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In most parts of the world, mass unemployment brings the specter of mass social unrest. Not in the U.S., though, where 13 million people have accepted joblessness with nary a peep of protest.
Many reasons -- from Prozac to Pentecostalism -- have been cited to explain American passivity in the face of economic violence. But the truth might be far simpler: In America, being unemployed doesn't mean you have nothing to do but run around burning police cars. Unemployment has been reconfigured as a new form of work.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the white-collar world, where the laid-off are constantly advised to see job searching as a full-time job. As business self-help guru Harvey Mackay advises: "Once you're fired, you already have a job. The job you have is tougher than the last one. It's more demanding." How demanding? He says you need to "plan on 12 to 16 hours a day."
Picture it: People across America rising at the usual time, suiting up in full corporate regalia and setting themselves down at their laptops to fiddle with resumes, peruse Monster.com and pester everyone on their address lists for leads.
Some people no doubt have found jobs in this manner, but there have been no scientific comparisons of the technique with, say, printing a resume on a sandwich board and parading around Times Square.
If there is something familiar in the image of laid-off workers soldiering on, it may be because of films such as "Tokyo Sonata" and the 2001 French film, "Time Out," in which the heroes -- laid-off executives -- conceal their status from their families and continue to mime the daily ritual of going to work. In the movies, this behavior seems pathetic -- a case of terminal denial -- but it's exactly what the American "transition industry" of career coaches and outplacement companies recommends: If you don't have a job, fake one.
In real life, it's OK for a man to tell his wife he's lost his job; he should just never reveal that he has time on his hands. A February article in The New York Times featured a laid-off Illinois man who justified his refusal to do more around the house by saying, "As one of the people who runs one of the career centers I've been to told me: 'You're out of a job, but it's not your time to paint the house and fix the car. Your job is about finding the next job.' "
At the kinky extreme, laid-off white-collar people are advised to simulate the office environment further by finding someone to play the part of a "boss" -- a spouse, a friend, a paid career coach -- to whom you report every few days on your progress.
Is it any wonder there's no time left for lobbying for universal health insurance or reading Marxist tracts on the "reserve army of the unemployed"? It's all a person can do to keep up with the relentless pressures of an imaginary job.
The blue-collar unemployed are subjected to gerbil-like exercises of their own. While white-collar layoff victims are encouraged to polish the "brand called you," blue-collar people are told they have nothing to offer unless they start all over with "retraining." Hence, in part, the current surge in community college enrollments.
But in his 2006 book "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle raised the obvious question: "Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite. There are no guarantees, of course, of eventual jobs. In a recent report for the organization Food AND Medicine on laid-off manufacturing workers in Maine, Steve Husson, who himself was laid off as a DHL driver, found paper-mill workers stuck with intermittent seasonal work and low-paid service-sector jobs despite stints of retraining.
Even two or three years ago, when the economy was apparently healthy, average layoff victims "landed" in new jobs paying 17 percent less than the old ones -- if they landed at all. Today, with the country losing more than a half-million jobs a month, both white-collar job searching and blue-collar retraining are becoming surreal exercises in futility. No matter how smart you are -- how flexible, personable and skilled -- you can't find a job that isn't there. At least until the unemployment benefits run out and the credit cards are canceled, you might as well devote yourself to "Madden NFL" and "Minesweeper."
Of course, there are a few constructive, work-like alternatives. You could join one of the emerging efforts to organize the unemployed, such as Food AND Medicine in Maine, the Unemployed and Anxiously Employed Workers Association of Allen County, Ind., or the nationwide group United Professionals, which I helped start. Or you could pitch in with one of the several organizations fighting for single-payer health insurance or at least a huge expansion of public health insurance for the unemployed. You could get together with laid-off friends and co-workers to discuss how you would design an economy that made use of people's precious skills instead of periodically tossing them out like so much trash.
But the first step, as in any 12-step program, is to overcome denial. Job searching is not a job; retraining is not a panacea. You may be poorer than you've ever been, but you are also freer -- to express anger and urgency, to dream and create, to get together with others and conspire to build a better world.
74 Comments so far
Show AllThe capitalists (fascists) don't need 'us' - the whole world is their playground. So go ahead and dream on about shorter work-weeks and full employment - they have 6+ billion people to do the little work they require done these days, especially since Americans were stupid enough to give away their own country to FASCISTS. It's too late now - a dollar short and a day late and we're in it for the duration.
The center is moving East - China, India, and the rest of Asia provide ample opportunity for enterprising fascists to loot the local-yokels. Of course, the Asians think they're too smart to get taken for a ride - but Americans (and Europeans) thought so too. Meanwhile, at least Europeans - northern Europeans - have had good jobs, shorter work-days and work-weeks, ample paid vacation, and all the other perks of civilized society for decades now. While we stewed in our own frog-pot and watched our future disintegrate as we ran ever faster in our little squirrel-cages. Nice going, America. Stupid is as stupid does. The 'good times' aren't coming back - if you missed them, too bad. If you're young enough and well-qualified, you can move to a more civilized country and take your chances there - it's better for your kids, the sooner you move, the better they'll integrate into a new society and culture. Believe me, that's what my parents did - unfortunately, they didn't choose the country and we got stuck with the US.
"The capitalists (fascists) don't need 'us' - the whole world is their playground"
oh really? You think that we are that helpless?
If you do not think it possible to organize and better understand the system armybrat, and you are not interested in looking for possible solutions maybe you and we would be better off with you sitting back and passively watching tv with a beer rather than pooh-poohing such attempts here.
First of all, I neither drink beer nor watch TV. Beyond that, you Americans have been pretty damned helpless ever since Reagan took the country down the wrong road - so what do you expect to change now? The problem is that I DO understand the system - and the mechanics and psychology involved - that's why I know how difficult it will be to win our freedom and independence from these vile miscreants - they won't let go until they're dead - just like the Nazis.
The best thing going for us is that we dragged Europe and the rest of the world down with us - and they WILL fight back. The only ones 'sitting back' - 'passively watching' are the apathetic brain-numbed Americans who let their country go to hell. So what are YOU doing about it? I've got my hands full as it is...
You will not find beer or TV where I live either. From what I can see a large part of the problem is convincing Americans that something can be done and that the situation is not hopeless and without alternatives. When Europe and the rest of the world fight back and the world playground becomes dangerous the capitalists will need the American people again. That will be an opportunity. When that happens it will be best if the apathetic brain-numbed Americans believe change is possible and have organized to take advantage of the situation. The American people are not helpless. The problem is that they do not believe that change is possible, and their discussion of the direction and possibility and mechanisms of change is currently quite limited.
What I am doing is participating in trying to challenge the myth of helplessness. In the above postings I point out that unemployment and low wages do not result from the laws of supply and demand but rather from the way the economic system has been designed. When the capitalists tell us TINA on jobs we need to tell them BULLSHIT and then tell them and ourselves the alternatives. When our neighbours tell us TINA we need to tell them BULLSHIT, wake-up because we need to look at reality as it is and that includes the fact that we are not helpless, and looking at reality, difficult as is is includes looking at what is possible and far more is possible than most Americans realize and we do need to talk about it.
In short I was not challenging the details of what you are saying which are for the most part in the vast picture of the realities we face.
Barbara is too privileged to realize that finding a job- any job- DOES take work. It takes lots of hours upon hours of networking, reworking resumes, being visible, putting yourself "out there". Cold-calling, showing up to the few apppointments. Then, reworking your resume again.
I bet BE hasn't had to do this in a LONG time!!
And while I agree that the job coaching "industry" that has sprung up around our current dire situation is creepy, those of us who have been out of work don't have the money or the ease of mind to be involved with organizing.
When you don't know where your rent money's going to come from or you've eaten yet another dinner consisting of cheap mac & cheese, it's difficult to think about the work it takes to form an organization to work on social issues!!
The longer you go without a job, the harder it is to stay cheerful and hopeful.
The more desperate (and depressed) you get.
At least this is my own experience.
I love it when rich people like Barbara E. say things like: "You may be poorer than you've ever been, but you are also freer..." It's so heartening that the affluent can pass on this great piece of wisdom (as they have for centuries.) I apologize for being too stupid to see it myself. Ah, freedom...
And the capitalists like it like that. I detest the humiliations we face in the process of finding work under current conditions.
What I am arguing is that we need to share the work better so everyone gets work and there is no longer a large surplus pool of desperate and depressed workers. We do not need to produce more things. Already we are producing too much. What we need is to manage the supply of our time that is available for the capitalists to purchase, this in order that they pay us fairly. The simplest method of reducing the supply of our labour is to reduce the length of the working week so that more people are employed, albiet at less hours but at more per hour.
An alternative to that which would have a similar effect on ensuring everyone can earn an income is an entity that will give a job to whomever wishes to have one. Working less hours would only work if the cost of living decreased, which it sure as hell is not in this country.
Working less hours will work if the capitalists do not have a beaten-up supply of surplus labour willing to work for peanuts, and consequently must work to attract employees who are well able to find work elsewhere. To attract these workers they would need to offer them more money or better working conditions. What is better, working 40 hours at $10/hour or 30 hours at $15/hour? We reduce the supply of labour and its value soon goes up.
Basically the idea of timesizing is that we need to balance the needs of labour and capital so that both do well, doing this by adjusting the length of the work week. (www.timesizing.com) When capital has the upper hand it uses its advantage to maintain surplus labour and to take the lion's share of any increase in productivity, much as they have been doing for the past generation.
this caught my eye since i've been unemployed since 'black friday' of '08 ... i intentionally quit my (wageslave) job just in time out of disgust for the whole catastrophe of our consumerist culture. i'd lived off the grid a few years prior and found the challenges of living in intentional community both daunting and delighting.... extremely challenging and wonderfully liberating. since then i've returned to my hometown (or homecity) where i've been trying to build community and have met with a range of success/failure, but always keeping an open mind and heart about it and being encouraged by what i can only call 'some kind of paradigm shift wanting to happen' in hearts and minds of those awakened enough to the suffering created out of our wasteful commodified 'culture' to be moving into a direction of more interdependence and cooperation whether employed or unemployed. i find my 'unemployed' time to be incredibly precarious but also, as the author suggests, terrifically liberating in many respects. i am finding possible to live on way way less than i'd imagined and am learning ways to bypass the monetized world's dictates as much as possible, with help from friends similarly seeking and creating and collaborating and, most importantly RESKILLING to learn or relearn or UNlearn and reinvent our ways of living to come into alignment with our real values and needs...and overcoming the propensity to hoard... commodify and get stuck inside the box of the same old economic system that's brought us to this place. that system did have its merits, but it needs to undergo (and probably IS undergoing--it;s just not so easy to see it when you're in it...and just as rome wasn't built in a day, neither was it transformed, phoenixlike, from ashes in a day) a radical transformation with tremendous reservoirs of courage and creativity if we are to retain our humanity and compassion, given the momentum of such violence and greed and competitiveness as we've grown accustomed to....almost 'comfortable' with. thanks ms. e for a thought provoking article. those folks i know who are in my position are indeed utilizing their time reassessing how their job-lives have and have not provided the type of sustenance they truly need to be at their best..... compiling more and more stuff loses its allure as we age and realize the preciousness of this life and the gifts of nature. seems a shame to succumb too readily to the idea that the old 9-5 moneymaking world is the only choice out there.... and you know what happens to monocultures... by definition they are inherently more vulnerable to collapse.
At last! Masses of the unemployed to join the Marxist revolution! Don't try to find a job to pay your bills or fund your retirement! To the streets! Tax those no good job-havers! They owe you!
The sad, simple truth is that the dominator culture does not generate enough paid work for all the humans born on the planet. If we have faith in nature, and I am not sure if I do, then I think it possible to believe that the earth can actually support all of the natural life on it, which would include humans, all the billions of them.
I believe that the main reason many humans live without basic life needs met is because we allow some humans to accumulate more than they need. if we all took only what we needed, there would be no marble-floored mansions for an elite few. . . and no hunger for any. I think most of human culture is rooted in the nexus where natural human need bumps into human fear/greed. It is scary to imagine one's self as a meaningless collection of matter in a vast, incomprehensible universe. It creates illusory safety to have money in the bank, to have more than the other guys. Deep down, I believe all humans are inherently good. Deep down, I believe that any human who lives a life of unnecessary luxury (unnecessary in the sense that humans need food, clothing, shelter and self-realization. . . humans do not need millions of dollars). . .
Well, I am babbling along here and probably no one is reading anyone. I should go to bed.
I have a masters degree and a law degree. I have never really been able to support myself as lawyer. Our society educates too many lawyers. And too many computer engineers and too many physicists and too many English teachers. We are in some kind of massive, collective denial: we all pretend that there are jobs out there, enough for everyone, even though there aren't. When will we stop pretending.
I stopped pretending a while back and accepted that I cannot function in the dominator culture. . . well, I cannot function in the economy. I am a redundant human being. It was very hard to accept this but I have. Then it was hard to believe I had any value because in the dominator culture, we only value humans for the money they earn, for the slave labor they 'contribute' to the dominator culture. We value wildflowers more than we value humans who have not been able to find jobs after getting tons of expensive eduational training. What is wrong with that image? I value myself. I am like a beautiful wildflower. Being me is something. The goddess doesn't make junk and she made me. I am very poor, living on ssi. I am here, doing my wildflower work. I contribute every day. Being a wildflower is work the world needs. I don't think the world needs as many arms manufacturers or automobiles but there will never be too many wildflowers.
The sad, unfortunate truth is that we humans have created a bad economic system that is rooted in greed, in a belief that there is not enough for all so everyone has to scramble for their piece.
I am not sure if Ms. Ehrenreich's piece here says much. She is kinda babbling about the unemployed but not, um, saying much. I have never understood how she became a writer and now is seen as some kind of authority.
I recommend people read Riane Eisler's latest book: The Real Wealth of Nations.
Her first book, The Chalice and the Blade, has been considered, by many, many sources, as one of the most important books ever written. I recommend Chalice to all. It lays out her scholarship that traces the beginnings of how we got the capitalist dominator culture choking us all.
In 'The Real Wealth of Nations', Eisler lays out an economy rooted in caring for one another. Such a world economy is possible. We all have a hard time 'seeing' work and money differently because the reality you know is, um, the reality you know.
Read Eisler's book. Feel hopeful.
Important insight. As the quality of the unemployed rises they should be able to organize themselves rather quickly.
Back in the 60s when the economy was better and we didn't sweat getting a job, we worked, got layed off and collected unemployment and organized. This isn't the same kind of economy but that doesn't matter because of the severity of the crisis they will extend the benefits; they can't afford not to. This economy is going to go down, and unemployment grow for at least another 6mos to a year. They will provide benefits especially if we organize to demand them; investigate Europe; what are they getting there.
In addition
Those who have the self-confidence and guts should stop looking except to qualify for the benefits and start organizing. This is a window that is only open so long. When it closes you will be very p****ed at yourself for letting this opportunity go by. We can restructure things if enough get involved.
Think of it as an adventure of making history instead of it making you. If you can handle it do it. Of course if you can't you will seek the safe way.
But there has to be alot of folks who could take the challenge.
You could get together with laid-off friends and co-workers to discuss how you would design an economy that made use of people's precious skills instead of periodically tossing them out like so much trash.
_______________________
I've been doing exactly this with my free time. I've been unemployed going on 3.5 years now. With a friend, we started our own education program, and now we're working a group that promotes and educates about socialist democracies and why Americans would benefit from one. I also volunteer with groups struggling for national healthcare. And I dumpster dive.
I don't get paid for any of this, but it's the most fulfilling "work" I have ever had. I don't even want to step into paid employment now. Of course, if someone offered to pay me for what I'm already doing, I wouldn't say no. ;)
herbalist: thank you for doing your work. I am sincerely grateful.
It sounds like you have your subsistence needs met. . . I sure hope so. I think more and more people will end up not working for money, still get by and find meaningful work outside the dominator economy. We are all kinda trapped in the belief that we live in a material reality but every once in awhile, some humans find their way out of this trap and learn that somehow, need gets met.
Please, if someone wants to respond and say 'what about the chronically homeless' or just ordinary homeless people. . . I say this: none of us reading this dialogue has any way of knowing what the life path is of a homeless person on the street. We don't really know if they are in their right place or not. Any ideas we have that such a person 'needs' shelter or whatever are thought constructs, not reality.
All the workers who lost their jobs in Detroit should look into converting GMs and Chevys into hybrid, bio-diesel or solar powered vehicles...
It is supply and demand.
The supply of jobs goes down but the supply of the worker's time does not.
The result is unemployment and a strong pressure to reduce the wages of workers because of all the surplus labour available.
If this were a properly functioning democracy, then the main job of the Department of Labour would be to balance the supply of the worker's time to the supply of jobs.
This can be done by reducing the length of workweek so that supply of labour and demand for labour are balanced. This will remove the pressure to reduce the wages of workers. Everyone will work less. Most everyone will have a job.
It may be necessary at times for the Department of Labour to reduce the supply of labour sufficiently to create a scarcity of labour. This would be done to create a pressure to raise wages. We would want the wages raised so that existing loans and mortgages could be paid by people working the shorter workweeks.
By balancing the supply of labour and the demand for labour we can share the benefits of automation and thus have time to spend with our families and communities. With a labour and jobs in balance we would not have the army of unemployed out there to be recruited by the underworld economy.
Reducing the length of workweek was used to some extent and with some success for the above purposes during the Great Depression.
The above is discussed at timesizing.com
Timesizing.com is not the easiest site to read, but it would be good to see some reasoned discussion and criticism here and elsewhere on the subject of balancing labour supply and jobs.
BTW. Creating jobs by producing and selling even more and more products results in an unneeded waste of both material and labour resources, plus in producing more unneeded products unneccessary pollution is added to the environment. We could instead design and produce products to last much longer before being thrown into the trash heaps, but we do not do so currently because it is more profitable for our elites to sell us a lot of crap instead, over and over again.
'supply and demand' is a made up concept. We do not have to live under a system of supply and demand. We could live in a system of caring for one another. We just don't. We could but we just don't choose to. We all, collectively, allow capitalism to dominate how human life is shaped.
I hope we see lots of worker unrest, massive demonstrations, people demanding real change at last.
I invite people to use new language. Do not allow the language of capitalism to shape your reality. Make up your own language and use your own concepts to shape your lives.
This is what I am doing. Ever since I accepted that there is no place for me in the dominator culture, I have been a little happier each day. Now I see myself as a very rare, beautiful wildflower. My job is to tend this wildflower, to nurture her, to open as much light in her as possible. To be love. I am very happy to be a wildflower, just being beautiful, delicate, magical and mystical. I am aligned with the stars.
"Supply and Demand" is not a political concept but is a mathematical description of how we behave when we have surplus and scarcity and I see little reason to dismiss the mathematical tools just because the capitalists are making use of them. They are useful tools for us too. Interestingly, later in the comments you talk of the lack of jobs for lawyers, how there are too many of them for the jobs out there -- in other words you are discussing supply and demand.
The point that I am getting at is that the workers need to manage the supply of their labour so that there is adequate demand for it and thus adequate compensation. One way to do this is to reduce the length of the work week so that more workers are needed to do the work. Once there is close to some balance between the number of workers and the work, the large pool of almost desperate unemployed workers will be gone and the employers will face having to pay fair wages to get work done.
Over the past two generations considerable advances in productivity and in energy efficiency have been made and it is not needed that we work 40 plus hours a week to survive at a standard that was reasonable two generations ago, except that we work the extra hours to the advantage of those with capital. By managing the supply of our labour by reducing the lengeth of the workweek us workers could instead spend the extra time raising our children and spend time in the community.
"Over the past two generations considerable advances in productivity and in energy efficiency have been made and it is not needed that we work 40 plus hours a week to survive at a standard that was reasonable two generations ago, except that we work the extra hours to the advantage of those with capital. By managing the supply of our labour by reducing the lengeth of the workweek us workers could instead spend the extra time raising our children and spend time in the community."
This fits with what I was thinking about when a poster in another thread lamented that he was broke in Europe but far richer than he is here in America. What is more valuable? Having more money to spend on what you wish, or having the benefits of civilized live provided for you, to be free of fear and want of a relatively good life? What is more valuable, being able to buy a 70 inch plasma screen to watch football on, or being able to spend lots of time with your family, raising your children, without being fired from work because of it? We need to start shifting away from this self-defeating American notion that the acquisition of money is the ultimate goal; real wealth and richness of life is not measurable in monetary terms.
Creating jobs by maintaining our current infrastructure would also be a good thing. And it's badly needed.
Yes it would be good to create jobs by maintaining our current infrastructure, especially if we upgrade it to meet current needs and anticipated needs. If done with proper care and deliberation then upgrading our infrastructure becomes an investment that will be useful for years and years for our children.
I remember times before the cynicism when people used to care about building a better world.
Build a better world, yes; build a bigger world, not necessarily.
Yeah B.E., I'll just give up looking for employment should I get laid off, concede to being a possible slave housewife, and be forever miserable, NOT ! I'm sorry but while your articles can generally be reasonable, this article is nothing but pure TRASH ! What about localizing jobs and decentralizing business ?!?!? I wouldn't be driving 45 miles to work every day and sitting through all this bloody traffic if I had a good paying job closer to me ! And I'll bet that I'm definitely not alone as I have to sit through the bloody traffic every damn day ! Thanks to policies which allow for depopulating the rurals and shoving most everyone into big cities, it's all a mess !
Not sure if you are equating being a housewife to being a slave. Though it's surely not for every woman, there seems to be a stigma attached to it these days. Thus, many women feel compelled to go out to work when deep down they'd rather be home raising their kids (given they have an option). If so, women have merely substituted one form of 'enslavement' for another when they should feel guiltless either way.
I'm sorry but I almost conceded to being one thrice and my last date even tried to assault me for refusing to give up my job and be his "sexy" slave wife should he and I get married but I didn't concede. I'd rather meet a man to compromise with, not concede to. Sorry to sound angry but some of life's bitter experiences leave me no choice.
I hope you kicked his ass. And uh, he wanted you to be his slave wife after one date?
He was just a wacko who thought he could have a placeholder for a wife. I just wasn't his fit. Like I said earlier, his family took care of him and punished him. It took a while to recover from the trauma and I'm still at it. Some people in this world are crazy as can be but I'm happy to keep the adventure on until something works out.
Studies and documentaries of indigenous people show that in healthy environments, they spent but a small fraction of their time gathering and planting. The rest they spent in family and communal arts and crafts such as building canoes, tools, clothing, shelters and in enjoying a full and happy social life.
Instead, modern consumerist humans spend our lives in wage slavery, leading neurotic, guilt-ridden, anti-social lives of full time competition, eating the MSM propaganda that if we work hard and play by the rules we could someday become one of the leisure class elites.
Ms. Ehrenreich is a complete hypocrite. If you read some of her postings she always laments the plight of undocumented workers et al. Well, how can you contiunously add foreign workers of all stripes to a labor market that continually shrinks and then say you care about the American worker?
Her last paragraph sounds like something someone with too much prozac would say. People are freer to express anger?! If that expression meets with the disapproval of the ruling elite the unemployed worker will find themselves tasered and thrown in jail.
retraining for what? a new planet!
the only way we'll see an economic recovery is to move to another, fresh planet...
Some of us figured this out decades ago - when the government was taken over by the fascist element - and you know where that led in Nazi Germany. Maybe you can get a job pulling gold fillings out of bodies - oh, but wait - they don't actually PAY you to do that - they just give you a few crumbs to sustain enough people to pry the last bit of asset-value out of the dying victims. It got nasty in the Nazi camps - believe me, I heard plenty of horror stories when I was a kid. But that's where corporatism (fascism) inevitably leads - the fascists are just smarter about how they're doing it now. They learned from Nazi Germany's mistakes (kinda like Cheney learned from Iran-Contra) on what NOT to do - boil the frog slowly, and he won't even notice...
I know qualified people (in multiple fields) that have been out of work for over 5 years now - and it isn't getting better anytime soon. The job-hunt hoax is a diversionery tactic - and it works.
Catch the NewsHour last night? One story was the use of prison inmates to fight the Santa Barbara fires. These women who were imprisoned for minor offenses get paid $1.00 an hour. This in the start of a depression where we need JOBS not tax cuts, and the gov't of California is resorting to slave labor.
Sioux Rose
ARMY BRAT: With an intellect as honed as yours, could you make any extra income tutoring a high school student in your area? In this "information age" knowledge can mean power; can that power extended better your life?
I was a single Mom essentially with a baby on each arm and I did a variety of things to keep the rent paid and food on the table. Of course that was about 20 years ago, and the economy was not as crippled as it is now, and rents were also lower. Many people have skills they can utilize to bring in at least some income, and often they fear doing so.
One thing THIS economy will favor are persons who can fix things--from altering clothing to working on old car engines. When people cannot buy new, they need to keep things they already own in decent working condition.
I'm now a partial quadraplegic, so my options are limited. I used to tutor college kids, back when I was in school myself - but I'm not politically correct, and I disabuse people of their fantasies, which doesn't go over very well with parents. (The kids love it, of course.)
The sad reality is that I can 'fix' just about anything - and yes, I did have an excellent European education besides. What's stopping me - besides the imploding economy - is incarceration. I went broke following my accident (it only took 4 years) - wish I'd died in the accident. I had a wonderful life, privileged beyond most people's wildest dreams - and never took it for granted. But I didn't die - and now I suffer an even worse fate - living death. It's so frustrating to languish here, waiting to die. It's a terrible waste too, of the fine education I received not being passed on to others. (My parents were both excellent educators, spoke many languages - we're a family of polyglots - and I continued in their path.) My background is in computers, banking & finance, and real estate, which I no longer own. Not much call in any of those fields these days. Otherwise us kids worked in the family construction business - nothing there either, anymore. It's just been one dead end after another - barring physical activity, which I can't do.
Right now, 'the rent' is taking up almost all of my income - between that and medical expenses, I don't have enough to eat, let alone do anything else. But I can remember when I had it all - so I can't complain. Most people never have much. I do worry about what I will do when clothes wear out, for example, though. And I can't imagine being homeless in my physical state. Can't evem emigrate - nobody wants a crip - and the US is the worst OECD country in which to be a crip. I just went through a year of starving to pay for a new service dog, after the last one died - he served me for 15 years. They are extremely expensive, and waiting lists for donated dogs are years long - and I couldn't wait.
I pay attention to your travel comments. I always wanted to go to South America and Cuba - didn't live long enough, though. The rest of my childhood dreams, I did attain. That's quite an accomplishment - but I'm not one to rest on my laurels. I can't live in the past - and I don't have a future. Hell of a deal, huh? But I did live through the best years the US has ever seen - or ever will. That's what's so depressing. It didn't have to be this way.
Sioux Rose
ARMY BRAT: I would be happy to send you some clothing, or a check (gift) to cover some necessary items. I wonder if you placed an ad in the newspaper that explained your physical limitations, if you could not still secure a tutoring gig?
Your fate is a tough one. Years ago when I lived in the Florida Keys I met a woman at a social function who I took to be rather jaded. About ten years later someone asked me to call an individual (I have a poor memory for names, but I ALWAYS remember persons' signs) that turned out to be this lady. She was traveling on a joyride (in a covertible) on the infamous "7 Mile Bridge" when a truck in front of her suddenly had its contents come down the incline right into her vehicle. She's a Gemini with a typically ready wit and joked it off that prior to that accident she had quite a life, and now she was blind, broke and the guy she had been with abandoned her. I could see this event in her astrological chart, and that was the purpose of us meeting. How much solace this information can provide in the face of such an enormous handicap is questionable. She managed to get a license as a massage therapist and was very good.
This may not be what you wish to hear, but I am convinced EVERYONE comes into this world with karma. It's clear to me that mine centers on relationships. I have friends who have job/money karma, and other with health karma, and there are other categories. When Buddhists were interviewed on 60 Minutes some years back, their abundant handicaps from land mines and/or Agent Orange on prominent display, they had NO anger towards the Americans who perpetrated these injurious outcomes. They believed, as Buddhists, that they were meeting their karma.
You have a warrior spirit and it would not surprise me if in one incarnation you had been directly responsible (as a soldier) for taking away another's capacity to walk or move freely. On the SOUL level (this would be understood BEFORE you took on the present life body/incarnation) you recognized in this lifetime, the opportunity to pay that debt. Often we must walk in the shoes of the person we trespassed against to gain full compassion, the sort that wipes the slate clean. I hope I have not hurt your feelings or angered you to express this view.
Years ago my father's best friend was mugged. He had awful things to say about the Latin man that mugged him, unbelievably racist. I asked politely, "Do you think it's possible that your hatred for that race had anything to do with your attracting that attack?" My father jumped on me, accused me of blaming the victim but I insisted that according to metaphysical law, nothing can really befall us that we have not in some place and time (particularly if our consciousness has not been modified) drew towards us.
For what it's worth, I AM GLAD THAT YOU ARE ALIVE. You add to this forum. Perhaps you're the one who will provide the specific pearl of wisdom to someone, maybe someone who is invisible, who never posts, that is indispensable to their life plan. My best friend Vincent who is 83 and was my HS guidance counselor and remained my mentor tells me he is tired of this world, he wants to leave it. I believe when the soul is completely ready and has met all its tasks, it can envision itself LIFTING out of the body, can truly release the outer shell because its essence is part of all that is, and thus Eternal.
My email is: Astrologo77@yahoo.com and if you write to me, I will ask for your physical address and send you a care package. Goddess bless you. Your story made me cry.
SR: I'll drop you a line, but I'm very independent and with the help of my service dog, pretty self-sufficient. I wasn't asking for donations - just relating the realities. I usually manage to make a living, but ran into an obstacle recently - I'll tell you all about it in an e-mail, if you really want to know. I just can't figure out what kind of a career would be best for me now, and where I could do the most good. I used to have a website, and will be putting one up again in the future. We'll see how it goes. You have to understand that I don't intend to pay any taxes that might go into the war machinery - I couldn't have that on my conscience.
Thanks for the reply - but my family belief-system has a different analysis for why these things happen, and a perspective on alternate realities/lives as well. We all travel our own roads - I understand yours, but my path follows a different trail.
Sioux Rose
ARMY: By all means drop me a line. Sometimes a gift is just a gift, it hardly diminishes the recipient. I was almost magical at "manifesting" when I was a young mother with a baby on each arm. Once I found a large gold charm and soon after received a call from a Cuban psychic who lived in Wisconsin (we'd met several times) asking me "what I had found." When I told her, she said she wanted it and offered me the amount of $ I needed for that month's rent. Another time I found a lotto ticket and while it only paid $37, that was a nice find for me at the time. A friend of mine was depressed and kicked a puddle and there was a $10 bill, and another friend went to Daytona with maybe $10 as he'd always wanted to be part of the races there, and he found what must have been someone's lost wad of over $200 and had quite a party while there. I have also found a gold cross pen, a malachite necklace on the street in NYC, and other things. I've seen small freelance jobs arrive in the nick of time, and I think holding an "attitude of gratitude" does help to attract these things. Keep an open mind, my friend. Although the elites do what they can to steal from the people, this IS an abundant nation and universe!
"The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle raised the obvious question: "Retraining for what?" At the beginning of the decade, computer skills were all the rage; then the low-level computer work vanished to India. Air-conditioner repairing is popular right now, and big-rig truck driving is a perennial favorite. There are no guarantees, of course, of eventual jobs. In a recent report for the organization Food AND Medicine on laid-off manufacturing workers in Maine, Steve Husson, who himself was laid off as a DHL driver, found paper-mill workers stuck with intermittent seasonal work and low-paid service-sector jobs despite stints of retraining."
The retraining frenzy has proven to be a hoax. Granted, it has been a boon to the college 'industry,' but corporations are still saying they have to import workers and export jobs because American workers are not qualified!! Eventually, if it hasn't happened already, many folks will start to realize that going back to school (with the exception of a few fields CURRENTLY in high demand) is futile; more than futile because of the debt of student loans. Nursing and the medical field is hot now, but how long will that last once there is less money to pay the exorbitant fees for medical services when more people lose their coverage? To keep practicing medicine (and dentistry) practitioners will be forced to reduce their charges or cater to the rich. So if you go back to school or send your children, try to do it as much as possible on government grants, and not borrow if it can be at all avoided. That may mean your son or daughter live and home and attend classes locally.
Sioux Rose
CHESSGAME: I wish you could talk some sense into one of my daughters! She's half Latin with a temperament to match, and dropped out of college (it was all totally paid for!) about 8 years ago. In any case, she now has two pre-school children and suddenly wants to go back! Her marriage is unstable and I told her if she moves up my way I can keep her in a little place of her own, watch the children 3 days a week, and allow her to commute to Gainesville and take classes. She is so far digging her heels in, obsessed with getting a loan, and against my wishes intending to put two precious babies in some form of daycare to suddenly enact this ill-fated plan. And of course she wants money from me. Several of my friends have children in the 28-32 age range and see this same exact sense of entitlement. I can't say if it's because my children grew up in the Reagan era and think life is supposed to match what they saw on commercial television, or if it's more personal. Edgar Cayce was right that "family life is the hotbed of karma." I am hoping she comes to her senses soon! If there were not two beautiful grandchildren involved, I'd have no problem letting her learn the hard way: through difficult experience.
One nice thing about being a conservative - you give orders and your kids obey. They are scared to death of the bad karma that will befall them if they go against your advice - happens all the time. And we really like to rub it in with 'I told you so - you made your bed, now lie in it' - nasty, aren't we?
Liberals/Lefties are to undisciplined - at least their kids are - to make much of a dent when it comes to giving advice. Actually, the lack of discipline is probably their (L/L) worst feature - it enables all this cat-fighting to go on while the opposition walks away with the prize. That's why they keep losing - and whenever I bring up tactics that actually WORK - they harangue me for being 'authoritarian' - well, damned if I do and damned if I don't. Then they blame me for voting my conscience - as in 'Third Party' because I want no part of the bad karma coming their way for their compromises. Moral rigidity is not all bad - as long as one keeps a compassionate heart.
Yeah, and look what conservative kids afraid of bad karma grow up to be: Cheney and Bush.
Those are FASCISTS !!!
True, but fascism is on the right end of the ideological spectrum, further to the right than conservatism...but still much closer to conservatism than liberalism.
Sioux Rose
ARMY: My father was a Conservative Jew and very punitive. When I followed my libido into a marriage with a striking Omar Shariff type Latino and soon realized he was a typical lady's man, my parents basically said what yours would: "You made your bed, now lie in it." It was quite a hard long road supporting two children (he only paid child support when he felt like it) as a freelance writer. I did not want my daughter to go through what I went through. In other words, there is also EMPATHY and compassion. Her spouse wants to work things out, but she is a prima donna. Because I do believe in karma I put luxuries last after rent was paid and food on the table, and managed to keep a credit rating over 700 on a VERY fluctuating often minimal freelance salary. She is unlike me and more like her father. Some is genetics, some is cultural, some is astrological, and Goddess knows what else. Edgar Cayce, who did thousands of trance-readings and was incisive when it came to diagnosing the causes behind diseases the medical field had no cure for, stated that "family life is the hotbed of karma." I find that to be very true. We are forced to work out the toughest issues with persons we live with. You're right about damned if I do or don't. When my parents recently both passed over I received some stocks and cashed some out to give each daughter some money up front. That decision I am glad for seeing how the stocks have lost MUCH in the past 6 months. In any case, it's one thing to deal with an adult child, and quite another when there are little grandchildren riding the roller coaster.
Moral rigidity in concert with a compassionate heart is quite the hybrid. I suspect you have a Moon in Capricorn. (If you supply birth date I'll look it up and if that's not correct, I will admit it. However the caveat is that Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, can be influencing--that means in a key geometric aspect--to the moon, which would give off a similar Moon/Capricorn cast.)
I know what you mean, Rose. Daycare in my view is not the best option if other options are available. My brother's children were constantly sick, and one had his mouth taped at daycare center. In my case, I wouldn't want my parents raising my children: my father abused all of us growing up. If you and your daughter have a good relationship, though, it's difficult to see why she wouldn't want your help, unless it's pride. But you know what they say about that.
Sioux Rose
CHESSGAME: Yes, there is pride there and a lack of ability to think things through. My other daughter is VERY responsible, and put herself through college (I helped where I could). She graduated in 3 years and bought a condo in South Florida. Her reward? It's worth less than HALF what she paid for it. Makes me sick to think of this... the real estate bubble is like a gigantic drift net that has caught so many innocents in its deliberately undermining weave. Of course, that's yet another story. No one can say living on this earth plane is not without a series of major dramas, personal and political! This is why I have to bike at night, and it's about THAT time.
See what I meant by "a sweetheart of a person" You are good people.
I'd like to but in here to offer the experience of three couples I know well in similar circumstances. They all provideedc mone y in the e nd and did no insist on the kids coming home or at least being close enough to monitor. They all wish they had insisted now. (Grandkids involved in only one of these families)
I'd say you want my money, come home, otherwise good luck. Extra expense is what killed the three. Its always more than they think.
And if she has the Latina temprement of our God Daughter......heaven help you! She thinks the name Hernandez means I'm the boss!
Retraining for what indeed? But I must say that advise that tells you to sit around dreaming up a better world ignores the need to support yourself and your family.
Restablishing our industrial manufacturing base is the only answer. Thats where the real multiplier of jobs comes from. Fuzzy thinking is much the same as fuzzy math.
"But I must say that advise that tells you to sit around dreaming up a better world ignores the need to support yourself and your family." So very true. Yes,like try dreaming of a better world on peanut butter sandwiches as a diet sometime. Barbara is a typical left coast Berkeley style intellectual. She ran a Pres. campaign ( into the ground) I think it was Dukakis is 1987? I distinctly remember her screeching on TV and telling my wife that every time she gets on she sends George BV$H the elder a few hundred thousand more voters. She means well but gets rich writing about and pestering the rest of us losers. She's to be blunt, a poverty pimp. Can't a man just wallow in his loserhood for a few moments without some preacher or poverty pimp lecturing him on how bad it is to hang out? ;(
Sioux Rose
SEAGLASS: Funny! I am about to begin a new script entitled LAID OFF and its premise is what a blue collar construction worker must do to create income facing the new global economy. In addition, in his case, if he does not produce, the Family Court System is prepared to send him to jail for missing child support payments. It's based on the guy I date, and he's so far pretty OK with the fact that MY remedy is that this character has to reinvent himself as a gay interior decorator in order to secure gigs with a group that often has extra luxury income. I told his father about this story line and also said it's based on some facts, but I will not delineate the facts from fiction. (Will the father wonder then about this gay thing? Nothing like fiction from which to work off angst!)
Yes, he may be thinking that those laid off white collar workers have built up savings they could draw on while organizing. There is almost nobody in this country who has savings anymore. But the reality of today also means the spouse is likely to have a job of his/her own and can provide and income. So the question is, do you try to re-establish your normal income level, or cut expenses to match the new reality? If your home can survive on a single income, then that would leave plenty of time to advocate for anything :-)
"So the question is, do you try to re-establish your normal income level, or cut expenses to match the new reality? If your home can survive on a single income, then that would leave plenty of time to advocate for anything :-)"
My answer would be all of the above! Having been unexpectedly unemployed more than once in early life you do whatever you can as fast as you can. Unfortunately you guys don't have the economy I had to work with, not even in the Recession of the Eighties.
By the way did you notice Our President has announced that SS reciepients will not be recieving COLA for the next two years??? There goes another one.
What's that?
COLA= Cost Of Living Adjustment
Another campaign promise. Not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year.
No, what's COLA?
Cost Of Living Adjustment. It is supposed to help fixed incomes keep up with inflation and rising costs on Social Security payments in this instance.
By denying this COLA its the same as raising taxes on every person receiving Social Security. Not only don't they get the means to keep up, but they must also divert the same amount stolen from them to remain level. A double whammy. And the money paid in FICA taxes supposed to go for this purpose is diverted elsewhere. A triple whammy.
I don't remember Obama ever mentioning any of his promises on COLA. Besides, wasn't he also open to privatizing Social Security?
He didn't mention COLS'a, but this removal is the same as a tax increase on folks he promised he wouldn't do. Call it a fee, a reduction, a charge, whatever, if the end result is the same as a tax its a tax.
Obama is not open to privatising SS. He looks as if he wants to concentrate all power in Washington and extend governments reach into lives as far as possible.
I have heard economists say that we're experiencing slight deflation right now. I wonder if COLA would result in reduced payments if deflation, instead of inflation, occurred? I don't know anything about that law.
You are lucky none of the SS recipiants here read this suggestion, otherwise they be screaming to have you hung up by your geni.....!
I won't tell them you mentioned that possibility!
Haha, I'll take that to mean no, it doesn't pay out less if there's deflation.
Right!!!
Obama's financial industry bailouts over the past seven months are causing high inflation. The purpose of COLAs are to buffer the effects of inflation.
Obama's declaration not to allow SS COLAS on the same day he signs more inflationary financial industry bailouts guaranteed by US taxpayers is at least as hypocritical as anything Dubya ever did.
Oh, cost of living adjustment, duh. Yeah, that's bad...I'm sure it pleased Limbaugh greatly. And SS is definitely a problem that can wait till later.
One other thing: be careful to use the most effective contraception. Prospects for the coming generations are not bright.
I know many Americans who, like the author, cast a positive light on the lack of "social unrest". They are SO GLAD that things aren't like they were in the sixties!
Unfortunately, it has now become painfully apparent that corporate control of government will not be diluted without "social unrest", irrespective of which party occupies the white house and controls congress.
A poster on another thread recommended
http://ni4d.us/
that would give people a chance to affect legislation.
Lovely advice. Just lovely. Were you paid to write this, Ms Ehrenreich?
The employed always have such advice. Ever notice how even when trying to tell us it's ok to be unemployed they're still saying...Get up u lazy good for nothing and organize if you can't work or find work.
If she did get paid, I am sure it was a pittance. This is a petty comment which distracts from the substance of the discussion. There is nothing wrong with a writer getting paid. Just because millions are unemployed does not mean everyone should be unpaid. I can't stand Ehrenreich's work but, hey, just because there is not enough paid work for everyone does not mean I begrudge some from getting paid.
This article would have had some value if it compared today's unemployed with the unemployed in 1933.
While I am a great fan of FDR's New Deal, I am fully aware that little of it would have materialized without grassroots action, primarily action by the unemployed. Hordes of unemployed, including many military veterans (the bonus army) hitchiked, hopped freight trains, or walked to DC and camped out in the mall where it was hard for Federal elected officials to ignore them.
Although we now have beggars on nearly every corner in most major cities, they are too dispersed to catch the eye of Federal elected officials. Do you think the lack of FDIC insurance, food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc. in 1933 made unemployment far more difficult than it is today ???
Unfortunately, until hordes of people are camped out so thick in DC that elected officials are tripping over them on a daily basis, Congress and the Obama administration will continue to pursue their pro-corporate, anti-taxpayer agenda.