Jobless and hopeless in America

[tobee43]

January 7, 2011


(CNN) -- The Great Recession has been an economic catastrophe for jobless and underemployed American workers and their families. The December jobs report issued Friday shows only modest private-sector job growth and offers slim hope that the nation's 15 million unemployed are going to find relief anytime soon.

Their financial reserves are exhausted; their job prospects nil; their family relations stressed; and, their belief in government's ability to help them is negligible. They feel hopeless and powerless, unable to see their way out of the ditch they find themselves in.

Joblessness not only leaves deep scars on people -- financially and psychologically -- but also has enduring effects on families, communities and societies. Beyond the personal suffering, the despair of unemployed workers undermines their trust of employers, the economy and government.

These are among the main findings from "The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in their Futures," a research report prepared by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

The Heldrich Center first interviewed a national sample of more than 1,200 unemployed workers who lost their jobs during the recession in August 2009. More than 900 were re-interviewed in March, and 764 were contacted again in November.

One-quarter of those first interviewed in August 2009 had found full-time jobs some 15 months later. Most of the "fortunate" re-employed accepted jobs for less pay and/or less benefits. Four in 10 had to change careers to gain employment.

Among those still unemployed, about six in 10 had been job hunting for at least a year, with fully one-third looking for more than two years. Roughly half of the unemployed believe another year will go by before they begin working again, if ever. By a margin of 2-to-1, unemployed workers fear they will never regain the financial position they had before the recession.

Millions of unemployed Americans, facing a situation not of their own making, have exhausted all ideas of what to do next to find work.

More than three-quarters of the long-term unemployed (76%) say they have "a lot less" in income and savings now, compared with when the recession began. Many have borrowed money from friends and family, sold possessions and gone without needed health care. The economic victims of the recession are enduring downwardly mobile lives.

The core American belief that people who work hard will get ahead has been shattered. Now the majority of the unemployed do not believe that simple hard work will guarantee success. A staggering number of those surveyed also worry that the national economy has undergone fundamental, lasting changes.

Nearly two-thirds think that older workers will not be able to retire when they want to (65%). More than half say it will become harder for young people to afford college (51%) and that workers will have to take jobs below their skill level (49%).

America's unemployed voice little confidence in the government's ability to help them. The survey, conducted after the national election in November, found that only 30% of the unemployed are more hopeful about an economic recovery because of the election. When the survey group was asked to choose between President Barack Obama and the Republicans in Congress about whom they trust to do a better job handling the economy, "neither" won at 41%. One third (32%) chose the president and far fewer -- just 17% -- picked congressional Republicans. Less than one in 10 trust "both."

Rather than blaming the victims of the Great Recession or each other, our political leaders need to find the foresight, wisdom and compassion to undertake long overdue reforms of the American education and work force development system.

Public policies designed to cope with the Great Depression more than 70 years ago will not be sufficient to overcome the obstacles faced by millions of unemployed and underemployed workers scrambling to find their way back from joblessness to meaningful work.

Instead, unemployed workers desperately need policies that provide long-term education and training programs at affordable cost as well as on-the-job training and subsidized employment that will encourage employers to keep people on the job instead of putting them out the door.

They also need access to health care while they are jobless. Let's hope that the new Congress can put aside political squabbling and work together to rescue American workers and the economy.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/07/vanhorn.unemployment.jobs.study/index.html?hpt=Sbin

[scorpion35]

January 7, 2011


(CNN) -- The Great Recession has been an economic catastrophe for jobless and underemployed American workers and their families. The December jobs report issued Friday shows only modest private-sector job growth and offers slim hope that the nation's 15 million unemployed are going to find relief anytime soon.

Their financial reserves are exhausted; their job prospects nil; their family relations stressed; and, their belief in government's ability to help them is negligible. They feel hopeless and powerless, unable to see their way out of the ditch they find themselves in.

Joblessness not only leaves deep scars on people -- financially and psychologically -- but also has enduring effects on families, communities and societies. Beyond the personal suffering, the despair of unemployed workers undermines their trust of employers, the economy and government.

These are among the main findings from "The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in their Futures," a research report prepared by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

The Heldrich Center first interviewed a national sample of more than 1,200 unemployed workers who lost their jobs during the recession in August 2009. More than 900 were re-interviewed in March, and 764 were contacted again in November.

One-quarter of those first interviewed in August 2009 had found full-time jobs some 15 months later. Most of the "fortunate" re-employed accepted jobs for less pay and/or less benefits. Four in 10 had to change careers to gain employment.

Among those still unemployed, about six in 10 had been job hunting for at least a year, with fully one-third looking for more than two years. Roughly half of the unemployed believe another year will go by before they begin working again, if ever. By a margin of 2-to-1, unemployed workers fear they will never regain the financial position they had before the recession.

Millions of unemployed Americans, facing a situation not of their own making, have exhausted all ideas of what to do next to find work.

More than three-quarters of the long-term unemployed (76%) say they have "a lot less" in income and savings now, compared with when the recession began. Many have borrowed money from friends and family, sold possessions and gone without needed health care. The economic victims of the recession are enduring downwardly mobile lives.

The core American belief that people who work hard will get ahead has been shattered. Now the majority of the unemployed do not believe that simple hard work will guarantee success. A staggering number of those surveyed also worry that the national economy has undergone fundamental, lasting changes.

Nearly two-thirds think that older workers will not be able to retire when they want to (65%). More than half say it will become harder for young people to afford college (51%) and that workers will have to take jobs below their skill level (49%).

America's unemployed voice little confidence in the government's ability to help them. The survey, conducted after the national election in November, found that only 30% of the unemployed are more hopeful about an economic recovery because of the election. When the survey group was asked to choose between President Barack Obama and the Republicans in Congress about whom they trust to do a better job handling the economy, "neither" won at 41%. One third (32%) chose the president and far fewer -- just 17% -- picked congressional Republicans. Less than one in 10 trust "both."

Rather than blaming the victims of the Great Recession or each other, our political leaders need to find the foresight, wisdom and compassion to undertake long overdue reforms of the American education and work force development system.

Public policies designed to cope with the Great Depression more than 70 years ago will not be sufficient to overcome the obstacles faced by millions of unemployed and underemployed workers scrambling to find their way back from joblessness to meaningful work.

Instead, unemployed workers desperately need policies that provide long-term education and training programs at affordable cost as well as on-the-job training and subsidized employment that will encourage employers to keep people on the job instead of putting them out the door.

They also need access to health care while they are jobless. Let's hope that the new Congress can put aside political squabbling and work together to rescue American workers and the economy.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/0....html?hpt=Sbin

but obama thinks the US needs more skilled workers from other countries
wants to open our borders to allow even more foreigners to come here and work

[tobee43]

but obama thinks the US needs more skilled workers from other countries
wants to open our borders to allow even more foreigners to come here and work

i know...the bus is coming in from some far off china sea island today...

[RichM]

Sadly, I think it's only going to get worse. Much worse.

It's pretty easy to blame the banks and their most closely-related industries (insurance, etc.) for the onset of this catastrophe, and indeed they bear a big part of the blame. But they're not the whole problem, nor has anything at all been done to address the rest of the problems that are not-so-slowly dragging this country into economic collapse.

One problem that you'll read very little about in the media ("mainstream" or otherwise) is the ongoing loss of Reserve Currency status by the U.S. Dollar. Dollar holdings worldwide reached their peak in 1999 and have been falling ever since. In addition, many nations, cartels, and international trade groups have officially expressed dissatisfaction with the Dollar, and are advocating for various other currencies or exchange methods.

Loss of reserve currency status would be devastating to the U.S. economy because it would significantly increase the prices we pay for, well, everything -- especially oil. But even more sobering is the fact that the rest of the world is anxious to change in the first place. This indicates a fear felt by among economists around the world that the United States is headed for economic collapse and the dollar is going to become worthless.

That's why foreign nations are gradually dumping our Dollars. They don't want to dump them too abruptly because they don't want to create the very collapse that they fear until they're fully divested of Dollars. But they're getting out: Dollar holdings as a percentage of currency reserves held by foreign nations have decreased more than 10 percent since 1999. Euro and Pound Sterling holdings, on the other hand, have each increased by more than a third.

The reason U.S. Dollar holdings hit a high in 1999 is that the United States seemed to be on its way to fiscal health and integrity. Clinton had pulled off the herculean accomplishment of balancing the federal budget, and plans were in place to reduce the national debt. That's the sort of thing makes for fiscal health and a stable economic system.

Unfortunately, neither of Clinton's successors have followed his example. Between Bush's wars and Obama's Socialist initiatives, our budget is again a complete mess, our debt has grown to record levels, and our ability to repay it questionable at best. If this situation continues unabated, the only thing that can "save" the U.S. Government is the very thing that would hurt the rest of U.S. society: massive inflation that would reduce the Dollar's value enough that the government could afford to pay back all of its obligations. (If this doesn't make sense to you, consider that inflation effectively decreases Dollar-denominated debt because the Dollars used to pay back the debt are worth less than the Dollars received when the debt was incurred.)

Simply stated, the U.S. Government, according to the rest of the world's economists, is on its way to bankruptcy: And they don't want to be invested in Dollars when that happens. So they're getting out -- in spades.

Another problem that people grumble about, but which defies any easy solution, is the almost-sinful income inequity in American society. CEO salaries, for example, have reached absurd levels, with some CEOs "earning" compensation in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Many, many more "earn" packages in the tens of millions. In the meantime, they offshore the jobs of people making thirty or forty grand a year, and blame the problem on the "greedy workers" and their unions.

Blaming worker salaries for the export of jobs is just a smokescreen, by the way. Intel CEO Craig Barrett claims that 90 percent of the cost difference between building and operating a microchip factory in Asia, compared to building and operating the same factory in the United States, is due to government regulations. Only about ten percent of the difference is due to employee salaries. Simply stated, Asian nations want manufacturing, and their governments will bend over backwards to get it.

Most CEOs aren't quite so honest as Barrett, however; so they pin the blame on "greedy workers and their unions" in order to discourage their remaining U.S. workers from asking for pay increases. And so we have the unprecedented situation in which CEOs of major American firms are making as much as 800 times the incomes of their average employees.

The obvious problem with this degree of income inequity is that the United States is a consumer economy, driven by purchases rather than production. And when you systematically impoverish the common people, no one has any money to buy all the shit that has to be bought to prevent the economy from toppling. But despite falling sales, those on the top of the economic pyramid refuse to accept any loss to their own incomes without a fight. They have a mentality of entitlement, as if their wealth is something divinely ordained.

That's also another one of the reasons why this recession is dragging on for so long. During most previous recessions, CEOs and shareholders recognized that they had to lower prices -- both because of supply and demand and to encourage recovery -- even if doing so meant foregoing profits and dividends for a while. So prices tended to fall during recessions, which in turn encouraged recovery.

But the greedy bastards who dominate American industry nowadays refuse to accept less for themselves. As sales have declined because more and more people are broke, the greedy son-of-a-***** bastards on the top have tried to keep their own bottom lines from falling by raising prices on basic commodities, which serves only to deepen the recession by further suppressing spending. They're trying to make up lost profits due to reduced sales by increasing the profit per item, totally blinded by their own greed to how stupid and counterproductive that approach is.

And so we have the incongruity of a prolonged recession during which prices for basic, essential items have sharply increased -- in some cases by more than 100 percent -- and most of the reason is an essential greed on the part of shareholders and CEOs that convinces them that even if the rest of the country is broke and starving, their own incomes shouldn't have to suffer.

In 1942, a similar attitude on the parts of the wealthy led FDR to effectively impose a "salary cap" by issuing Executive Order 9520, which set the marginal tax rate at 100 percent for incomes over $25,000. So any and all income over that level would become the government's. The order was rescinded by Congress. The point I want to make, however, is that in 1942, $25,000 would be equivalent to roughly $335,000 today, which was considered super-wealthy by 1942 standards. Nowadays, a CEO whose salary isn't at least in the tens of millions of dollars per year is laughed at by his or her peers.

The government is still reluctant even today to tax the super-wealthy at a high rate, both because of political reasons and because of a persistent myth that it's the super-wealthy who generate new jobs. That myth lingers on from the "old days" when we actually manufactured stuff in the United States, and we needed the wealthy to capitalize the construction of factories and so forth needed by a manufacturing economy. Those days, however, are over. Nowadays, the only jobs the wealthy create are likely to be in Asia. Most jobs created in the United States are created by small businesses.

The third reason why the U.S. economy is headed for collapse is simply that the government spends too much money. The average American pays more than half their income back to the government in some form or another: Income taxes, FICA, sales taxes, property taxes, utility taxes, fuel taxes, motor vehicle registration fees, tolls, and so forth, and so on. And yet every single state is on the verge of bankruptcy (were that allowed), along with most municipalities.

The most common "solution" that these governments look to is raising taxes -- which further suppresses the economy by taking even more money away from the people. The more money people have to pay to government, the less money they have to spend on other shit, and the longer the recession drags on.

-Rich

[tobee43]

rich....you know we actually need to look at the greenspan era....in reference to our current status and money devaluation...low interest rates for decades....while clinton balanced the budget...(some kudo's there) he also helped take out jobs out of this country...lethal combo...right?

and while we are consumer driven it is our society that makes and has made many people believe they are entitled to what is presented to us as "the american dream" at what cost...no one cared at the moment...just buy it...get it, it's yours.

i believe we will see more privatizing in the future for many of our social services...and while privatization is a "bad" word to many....less government is the only way to reduce the deficit ...looming every which way and as far as the eye can see. ( i really contradict myself when i believe in increase government spending for our military and their families)...but we must put limits and remember clinton cut the military so much....it left us somewhat out there and scrambling. (which i know opens me up for a slap or two!!! LOL!)

it appears the extremely wealthy will always have the clout to repeal tax reform...they most likely will never pay their "fair" share and continue to enjoy tax cuts...at least during my lifetime.

great thoughts rich! really enjoyed reading your post.

[BankruptinNJ]

I agree with so much of what you said, especially the greedy CEOs. I'm sick and tired of their sense of entitltlement. I'm tired of them saying that they have to give such absurd salaries and perks to the top corporate people because they won't attract anyone to those jobs if they don't. Of course they will! There are only so many top corporate jobs to go around! This while many employees of those companies make minimum wage.

Look at the backlash against AIG! They were shocked that anyone questioned them giving out bonuses to their top sharks after getting a government bailout!

The CEO of the company I used to work for gets around $16 million a year. New employees make minimum wage, and if they get benefits must pay over $200 a month for them, leaving very little money left for rent, food, etc.

One of the things that made this country great, the market economy, has evolved into such a greedy sense of entitlement that it might ultimately destroy this country. After all, Rome fell, too.

Sadly, I think it's only going to get worse. Much worse.

It's pretty easy to blame the banks and their most closely-related industries (insurance, etc.) for the onset of this catastrophe, and indeed they bear a big part of the blame. But they're not the whole problem, nor has anything at all been done to address the rest of the problems that are not-so-slowly dragging this country into economic collapse.

One problem that you'll read very little about in the media ("mainstream" or otherwise) is the ongoing loss of Reserve Currency status by the U.S. Dollar. Dollar holdings worldwide reached their peak in 1999 and have been falling ever since. In addition, many nations, cartels, and international trade groups have officially expressed dissatisfaction with the Dollar, and are advocating for various other currencies or exchange methods.

Loss of reserve currency status would be devastating to the U.S. economy because it would significantly increase the prices we pay for, well, everything -- especially oil. But even more sobering is the fact that the rest of the world is anxious to change in the first place. This indicates a fear felt by among economists around the world that the United States is headed for economic collapse and the dollar is going to become worthless.

That's why foreign nations are gradually dumping our Dollars. They don't want to dump them too abruptly because they don't want to create the very collapse that they fear until they're fully divested of Dollars. But they're getting out: Dollar holdings as a percentage of currency reserves held by foreign nations have decreased more than 10 percent since 1999. Euro and Pound Sterling holdings, on the other hand, have each increased by more than a third.

The reason U.S. Dollar holdings hit a high in 1999 is that the United States seemed to be on its way to fiscal health and integrity. Clinton had pulled off the herculean accomplishment of balancing the federal budget, and plans were in place to reduce the national debt. That's the sort of thing makes for fiscal health and a stable economic system.

Unfortunately, neither of Clinton's successors have followed his example. Between Bush's wars and Obama's Socialist initiatives, our budget is again a complete mess, our debt has grown to record levels, and our ability to repay it questionable at best. If this situation continues unabated, the only thing that can "save" the U.S. Government is the very thing that would hurt the rest of U.S. society: massive inflation that would reduce the Dollar's value enough that the government could afford to pay back all of its obligations. (If this doesn't make sense to you, consider that inflation effectively decreases Dollar-denominated debt because the Dollars used to pay back the debt are worth less than the Dollars received when the debt was incurred.)

Simply stated, the U.S. Government, according to the rest of the world's economists, is on its way to bankruptcy: And they don't want to be invested in Dollars when that happens. So they're getting out -- in spades.

Another problem that people grumble about, but which defies any easy solution, is the almost-sinful income inequity in American society. CEO salaries, for example, have reached absurd levels, with some CEOs "earning" compensation in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Many, many more "earn" packages in the tens of millions. In the meantime, they offshore the jobs of people making thirty or forty grand a year, and blame the problem on the "greedy workers" and their unions.Blaming worker salaries for the export of jobs is just a smokescreen, by the way. Intel CEO Craig Barrett claims that 90 percent of the cost difference between building and operating a microchip factory in Asia, compared to building and operating the same factory in the United States, is due to government regulations. Only about ten percent of the difference is due to employee salaries. Simply stated, Asian nations want manufacturing, and their governments will bend over backwards to get it.

Most CEOs aren't quite so honest as Barrett, however; so they pin the blame on "greedy workers and their unions" in order to discourage their remaining U.S. workers from asking for pay increases. And so we have the unprecedented situation in which CEOs of major American firms are making as much as 800 times the incomes of their average employees.

The obvious problem with this degree of income inequity is that the United States is a consumer economy, driven by purchases rather than production. And when you systematically impoverish the common people, no one has any money to buy all the shit that has to be bought to prevent the economy from toppling. But despite falling sales, those on the top of the economic pyramid refuse to accept any loss to their own incomes without a fight. They have a mentality of entitlement, as if their wealth is something divinely ordained.

That's also another one of the reasons why this recession is dragging on for so long. During most previous recessions, CEOs and shareholders recognized that they had to lower prices -- both because of supply and demand and to encourage recovery -- even if doing so meant foregoing profits and dividends for a while. So prices tended to fall during recessions, which in turn encouraged recovery.

But the greedy bastards who dominate American industry nowadays refuse to accept less for themselves. As sales have declined because more and more people are broke, the greedy son-of-a-***** bastards on the top have tried to keep their own bottom lines from falling by raising prices on basic commodities, which serves only to deepen the recession by further suppressing spending. They're trying to make up lost profits due to reduced sales by increasing the profit per item, totally blinded by their own greed to how stupid and counterproductive that approach is.

And so we have the incongruity of a prolonged recession during which prices for basic, essential items have sharply increased -- in some cases by more than 100 percent -- and most of the reason is an essential greed on the part of shareholders and CEOs that convinces them that even if the rest of the country is broke and starving, their own incomes shouldn't have to suffer.

In 1942, a similar attitude on the parts of the wealthy led FDR to effectively impose a "salary cap" by issuing Executive Order 9520, which set the marginal tax rate at 100 percent for incomes over $25,000. So any and all income over that level would become the government's. The order was rescinded by Congress. The point I want to make, however, is that in 1942, $25,000 would be equivalent to roughly $335,000 today, which was considered super-wealthy by 1942 standards. Nowadays, a CEO whose salary isn't at least in the tens of millions of dollars per year is laughed at by his or her peers.

The government is still reluctant even today to tax the super-wealthy at a high rate, both because of political reasons and because of a persistent myth that it's the super-wealthy who generate new jobs. That myth lingers on from the "old days" when we actually manufactured stuff in the United States, and we needed the wealthy to capitalize the construction of factories and so forth needed by a manufacturing economy. Those days, however, are over. Nowadays, the only jobs the wealthy create are likely to be in Asia. Most jobs created in the United States are created by small businesses.

The third reason why the U.S. economy is headed for collapse is simply that the government spends too much money. The average American pays more than half their income back to the government in some form or another: Income taxes, FICA, sales taxes, property taxes, utility taxes, fuel taxes, motor vehicle registration fees, tolls, and so forth, and so on. And yet every single state is on the verge of bankruptcy (were that allowed), along with most municipalities.

The most common "solution" that these governments look to is raising taxes -- which further suppresses the economy by taking even more money away from the people. The more money people have to pay to government, the less money they have to spend on other shit, and the longer the recession drags on.

-Rich

[tobee43]

i think the greed part is really what kills me about these CEO's ...they only need to land one job for a year for their entire life....and nothing to the people that put them there.

that's a good parallel...about rome...because actually it's reminisce of what's happening here except one thing...we the people in this county and suppose, thankfully, only silently rebel. i guess that's our nature. i would think many other countries most likely would have taken to the street by now.

[msm859]

rich....you know we actually need to look at the greenspan era....in reference to our current status and money devaluation...low interest rates for decades....while clinton balanced the budget...(some kudo's there) he also helped take out jobs out of this country...lethal combo...right?

and while we are consumer driven it is our society that makes and has made many people believe they are entitled to what is presented to us as "the american dream" at what cost...no one cared at the moment...just buy it...get it, it's yours.

i believe we will see more privatizing in the future for many of our social services...and while privatization is a "bad" word to many....less government is the only way to reduce the deficit ...looming every which way and as far as the eye can see. ( i really contradict myself when i believe in increase government spending for our military and their families)...but we must put limits and remember clinton cut the military so much....it left us somewhat out there and scrambling. (which i know opens me up for a slap or two!!! LOL!)

it appears the extremely wealthy will always have the clout to repeal tax reform...they most likely will never pay their "fair" share and continue to enjoy tax cuts...at least during my lifetime.

great thoughts rich! really enjoyed reading your post.

Less government is Not the only way. We had a set of tax rates under Clinton that seemed to hit the sweet spot. Kept a vibrant economy and brought in enough revenue to balance the budget -- we should go back to those rates. We should also talk about a tax surcharge on high income to pay for these wars -- our grandchildren should not be paying for them. We should Drastically cut the military -- we cannot afford it. When we have a $100 billion surplus every year so that we can pay off our debt (in 130 years) and we are again leading the world economically and everyone in this country has minimal necessities -- including health care -- I would entertain looking at increasing our military budget.

[tobee43]

i have no clue where this country is going with health care.

kaiser permanete is the suppose it "shining" example of a successful socialized health care system....i just watch my sister almost die of being miss diagnosed for the past few years almost leading to her death. i was raised in that health care system and it worked great at one time.

this country of course needs to put health care in the fore front...as well as personally, i think it says everything about a country the way they take care of their babies and elderly....neither of which we are graded well at the this point.

actually, any type of government spending whether it's heath care, or military... needs to be scrutinized and screened by focused watchdog groups...

and you're right we can't afford it...we can't afford anything at the moment...so then what do we do about health care?? LOL!! don't you wish we had those answers....

[msm859]

i have no clue where this country is going with health care.

and you're right we can't afford it...we can't afford anything at the moment...so then what do we do about health care?? LOL!! don't you wish we had those answers....

Actually I have a "simple" solution to health care. Everyone needs to rally and demand a public option. The public option will be that everyone has the right to buy the exact same health care offered to Congress at the exact same price. Only then will they be forced to fix the problem.

[discouraged]

What has happened to us? Our generation is the one that fought for so many things. And we turned around a lot of things. How did we become so complacent? I think because, until now, we DID have good jobs. We had security - and now we see it vanish before our very eyes.

My hope is that the younger generation will look back and see what we accomplished and start fighting back. It wasn't easy and it was often ugly, but we sure did accomplish a lot.

I hope to see it happen once again, people banding together for a common cause.

[AngelinaCatHub]

My hat goes off to Tobee43 and the contributing posters.

A very good article as well as additions. What I make out of all your posts is one thing in common. Whether REP, or DEM, THIS president is selling us out, and bankrupting this Nation. I did not like Clinton, I did not like Nixon, but I have to abhor this president for what he is doing and the way he is doing it.

Clinton sold our secrets to China. Nixon brought us to China, and Carter gave our Panama Canal away and China is running it. He invented the false oil shortage, PresBO is continuing it as paying other nations OUR money to explore OUR Gulf of Mexico but cutting our drilling off for seven years. WTF?

I've said it before, and again now: You ain't seen nuthin yet!! 'Hub

[tobee43]

My hat goes off to Tobee43 and the contributing posters.

A very good article as well as additions. What I make out of all your posts is one thing in common. Whether REP, or DEM, THIS president is selling us out, and bankrupting this Nation. I did not like Clinton, I did not like Nixon, but I have to abhor this president for what he is doing and the way he is doing it.

Clinton sold our secrets to China. Nixon brought us to China, and Carter gave our Panama Canal away and China is running it. He invented the false oil shortage, PresBO is continuing it as paying other nations OUR money to explore OUR Gulf of Mexico but cutting our drilling off for seven years. WTF?

I've said it before, and again now: You ain't seen nuthin yet!! 'Hub

i'm with you on this hub....i think this is the top of the volcano!

[tobee43]

Actually I have a "simple" solution to health care. Everyone needs to rally and demand a public option. The public option will be that everyone has the right to buy the exact same health care offered to Congress at the exact same price. Only then will they be forced to fix the problem.

however, what will that cost the public out of their own pockets...with so many unemployed and so many poor now in this country what can people pay. and, will the "rich" get better care? it's very scary!

[helpme2010]

It breaks my heart to watch this country continue to outsource our jobs, not invest in new industries/technology like other countries are doing, continue to allow the richest citizens to find loopholes or prosper, often while harming the poorest. Is there any wonder why we have such a shrinking middle class, such a growing class of poor, and why we keep rewarding the CEO's and top executives of corporations that screw our country, while we bail them out and then allow them to get even larger bonuses after they run their companies so poorly and require the taxpayers to bail them out. Just look at what the banking industry has done to us. They were supposed to take the bailouts and invest in the citizens that needed loans, but instead they hoard the money and invest in derivatives and offshore investments.

Every elected official in this country is out for himself or herself, including harming our country to go with their party which helps the elected official stay in office that much longer. Greed is literally turning our country into a 3rd world country. So sad. And all of us are the ones paying the price.