system of government and ruining our health care system will certainly have an adverse affect on your and my pursuit of happiness.

Here’s what Sandy wrote in her post:

Single payer visions

We’re beginning to learn what Senator Edward Kennedy’s secret meetings with key health insurance industry stakeholders have been creating in their vision for universal health coverage.

If you want to keep your health care separate from your job, you will no longer have that choice, according to reports of the plan’s 170-page draft. Employers would be required to provide health care to employees or be penalized. Step #1 to a single-payer government managed national health plan.

(Click here to read the full post.)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Health Care Takeover On the Way? (powerlineblog.com)
• Kennedy Bill Would Make Employers Provide Health care (huffingtonpost.com)
• Want to Cut Healthcare Costs? Make People Pay More (usnews.com)
• Obama: ‘Time To Deliver’ On Health Care (huffingtonpost.com)
• Health care debate heats up on Capitol Hill (cnn.com)
• Voters To Congress: What’s Wrong With Single-Payer Health Care? (huffingtonpost.com)
• The Road To Health Care Serfdom (minx.cc)
• AP sources: House Dems favor insurance requirement (huffingtonpost.com)
• Obama’s Health Care Strategy Revealed (huffingtonpost.com)
• What’s a public health plan anyway? (money.cnn.com)

From the How Not To section of the Pursuit of Happiness files comes this quote:

“What we are not doing — what I have no interest in doing — is running GM,” says the president [Barak Obama , a.k.a. Barakbarous Obabomination] who, when not firing GM’s CEO, purging its board of directors and picking new members, is designing new products (imposing fuel economy requirements that will control size, weight, passenger capacity and safety). The president, overcoming his professed reluctance to run GM, resembles the journalist Don Marquis when, after a month on the wagon, he ordered a double martini and exclaimed: “I’ve conquered my goddam willpower.”

See the full story here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Bondholders accept deal as GM prepares for bankruptcy (cbc.ca)
• Obama unveils auto revamp plan, GM CEO steps down (cbc.ca)
• Bonus Plans Won’t Save GM (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Inside scoop to GM bankruptcy deal! (ceoworld.biz)
• Bankruptcy a possibility: GM interim chairman (cbc.ca)
• GMAC opens its coffers to riskier borrowers (financialpost.com)
• GM goes back to lending to risky buyers (autos.canada.com)
• Official: GM CEO Rick Wagoner Resigns Under Obama Pressure (blogs.thecarconnection.com)
• No Intention of Running GM – Yeah Right (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Chuteless in Detroit (money.cnn.com)

Foolish, incongruous, absurd, it is all of these and more

political files

Not interested?

Some people feign disinterest in politics, saying all politicians are liars and cheats and you can’t believe a word they say, so what’s the use in paying attention to something I can’t help or change. Timothy Geithner could be the poster boy for all the people that think that way. I agree that some politicians are little else than self-serving liars and cheats: some, but not all.

Truth and politics

If a politician told the voters the truth and nothing but the truth; no one, including their mothers would vote for them—okay, maybe their mothers would. That is the reason politicians endeavor to say as little that is substantive as possible. The 1964 presidential race was an excellent example of my point.

Politics and what politicians vote for and against has a profound affect on our lives whether we like it or not; therefore, it behooves us to pay attention and try to make a difference. If we try hard enough we will make a difference and the difference we make may have a totally unexpected and perhaps disproportionate affect on the quality of life of you and a lot of other people.

Our very own tax cheater at our service

Now here is what started me on this little tirade. In the last few days I read about the latest righteous talk to come out of the mouth of a tax cheat name, Timothy Geithner, about tax cheats. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse. That act easily beat the little fox guarding the henhouse anecdote.

Why, oh, why did our nation’s president ask Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary to talk about tax cheats during his overseas tax-plan announcement a day or so ago?

Here’s a little snippet from that presentation from the cheater himself: Today we are taking another important step toward . . . ending indefensible tax breaks and loopholes which allow some companies and some well-off citizens to evade the rules that the rest of America lives by.

Really? Let’s go back a little way and take a look at Geithner’s “non-answer” answer to a simple question posed by Sen. Jim Bunning during Geithner’s confirmation hearing.

Senator Bunning: Would you have paid your 2001 and 2002 tax had you not been nominated to be the treasury secretary?

Geithner: Senator, as I said initially, I should have asked more questions when I concluded that audit at the time, and I didn’t. When I think back on that, I regret not having done that. But I should have done it at that point.

You may recall that Geithner was working at the IMF when he dodged his taxes. The IMF itself is a tax haven. The income is tax-free. All you need to do is pay your payroll taxes, which is precisely what he failed to do until he was nominated back in December.

Clearly, the liar and tax cheat Timothy Geithner is not the guy to be talking about tax evasion. As Treasury secretary, Mr. Geithner is the individual charged with overseeing the IRS, and he is the man who was guilty of a multi-year delay in paying his taxes. Some people are speculating that Mr. Geithner won’t be around very long as Treasury Secretary. Let’s hope they are right.

Foolish, incongruous, absurd; all of these and more

Mr. Obama demonstrated very poor judgment in using Geithner for this particular attack. One can only wonder why he chose this man for the task of talking about tax cheats. Maybe Mr. Obama thought who better than a tax cheat to talk about tax cheats.

No, I don’t really suppose the president was thinking that way, but still I wonder why on earth he insisted on seeing Geithner’s nomination through in light of all the factual evidence against the man. Another question, of course, would be why he was confirmed by our representatives in Washington?

We should all raise our voices in our own way to get this man completely out of our government at the earliest possible time. Doing this or not doing it may well have a far reaching affect on our collective wellbeing and happiness.

Related articles by Zemanta

• When It Comes to Taxes, More Americans Say, ‘Pay up’ (abcnews.go.com)
• Geithner’s Tax Problems ‘Far More Egregious’ Than Daschle’s (crooksandliars.com)
• Geithner’s tax troubles irk even the IRS agents (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Your Money: How to Avoid a Tom Daschle Tax Problem (nytimes.com)
• Administration Rolls Out New Tax-Shelter Curbs (crooksandliars.com)
• Newsweek Interviewing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Live on Facebook Today (insidefacebook.com)
• Sound Off With Your Thoughts About the Geithner Put Today On Facebook (allfacebook.com)
• Christopher Brauchli: Taxes and Didactics (huffingtonpost.com)
• Tax Tips for Tim Geithner (time.com)
• Geithner is the Wrong Messenger (kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com)