Six Step Guide To Moving Back In With Your Parents
by Matt Dunbar
Bankruptcies and bailouts. Widespread unemployment. A once booming and diverse economy now exclusively based on the production of Shakeweights and whoopee cushion Smartphone apps.
The so-called “Great Recession” has created a new normal in many aspects of day-to-day American life, ranging from unexpected “leisure time” and delinquent mortgage payments to convincing VISA, MasterCard and Manuel’s Easy Credit Anybody Qualifies Loan Shop/Korean Barbecue that you’re legally deceased. But perhaps most alarming of all these changes is the completely unnatural, perverse and depressing phenomenon that many in our generation (read: humanities majors) are currently experiencing – moving back in with our parents.
I’m stricken with a curious sense of obligation to share the lessons I learned from spending half a year residing with my folks at the not-so tender age of 24. I do this primarily with selfless motivation, since many of you may soon be forced to endure a hell similar to the one I’ve only recently escaped from. After reading this, I hope you might be able to avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made, or at least have fair warning of what’s in store. In the words of my father, “Do as I say, not as I do – but definitely don’t do anything that costs retail.”
[Noir in Laziest Days]
A Six Step Guide To Moving Back In With Your Parents
Lesson 1: Wear pants
I list this lesson first because of its importance and because of how relatively easy it is to implement. Our generation’s parents are baby boomers, and despite their increasingly bizarre flirtations with our own hip, progressive trends (iPhones, organic food, Wii, etc.), they nevertheless are instilled with the same “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality that beset their parents during the Great Depression. Thus, despite their better instincts, they are often offended by overt signs of “laziness” – such as, say, a 24-year-old asleep on their leather sofa, surrounded by a half-dozen Powerbar wrappers and a chocolate-stained L.A. Times sports section, wearing nothing but Pink Floyd boxer-briefs.
DO NOT FIGHT THEM ON THE NEED FOR PANTS. At first, I made the mistake of insisting the lack of clothing was a generational and cultural difference, that the people who work at Google never wear pants and they seem to get shit done, that the important thing is that you’re wearing underwear, which for most of college was optional. Just put on a pair of jeans at some point before mid-afternoon (save the khakis or tube skirts for when you ask for money), and you’ll save yourself a good deal of grief.
Lesson 2: Say the phrase “Well, in this economy” at least 40 times a day.
It’s best to incorporate the phrase into a fully-articulated sentiment, such as “Well, in this economy, I’d be lucky to just get an interview in the next six months, let alone a job.” However, this is not completely necessary. I’ve found that by simply saying “Well, in this economy….” aloud as many times as possible and trailing off, parents will typically ease off on questions about cover letters, resumes and other time-consuming activities that distract from Dr. Who marathons and fantasy baseball. For added affect, be sure to leave out relevant reading material about how the global economy is collapsing in on itself and how we’ll all be carrying our currency in wheelbarrows sometime next year. I kept this cover of the New Yorker from October of last year in my parents’ living room for months, often retrieving it from our recycling bin weekly.
Lesson 3: Make yourself the household IT specialist
When it comes to technology, most parents suffer from a severe autoimmune condition known colloquially as “I swear this is not how it worked before” syndrome. Induced primarily by small, unanticipated and essentially meaningless changes to software or hardware, symptoms include rapid mood swings, uncontrollable sweating (if hardware is involved) and irritable bowels. Do not be reluctant to exploit this to your advantage.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that your mom’s phone somehow mysteriously changed from a 16th century text messaging format where you have to input each letter individually to T9. After accidentally text messaging your sister that she should “remember to fork her mousework,” your mother will inevitable turn to you to fix whatever has gone horribly wrong with her phone. It is important to pretend that the problem is more severe than it is before resolving it, both to make your parents feel less technologically inept and to implicitly enhance your own IT specialist value. I recommend saying, “This could be a virus…” before miraculously touching the minimize icon.
Lesson 4: Incorporate your parents into your drinking regiment
This is a tricky lesson, and I only advise attempting it if you’ve been living at home for at least three months and have established relative detente on other fronts. Once again, understanding a generational rift is essential to successfully executing this lesson. For most of us, college was an all-out shitshow of Popov, projectile vomiting and emergency contraception that we are still in the process of recovering from and likely never will. For our parents, college was about “experimentation.” They took a hit every now and then to see if their Steely Dan record would say anything cool when played backwards, but binge drinking was rarely the de facto recreational activity it is for us.
Thus it’s of little surprise that when downing a Mickey’s with dinner, one would encounter looks of bewilderment and confusion from parents. However, if properly discerned, those looks will also betray a certain reluctant curiosity. Upon reflection, the explanation is surprisingly obvious: Your parents are old, they are just as unhappy that you’ve moved back in with them as you are, and, thanks to the likely state of their own job and/or marriage, they are in way more desperate need of escapism than you are. If they haven’t tried abusing alcohol yet, you can be that gateway.
Lesson 5: Pretend to not enjoy doing “nothing” half as much as you really do enjoy doing nothing
The syntax may be confusing, but the lesson is simple. I put quotation marks around “nothing” to signify that one person’s definition may differ from another’s. For example, one person may consider watching all of NBC’s offerings on Hulu a highly productive endeavor, while others may call it “really pathetic, Matt.” Sadly in this case, your own definition of “nothing” is irrelevant.
There are several tactics you can adopt to achieve the pretense that you somehow prefer waking up at 6 AM, commuting, and staring at your Outlook inbox for 9 hours to not doing any of that. The easiest is to simply manipulate your facial expressions whenever your parents are around to reflect a deep, brooding discontent. I like to call this, “unemployment constipation face.” Copy this archetype.
When your parents ask what’s wrong, simply tell them “Ahhh, nothing. Its just I thought I would be out of the house by now.” They will naturally sympathize, and will secretly be relieved that you’re not enjoying yourself and that your stay will indeed be temporary, thereby allowing your stay to indeed be prolonged.
Other options include emailing them Craigslist job posts that you are highly overqualified for, with a subject line “Think they’ll take a college grad for this?” Or spending 3/4 of your day at a coffee shop “job hunting” – I recommend Panera, they have free wi-fi and won’t directly confront you about not buying anything and raiding free samples for at least a month.
Lesson 6: Avoid timetables, timelines, and time travel
I would say avoid the concept of time entirely, but this is an incredibly difficult feat to execute without Rod Serling showing up in your living room and turning your entire family into pig-men. Paradoxically, the best strategy here is to initially propose your own timeline, but make sure it is obtuse and convoluted enough so that you have enough maneuverability later on: “So, if by May I’m not out of here….which really I should be, considering my constipation face…anyway, that will be my trigger month, where you can initiate rental payments on a pro-rated basis and keep those payments in escrow until September, when I’ll file for arbitration. But be careful, they may Rule 5 my ass and I could end up playing for Kansas City.”
Recession or Depression?
Im going with depression. It will certainly be worse than anything I have witnessed in my lifetime. I am currently 77 years old. My neck skin actually touches the ground. Anyway, what we are looking at is a big bad economic turndown. The only way to save our asses is an FDR type stimulus plan. If Obama doesnt pull that off, we will become a country dominated by huge corporations and huge government (And no, we are not there yet).
Last Friday, the Labor Department kicked out some surprising news. Unemployment is up. Way up. Its only surprising because idiots keep thinking were at a bottom. We are far from it. Before this fucker is over, were going to lose 10 million jobs. In September we had 2,269 mass layoffs. Thats a 57% increase from September 2007. This is a runaway train.
Good news for people investing in food pantries, though! People cant afford food!
Indiana
Mayor Greg Ballard is urging schools, churches and businesses to help out the hungry in Indianapolis.
Ballard is pushing a city-wide food drive to restock the dwindling supplies in the city's food banks.
"Our city, like the rest of the nation, is facing the challenges of an economic downturn," Ballard said in a statement. "Our community food banks are beginning to see a drop in food donations at the point when many of our neighbors are most in need."
There are many empty shelves at the food bank. If they can't be restocked through food donations Philabundance has to buy the food. Very often the need is for protein items and some aren't very exotic.
"There are items that we always need, that's tuna fish, peanut butter and jelly, things of that nature," Muccino said.
Meanwhile those on the front lines of feeding the needy say they are seeing many new faces in the crowd.
"It's very noticeable that we have more families, more single parent families with their children, people we never see before. The other category that increases dramatically is senior citizens," Michael Duffy of St. Francis Inn said.
With the holiday season fast approaching, there are more than enough people in Lexington that could use some help.
For Mid-Nebraska Community Services' food pantry that help could not come any sooner.
According to Sarah Anderson, community service coordinator, the economy has a lot to do with a lack of donations to the food pantry.
"Gas went up, so food went up," she said. "Everybody is getting hit up for everything right now. I think it's just hard on everybody.
"If it's hard on everybody we are not getting donations," Anderson said, "but we are also seeing more people come in."
Just Google Food Pantry. Its fun!
Not only are people losing their jobs, but they are staying unemployed longer. Since October 2007, the median duration of unemployment has gone up from 9 to 11 weeks. The more people lose the jobs, the more people are seeking jobs, the longer it takes to get a job.
During recessions, the U.S. doesnt usually do too bad. We are a big ass country, so while one area may be getting hit hard, other areas can pick up a bit of the slack. Thats not what is happening now. We are going down everywhere, so people cant move to an area that is doing better. The U.S. hasnt experienced this kind of fucked up economy since the 1930s.
We are losing jobs in every sector of our economy. By every, I mean construction, leisure and hospitality, agriculture, education and health services, government workers, self employed peeps, financial peeps, information services, transportation and utilities, retail, nondurable goods, durable goods and manufacturing.
So we are hemorrhaging jobs. What to do? How about cutting interest rates to increase borrowing and spending? Nope. The Federal Reserve has already cut that fucker down to the bone. We have an empty chamber there.
How about the traditional borrowing by consumers during a recession? Uh oh. We are in debt up to our assholes. In 2001, we borrowed to get out of that recession, but this time we cant. Housing prices have dropped and credit is tightening. That means no refinancing, no home equity loans. Gonna hit up that 401K? Good luck. 50% of U.S. households dont have one. In 2001, they were averaging $96,000. The 50-75% peeps have a whopping $15,000 on average. They were sitting pretty with $222,000 in 2001. Not looking too good is it? We have no savings. None. Zip. And we cant get loans. Credit cards are the next big bust. Expect companies to begin pulling cards and lowering credit limits.
Just like the mortgage companies gave loans people who couldnt afford them, credit card companies have been floating credit cards to every jack ass with a social security number.
Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis said on Tuesday that the U.S. economy will get worse before it improves, and forecast record losses for the U.S. credit card industry.
"We, as an industry, may end up with possibly the highest credit card losses the industry has ever experienced," Lewis said.
That would be round two of the American economic shit-kicking. When the credit cards go bye bye, things will get really bad.
Bank credit always declines during recessions, so this is no surprise. Its just that this time, it looks worse than many of our past recessions. And add to that our currency situation. The Bush administration has been weakening the dollar since 2001 in order to grow U.S. exports. It worked. And the dollar plummeted to new lows. Now the dollar is strengthening again. But it's still not anywhere near where it needs to be to deal with this recession.
So, we cant use the usual monetary, currency or credit tools to get out of this recession.
We have been heading for this nightmare for years. We started expanding credit in 1980 and have been following an unsustainable path ever since. Now the chickens are coming home to fuck us in the ass. (They are horrible chickens.) We basically went on a credit bender, which led to everything falling apart. First the U.S. credit market froze up, then the international credit market. Thankfully, we have the worst president in the history of our country in charge and he has been failing as best he can. The Fed and the Treasury Department have given lots of money to loosen up the credit market, but the banks are using it for bonuses and vacations. Had the money been given to homeowners and small business owners, it would have gone straight into the economy. Instead, they are sitting on it.
Now Bush and company are saying they wont give any of the bailout money to the auto industry. Super. What we need now is a massive layoff of workers. Thatll give this teetering economy a boost. Oh, and the Chinese are waiting in the wings to buy GM and Chrysler.
Chinese carmakers SAIC and Dongfeng have plans to acquire GM and Chrysler, Chinas 21st Century Business Herald reports today. [A National Enquirer the paper is not. It is one of China's leading business newspapers, with a daily readership over three million.] The paper cites a senior official of Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology the state regulator of Chinas auto industry who dropped the hint that the auto manufacturing giants in China, such as Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and Dongfeng Motor Corporation, have the capability and intention to buy some assets of the two crisis-plagued American automakers."
If the Chinese buy GM and Chrysler, then there is no reason for Toyota, Nissan and BMW to build cars in the U.S.. The only reason they do so is to because of American consumer pressure. They want to appear to be helping the American worker. With no American company to compete with, theyd be south of the border in a heartbeat.
The government will have to bail out the car companies. But where does it stop? As the economy continues to fail and more and more industries begin to fail, how much does the government inject?
Obama needs to take a look at what kind of economy we want at the end of this crisis. Bailouts cannot just go to big companies. A bailout of Tesla Motors, along with the big car companies, will help further our future outlook. Companies like Tesla have a big upside and they the type of company that has made America a economic giant. Bailouts cannot come at the expense of the little guy.
We must change everything. From this point forward, borrowers should pursue lenders, not vise versa. Lenders should only mail credit card solicitations to people who are credit worthy, not anyone with a social security number. Credit card companies should not punish people who pay off their bills, while rewarding those who increase debt. Houses are for living in, not making a quick buck. We start using credit to buy things like cars, not vacations. Oh, and banks shouldnt have to be told by the government to check out a persons credit rating and job situation before giving them a loan. They should actually just want to do it themselves. The government needs to encourage investment and savings, not shopping at all costs.
And we need a long term, New Deal type of plan. Investment in our infrastructure is a must. We are looking at some seriously fucked up times over the next couple of years. Long-term investment is the only way to go. Inaction will be devastating.
Either way, we are going to see some seriously ugly shit over the next couple of years.
FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.
Yes, Canada Had a Debate, Too!
Canada's federal Leaders Debate has never seen a talk like this before. In a debate first, the official Leaders Debates (held October 1 in French and October 2 in English) were changed from a podium setup to a roundtable format. While this decision was partially motivated by space concerns after Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party, was confirmed as a participant, it made for an interesting discussion, actual personal replies, and -- at times -- more academic conversations, rather than country club cat fights.
For my own personal first, I live-blogged the English debate, and am here to offer you summaries of each party leader's performance y'know, because most of you were busy watching Biden and Palin.
Elizabeth May, Green Party - Winner
No one went into the debate with more hype than Elizabeth May, with the first few days of this election campaign centering around the question of her inclusion. In the French debate, May proved herself capably bilingual, and came off as a spunky -- if eccentric -- leader with a passion for her party's platform. In the English debate, May looked more the part of a political leader, and with excellent timing and delivery got in several bombs, including repeated queries directed at Stephen Harper about his as-yet nonexistent platform. She also championed election reform favouring proportional representation. However, her aptitude at speaking unscripted was known before the debate, while Dion's performance was more a surprise. Ultimately, May proved the Green party is here to stay in Canada.
Stephane Dion, Liberal - A Close Second
Surprising viewers, the little beanpole that could proved himself a true party leader and an actual force with an earnest platform in both the French and English debates. English has never been Dion's strong point, but he paced himself well, encountered few difficulties with vocabulary, and got his point across. Support for Dion leaped up several percentage points after the French debate, and it's likely to increase again in the next poll.
Jack Layton, New Democratic Party
Jack Layton's fear of Elizabeth May before the debate was obvious and expected, considering that the Greens' rise has resulted in fewer NDP supporters. Near the beginning of the English debate, however, he agreed with Elizabeth May several times, hinting at a possible future -- many, many years down the road -- with a Green-NDP alliance. Unfortunately, Layton is at best an average speaker, and won no points with his vague answers today.
Stephen Harper
If Canada's controversial incumbent proved anything in these debates, it is his unwavering ability to unite people against him. In both debates, but especially the English, the four other leaders tag-teamed, hitting Harper with snide remarks and attacks one after another. Meanwhile, the Ice King of Canada attempted to restrain himself, teach his facial muscles to smile, and perfect his family-man-who-wears-sweater-vests image. He really didn't succeed, and the fact that he takes credit for government achievements made before his time and fails to produce a party platform keeps him from (everyone's feared) world domination.
Gilles Duceppe - Bloc Quebecois
Well, Gilles Duceppe is nothing if not honest. In today's English debate he was quick to admit that he will never be Canada's Prime Minister, insisting that no one at the table but Stephen Harper would. Duceppe may be right about his political glass ceiling, but his passion for the arts and Quebec, as well as his vast knowledge of political facts and figures, does prove why he still leads the Bloc.
Economic Apocalypse! Lube Up!
The American economy is about to come to a grinding halt. You are totally fucked if you buy food, gas or anything. The U.S. economy is not just slowing down, but crashing, switching from strong positive growth to negative growth. This shit aint going to be pretty.
Obviously, housing prices are plummeting. Homes are sitting unsold and vacant in every neighborhood, as the grass turns brown and the plants die. Pools are turning into birth stations for mosquitoes. Many people are just walking away from their mortgages because their home is worth far less than what they owe. Thankfully, our government is bailing out the companies who made all the shady deals. Its socialism for the rich! Yay!
You want to know how bad the housing market is....
Two for one houses! Oh, my God! We're fucking screwed!
Meanwhile, inflation is here and its a bit of an asshole. Prices on everyday products are going through the roof. Gas and milk are up to over $4 dollars a gallon. Just walking down the aisle at my local grocery story, I see product after product up around 25%. And the containers are smaller. Its less food for more money. Thats how inflation works. But I can lose weight, so its pretty sweet!
The difference between this recession and past recessions is we are at a point where there is nothing left to squeeze. Weve been experiencing inflation for years. No, not the economist bullshit technical term for inflation, but the kind you live through. Rising prices of non-traded goods, like insurance and health care, have been kicking the shit out of most Americans since the early '80s. And dollar-priced traded goods, like energy, for which we dont have a substitute, have also been steadily rising for 10 years. Now we can expect cheap products, like the ones China sells to Wal-Mart, to shoot through the roof as the China yuan appreciates to avert domestic inflation. Suck it, America.
Now people are selling their gold jewelry, heirlooms and coins to get by.
A tough economy across much of the country is pitting memories against much-needed money. Rita Wallace, 50, has collected coins for 30 years, a hobby she inherited from her grandfather. Selling the coins as scrap gold, destined for melting, was never her intention.
Sounds fun. At the same time, there is a credit crunch. It is now harder to get loans and credit cards, because the banks fucked up and gave loans to a bunch of idiots who shouldnt have gotten them. So, household access to credit is declining. People use credit to get through the hard times, but they are maxed out and the hard times arent even here yet. Seriously, they are not even here yet.
Just as Americans grow more reliant on credit cards to help pay monthly bills, theyre being hit with a one-two punch: Card companies are reducing borrowing limits for tens of thousands of consumers, which then can lead to lower credit scores.
Those facing this predicament might not even know it until they apply for a loan or another credit card, and then get denied because their credit score has dropped.
And people are losing their jobs as the economy slows. As it stands right now, the median U.S. household, if deprived of credit and income loss, has enough savings to last 18 days. Thats down from 30 days in 2001. We have been told to buy, buy, buy on credit for years. Now that incredibly moronic philosophy is coming to a quick and brutal end. Thats why people end up selling their gold watches and their children.
Wheres all that gold going? Shouldnt the price drop if people are selling gold? Nope. The rich guys are snapping it up. Hedge funds, mutual funds, ETFs, investment banks and financial advisors, who have clients living the sweet life in the top 5% of net worth, are grabbing that gold. Since 2005, only the top 5% of American income earners have experience any real gain. Its getting a little top heavy up in this bitch, like France 1790 top heavy. Get some scrap wood together and build a guillotine in that garage!
In the '70s, when we were in the same sort of economic situation, people lined up to buy gold and silver. They were converting their savings into gold and silver to protect it. But now, those people in the same income bracket are selling, because they dont have savings, they have debt. So, they are buying dollars instead. At the same time, the Fed is printing money to fight the debt deflation unleashed by the housing bubble collapse, which causes the price of the dollar to drop and drop. Its an epic disaster!
Debt deflation is a fucked up situation to live through. Heres Dr. Steven Keen, an economist for the University of West Sydney who specializes in debt deflation, explaining what goes down.
A debt deflation is where you have an unsustainable level of debt in an economy, so a level that has already caused a crisis and therefore the types of affects were seeing with a credit crunch start to occur. And those are regarded as threefold. First of all people try to reduce their debt. Secondly, banks that were allowing a large rate of creation of new money are no longer willing to allow the creation to occur, certainly not at the same rate. And thirdly the banks are tempted to in turn reduce available funds for re-lending that in particular drops drastically.
So those combinations come together and youre going to have a downturn driven by those factors of reduced credit and tightened credit plus the excessive debt level and the basic elimination of investment due to people trying to pay their debt down rather than trying to invest. If there is distress selling taking place people who are in debt are trying to move their product more rapidly to improve their cash flow and reduce their debts. You can bet they can actually cause a cascade over from falling asset prices into falling consumer prices with the impact of that, and very visibly this is what happened in America in the 1930s, this actually increases the ratio of debt to GDP because two factors of price declines and debt repayment occur simultaneously.
Uh oh. That dude said 1930.
Hey, lookey! The stock market is tanking!
This was the worst first half for the Dow Jones industrials since 1970, when the country fell into recession.
U.S. markets continued their descent, with the Dow Jones industrials on the brink of their worst June in 78 years.
This is a train wreck. There has never been a period in the history of the world when the people carried the amount of debt we are carrying today. The lenders just finished lending out to the bottom of the barrel Americans: The sub-prime borrowers. Now it is biting them in the asshole. (Except, of course, the government is giving them tons of cash to make up for it.) And those borrowers were the end of the line. They were the people who did not deserve and never should have received loans. The problem is, they had to be doled out, because our economy is now a credit economy. We dont make things anymore. We make our money from finance, investment and real estate. Or we did, anyway. That shit is coming to an end.
Gas is the tipping point. The United States was not constructed for high gas prices. As a country, we quite simply cannot function with such high prices. People who drive the greatest distances are those who can least afford the rise in price. The janitor who drives 50 miles to work in his SUV is completely fucked. He cant sell the car, or afford the gas. Public transportation you say? There is not a city in this country that can handle the load of so many people making the switch to public transportation. There arent enough buses or trains. And if Bush bombs Iran, well, you can kiss the America you know goodbye. Think Mexico.
Even if situation does not get worse from here on out, this current mess will not work. When the vast majority of people are suffering and the rich are getting richer, the politics change. We are now there. Just take a look at the approval polls of Republicans. A shift is coming and it will change the way predatorial finance companies do business but it will be ugly getting there.
People are beginning to understand that they are being lied to on a daily basis. You cant tell us the economy is humming along; when we know it is not. And it hasnt been for years. Every president since Reagan has changed the way economic information is collected and reported Clinton was the worst of all. So, when the reality on the ground does not match what people are seeing, they stop believing you. There has always been a disconnect between politicians and the populace, but now that disconnect is just as large between the media and the people. That is where we are now and people are angry. America is a lit fuse.
Americans are fine when they are able to just scrape by. We took the years of working long hours or two jobs to afford that 100-mile a day commute to get to our overpriced house. America listened to the news, and the bogus economic statistics for years. Something didnt seem right, but everyone went along. Now, with the housing disaster, insane gas prices, a plunging dollar and big time inflation, people are at their breaking point. Its going to come very, very, soon.
In a report that underscored the economy's persistent weakness, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its business activity index dropped to minus 17.1 in June from minus 15.6 in May, well below Wall Street's forecasts around minus 10.
Prices paid soared to their highest levels since 1980.
"They are pretty bleak numbers," said David Sloan, economist at 4Cast Ltd. "There is not much to be said in favor of it."
Some analysts are hoping the weaker dollar's boost of exports could help the economy skirt recession, despite a teetering housing market and soft consumer spending. The latest figures indicated otherwise.
The Labor Department said producer prices over the last 12 months were up 7.2 percent in May, the eighth consecutive month prices rose more than 6 percent on a yearly basis.
The last time PPI produced this many straight months of above 6 percent year-over-year readings was the period between 1977 and 1982, a Labor Department official said.
Johnny cant afford $1000 a month in gas. And he cant afford the rise in food prices. And hes got no savings. And he cant afford health insurance. And hes in massive debt. Who is Johnny going to get mad at? For every action there is a reaction. You cant fuck over the poor the way this country has for 28 years without massive blowback. Time for the big boys to start watching their ass.
And thats only the beginning. Periods of financial instability always lead to war. They always have. Wars begin because of debt. Oh, and some big country seems to be taking our oil
.
Snitches Get Riches
Historically, police have had a tough time getting people to cooperate in helping to locate wanted criminals or providing information related to crimes witnessed.
Whether due to apathy, fear of reprisals, or simply because they didn't want to be seen as a 'rat', individuals have looked the other way.
Well, the times they are a-changin' ... but, you may ask, why?
It's the economy, stupid!
To gas prices, foreclosure rates and the cost of rice, add this rising economic indicator: the number of tips to the police from people hoping to collect reward money.
Calls to the Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers hot line in the first quarter of this year were up 30 percent over last year. San Antonio had a 44 percent increase. Cities and towns from Detroit to Omaha to Beaufort County, N.C., all report increases of 25 percent or more in the first quarter, with tipsters telling operators they need the money for rent, light bills or baby formula.
For this year, everyone thats called has pretty much been just looking for money, said Sgt. Lawrence Beller, who answers Crime Stoppers calls at the Sussex County, N.J., sheriffs office. Thats as opposed to the last couple of years, where some people were just sick of the crime and wanting to do something about it.
As a result, many programs report a substantial increase in Crime Stopper-related arrests and recovered property, as callers turn in neighbors, grandchildren or former boyfriends in exchange for a little cash.
It's nice to see President Bush's anti-crime plan kicking into action, isn't it?
Police tip lines are not only busier than ever, but they're receiving repeat business from callers who are simply bursting with information.
On Friday, a woman called the Regional Crime Stoppers line in Macon, Ga., to find out when she could pick up her reward money for a recent tip. She was irritated to learn that she would have to wait until Monday.
Im in a bind, Im really in a bind, she told the hot-line operator. Theres a lot of stuff I know, but I didnt open my mouth. If I werent in a bind, I wouldnt open my mouth.
When she learned the money was not available, she said she would call back with the whereabouts of another suspect whom she had just seen going down the road.
[...]
Some people have made a cottage industry of calling in tips. Although repeat callers do not give their names, operators recognize their voices.
We have people out there that, realistically, this could be their job, said Sgt. Zachary Self, who answers Crime Stoppers calls for the Macon Police Department.
Two or three arrests per week, you could make $700, $750 per week, Sergeant Self said. You could make better than a minimum-wage job.
Who says that crime doesn't pay?
crispy once served as a witness in a fairly high-profile local criminal case for all the right reasons, and never would have thought to do otherwise. He also happily pocketed the reward money.
Feeling Poorer? Paycheck Not Lasting as Long? You're Not Alone.
Why are people with annual salaries of $35,000 lining up at food banks? Why are more consumers cutting down on nutritious foods like milk and vegetables, and buying more of their "groceries" at 7-Eleven, rather than the supermarket? Why, when "overall" wage growth is a solid 4.1 percent over the past 12 months? According to economists, it's because that "overall" wage growth is mostly happening for "top earners," while people who make less than $30,000 a year (and in some places, more than that) are having a tough time keeping up with rising rent, food, and energy costs.
The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder. What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.
Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.
Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.
Grocery sales at 7-Eleven have surged between 12 and 13 percent in the last year, in response to steadily rising food costs, and the average family of four is spending about $40 more each month on grocery basics than they spent last year. They're also abandoning healthier foods for cheap, filling stuff like peanut butter, pasta, and hamburger meat.
Food costs have increased 4.5 percent over the past 12 months, partly because of higher fuel costs. Egg prices were 44 percent higher, while milk was up 21.3 percent over the past 12 months to nearly $4 a gallon, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Food banks are already finding themselves overrun by increased demand. One food pantry in Brooklyn has recorded an almost 70 percent increase from last year: 5,000 new families, on top of the previous 3,000.
"The reality of hunger is right here," said the Rev. Melony Samuels, director of The BedStuy Campaign against Hunger, a church-affiliated food pantry in Brooklyn.
"I am shocked to see such numbers," Samuels said, "and I am really concerned that this is just the beginning of what we are going to see."
If there's any silver lining around this ominous, dark cloud, it's that some of these food pantries are getting creative.
Samuels said her church, Full Gospel Tabernacle of Faith, just started offering free cooking classes to teach clients who are diabetic or have other health conditions how to prepare vegetables like squash. It's also offering free exercise classes.
"We are trying to make them health conscious," Samuels said. "It's not right to give them just anything. Our mantra is eat well and live well."
If you squint, you can almost kind of see it.
Karl Rove Overdoses On His Own Kool-Aid
Today is the day that Washington finally flushes a turd that's been stinking America up for years. Yes, Karl Rove is leaving the White House and today he celebrated by gazing into his crystal ball and writing an opinion in the National Review about how history will view Bush. It's probably the single most detached-from-reality piece of work I've ever read. It's existence scientifically proves the existence of other dimensions, this one written from a far away realm named the "Bush White House". Karl has only been funnier while rapping. Of Bush and his policies, Rove writes:
America, he said, will not wait until dangers fully materialize with attacks on our homeland before confronting those threats.
More "Iraq attacked us". Classic!
The president gave the nation new tools to defeat terrorism abroad and protect our citizens at home with the Patriot Act, foreign surveillance that works in the wireless age, a transformed intelligence community, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Karl, what about the domestic spying programs? Aren't you proud of those? He busted my gut with this one:
And this president saw the wisdom of removing terrorisms cause by advocating the spread of democracy, especially in the Muslim world, where authoritarianism and repression have provided a potent growth medium for despair and anger aimed at the West. He recognized that democracy there makes us safer here.
As with everything else in Turd Blossom's love letter, nothing could be further from the truth. Democracy for Iraq, is far from assured:
The National Intelligence Estimate, released on Thursday, casts doubts on the viability of the Bush Administration strategy in Iraq. It gives a dim prognosis on the likelihood that Iraqi politicians can heal sectarian rifts before March, when US military commanders have said that a crunch on available troops will require a reduction in the US presence in Iraq.
Bush's brain would rather focus on the positive:
President Bush will be seen as a compassionate leader who used Americas power for good. While the world dithered, America confronted HIV/AIDS in Africa with the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has supported treatment for more than 1.1 million people worldwide, over one million of them in Africa.
Karl didn't mention that much of the money spent by the US is for abstinence programs that don't work. Or worse, put more lives in jeopardy.
Nobody can be wrong all the time and Karl is 100% correct when he states:
The outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan will color how history views the president.
Ain't that the truth...but don't forget New Orleans!
History demands much of America and its leaders and I am confident it will judge the 43rd president as a man more than worthy of the great office the American people twice entrusted to him.
Arguably, he wasn't elected even once. Even republicans have had enough of Bush. A Former Reagan official has a slightly different take on Bush. Paul Craig Roberts writes:
Bush has discarded habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions, justified torture and secret trials, damned critics as anti-American, and is responsible, according to Information Clearing House, for over one million deaths of Iraqi civilians, which puts Bush high on the list of mass murderers of all time.
HOOFAH!...to be fair, I'm not sure if Roberts is still a republican after years of Bush. Roberts lays it on:
"The war criminal is in the living room, and no official notice is taken of the fact," Roberts writes. "Lacking US troops with which to invade Iran, the Bush administration has decided to bomb Iran 'back into the stone age.'"
Oh yeah, Iran. One of the more interesting ideas floating around Rove's resignation is that he was actually an internal administration voice that was against air strikes on Iran. After losing that struggle with Darth Cheney, it was time for Karl to "spend more time with the family". (Incidentally, in this supposed scenario Tony Snow decided he didn't want to deal with the questions of bombing Iran, so he retired to make more money to fight his cancer.) Interesting indictment of the American health care system, no? The President's very own mouth piece can't afford to work for him, live comfortably and fight his cancer.
Unfortunately, we're cursed to live through interesting times. Worse still, dissent has been practically equated with treason. Say what you will of Karl Rove -- nobody can ever make the case he's not a bright guy. I think he's pulling a "Costanza" leaving on a "high note" (If only). Adios, Turd Blossom. You will not be missed.
Bill Moyers puts a nice bow on the end of the Rove era:
FTR was sick with the flu today, so it fell to Gerry to send Karl on his way.
Bush Projects a Budget Surplus - with One Minor Oversight
When President Bush took office in 2001, he did so under the best of economic conditions. At least on paper the federal government was projecting record budget surpluses to continue for a decade. Granted, those projections probably assumed the economy would continue at the peak rate of the economic boom at the time, nor could it have taken into account the economic blow of the 9/11 attacks. Nevertheless, going from record surpluses to record deficits takes more than just ineptitude, it takes an almost preternaturally poor sense of economics, the kind of person who would give a $300 advance on a tax refund to everyone in the country and then tell them they were paying less in taxes. Now, at least according to his newest budget estimates, he's managed to turn it all around.
The budget that President Bush will submit to Congress today shows the federal deficit falling in each of the next four years and would produce a $61 billion surplus in 2012, administration officials said. But to get there, Bush is counting on strong economic growth, diminishing costs in the Iraq war and tight domestic spending to offset the cost of his tax cuts.
Democrats yesterday criticized the five-year budget plan as overly optimistic, and predicted that extending the tax cuts past their 2010 expiration date would dig the nation deeper into debt rather than produce a budget surplus. Republicans countered that the tax cuts are critical to maintaining a healthy economy and that a balanced budget is not possible without them.
Forget the fact that the robust economy of the late 1990s existed in spite of Clinton's tax increases, the GOP mantra of "all taxes are bad" does not change even when overwhelming evidence says it should.
But there's more to these little shenanigans than just the standard tax-and-spend vs. lower-taxes debates that have been going on in the federal government since time immemorial. A closer examination of those budget numbers ignores a tiny, small, insigificant situation that might have an impact on federal spending; the war in Iraq. When you take that out of the equation, everybody's rich!
"Administration officials also exclude some potentially expensive items. Their request, for the first time, attempts to show the true cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming fiscal year, $145 billion, but includes just $50 billion for fiscal 2009 and nothing thereafter."
So unless Bush has secretly imposed his own timeline on complete withdrawal (not a single penny being spent in Iraq implies that not only will all military activity there cease, but all contracting and civilian services will also no longer require payment) from Iraq, there's some seriously "fuzzy math" going on in these projections. With some estimates placing the cost of the Iraq war upwards of $200 million each day one would hope that a cost like that would be included in projections of the future fiscal solvency of the federal fgovernment.
Take The Noney and Run
If someone offers you a purple and yellow silk-screened dollar bill with a value of "0", before you try to test its legitimacy by licking it or burning it or whatever it is people do with cash these days, read the fine print. It may be, if you're incredibly fortunate, one of the rare pieces of artists' currency in circulation called Noney.
Created in Rhode Island by silkscreen artist Alec Thibodeau (pseudonym Obadiah Eelcut, an anagram of Thibodeau's name) and introduced to the public in 2003, Noney offers a rare experience to formally barter just about anything for a small piece of art that offers much more than the green stuff. How much is it worth? Each Noney note states, "the bearer is entitled to this note's aesthetic value" as "cultural tender". Each print is hand-signed and printed by the artist onto polyethylene fiber with a print run of 1000 per design.
Photo Location
10 designs are in circulation, each marked with a stunningly detailed drawing by Thibodeau of a plain ol' Rhode Islander pictured with his favorite bird and produce, creating a total circulation of 10,000 bills in all. Since the bills are surprisingly durable, you can keep them in your pocket for a long, long time in search of the perfect barter situation.
I asked Alec what a few of the most extreme things people have bartered in exchange for Noney in addition to those listed on the Noney Stories page:
I've had some spectacular trades myself. I flew from Providence to Albuquerque last fall on a plane ticket bought with Noney. I once used Noney to pay for an eye doctor visit. Right now I'm in the midst of a trade with a high school student who's a vegan and also the only girl on her school's football team. She's sewing me a full suit in the style of Spike Jones using the colors of Noney: violet and yellow.
Someone else once used Noney as collateral for his student loan payments. Another guy once used Noney to pay for sexual favors from his wife...
Purchase uncut sheets of Noney with 'real' money, browse Obadiah's wish list, flip through amazing stories about Noney encounters and read more about it here.
Check out Alec Thibodeau's portfolio at www.inkape.com