And they say things are getting better. . .

[UghUghUgh]

I have no hope with either party, I think we need a true independent party/group that represents that best interests of the people and nation and has the b@lls to fix what needs to be fixed and do away with the unfixables in our economy, damn the special interests and lobbiers. In addition, I think we need to very rapidly look at fixing ourselves internally before fixing the world. As a first step in this direction of fixing ourselves internally, I have filed BK. It takes b@lls, doesn't it? We all know this. That's what our country needs. I, for one, although hate being in the position that I'm in with having to file BK, am putting myself in a position to be better off in spite of surrounding problems! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It definately DOES take balls to file BK. Maybe you should run next term. LOL

ccsjoe for Pres!

[tobee43]

VOTE 4 JOE...i'm in...i'll donate a buck!!

[ohiogal]

The problem with the two main parties is that neither one is interested in working together for the greater good of the country - even if the other side has a good idea. These days it's all about blocking the other guy, no matter what, and nothing ever gets done.

[ccsjoe]

Neither is intersted in working for the good of anything but their own personal bottom line. When I was working for XXXXXXX, my sense of accomplishment and pride was in getting something accopmlished for the greater good...God knows I had enough bullets chasing after me to be dead right now, but not a scratch....and I didn't give a darn either...it was all big picture material. I know I made my mark and I'm damn proud of it, how many of these politicians can say they still do?

[wnguyen]

It definately DOES take balls to file BK. Maybe you should run next term. LOL

ccsjoe for Pres!

You got my vote

[angles]

Its not so much the politicians that I blame as the banks and financial institutions. They have absolutely no integrity and only run off of greed. And if they don’t make money, then the rest of the country does not make any money - talk about being a hostage. All those liar loans the banks issued and other weird loan programs with no documentation really started our problems. And then the financial institutions feel the government money is owed to them. I read an article the other day that Goldman stated that the government should pay them the money (for the bad loans) and issuing bonuses/raises to their employees with that money is perfectly fine.

[catleg]

I posted this article in another thread...says no recovery for 7 years. Guy is a well respected investment manager.

http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=61806

[drowning123]

I didn't read the article yet, but it doesn't take much expertism to see what's going on around us. Companies have found that they can get by with whatever few employees they have now, so why not save on overhead costs. The job market will never be the same. I have friends who have been job-hunting for 1 and 2 years and these people have degrees. Salaries aren't going up, but everything else is. What's the future for our kids?

[ccsjoe]

Quite frankly I think people in general need to stop pandering to the idea of "in this economy" implying that things will go back to pre-2008 levels. This, in my opinion, is the new normal. We are living through history. Middle class standards are being redifined for generations to come. Just my thought.

By the way, good article catleg, although I don't subscribe to it in entirety, a lot does ring to be spot on.

[angles]

I was talking about this to a co-worker this last weekend and he brought up a very good point. People are depressed, or getting depressed about the new economy. No one is motivated and no one wants to take risks to get ahead or to get fired from their job. And it makes sense. I see a lot of manufacturing companies that are very late on their deliveries and the quality is not that good. I would have expected the opposite in this economy, but not true. Also, lately I have been reading reports that worker output has been dropping. I think this is due to depression and a general sense of not caring about anything. Just to add with another example, when times were good I remember contractors working hard to finish the job so they could move on to the next but now I see them dragging their feet because they have nowhere else to go. Very depressing when you talk to them. So their view is the longer it takes them to build something the longer they remain employed.

[discouraged]

I think some of the problem with poor quality is that companies are hiring 'cheaper' labor. I was laid off almost two years ago, had a part-time job for 6 months after that; wihch was supposed to become permanent but there was a hiring freeze. I'm finding that companies I applied at months ago are finally calling, althoug I have not received a job offer yet (possibly an age issue??). But these companies are finding that they are not getting the quality, I believe. Not sure, just a theory.

Sad, sad situation for our economy and our nation.

[Blueboy]

Exactly how is he worse than Bush? Has he taken a vibrant economy with a surplus and utterly destroyed it?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3015540/US-Budget-Deficit-or-Surplus-1960present

Has he started 2 unsustainable wars - 1 on false pretenses?
Did he approve the United States torturing?
Was it under his watch that we began the largest financial meltdown since the Great Depression?
What exactly should/could Obama have done different so far?

Well you didn't make a mistake voting for him -- your really didn't have much of a choice. Sadly we have little hope with the D's and no hope with the R's.

ROTFLMAO Someone's been drinking the kool-aid!

[houston7]

Discouraged,
I think you nailed it. The poor quality is a result of hiring cheap labor. As far as I can tell, most managers aren't capable of seeing past the immediate month/quarter. It's all about the profits. They can't seem to connect the dots that you get what you pay for. I had an interview this morning and the owner of the company was telling me that he was having problems keeping the position filled with a good person/worker. The pay? $8.20 per hour.

Um, Mr. Businessman, exactly what kind of person do you think you are going to get for 8 bucks an hour? He looked at my wage history, ($48k per year since 2006) and was trying to figure out a way to pay me enough to keep me in the position.
His solution? He would offer me $600 a week for a 50 hour work week, but I would have to sign a long term contract to stay at that position. I have no problem taking pay cut to get off unemployment, but they are smoking some serious crack if they think that I am going to sign away my right to look improve my financial situation.

You know, that whole capitalism things that Republicans cling to.

It works both ways.

[discouraged]

Wow - $12 an hour to sign your life away? And, that is before taxes, health insurance premiums and whatever else would eat into the paycheck. Yup - that's a real incentive.

I,also, am willing to go much, much lower than the $40,000 I was making - because I've learned how to be extremely frugal (it has been an eye-opener at how frugal I can be!), but to sign my life away at the same time would be the breaking point.

Hang in there - the day will come when people rebel at the poor quality or lack of service.

[msm859]

ROTFLMAO Someone's been drinking the kool-aid!

I take it from your inability to refute any of my observations that you agree -- FYI this is called a negative pregnant.