With jobs vanishing , the economy in the toilet , what will it take ?

[blues90]

I see the jobs continue to vanish in great numbers and the other story of Circuit City firing then rehiring at a lower wage .

This crap has been going on for years now and the process is speeding up daily .

So with just this said how on earth as american workers are we ever going to get to a point of a living wage or even find a job ?

Each year there are literally millions of young people all graduating high school or college all seeking a job with no new jobs being created .

Here we have politics trying to raise min wage to a lousy $2 per hour over two years which will do nothing much and this only applies if you have a job .

There seems to be no control to stop corps from doing as they please with jobs but yet somewhere way at the bottom of priorities they claim they will change free trade language to fair trade .

Does it not seem as though by this time many thousands of americans will be jobless and join the ranks of the homeless or lose their homes .

In L.A. I see mostly new cars on the roads and have to wonder how this is possible , is it plastic riding on hope and a whime ?

Have I missed something in the grand scheme of the trend toward a banana republic ?

[AlinPA]

1. Why worry? Jayzus is comin' after the big war in Eye-ran and Eye-Raq

and salvayshun is comin' to 'Murca because we got ourselves a preseedent who God Hisself appointed.

[PghTiny]

2. And the sad part is...

30% of the country believes this $h1t

[Warpy]

3. This economy has been floated on easy credit and inflation in

housing for a couple of decades. The truth is that purchasing power has continued to fall even as dollar amounts of wages continue to rise. We have nowhere near the purchasing power we had in 1969, the year the last liberal went out of power. Our social safety net, including the insurance purchased by corporations for those of us lucky enough to have decent jobs, is in shreds. Offshoring in the name of cheap labor has offshored the paychecks while importing the debt in the form of a hideous trade debt.

All those bills are about to come due and you can bet the bridge under which you may find yourself sleeping that the men who ran off with all the money will fight paying any of those bills.

This economy is unsustainable.

[DCKit]

4. Totally agree with AlinPA

and add that, yes, it's all on credit and that's what's going to cause us so damn much trouble.

[muntrv]

5. It'll take a depression similar to the 1930's to get Americans to collectively

rage against the political and economic elite.

[Possumpoint]

6. A Depression like 1930

would be way more devastating now then most people think. I'm guessing that there were about 130 million American citizens then and many if not most lived on a farm. We have 300 plus citizens plus over 11 million illegals. We aren't a farm based economy any longer, in fact few of us have farm skills. If around 1/3 of the population lost everything, where and how would they get food? Hungry people do crazy things. At any given time there is only 2 weeks of food in the pipeline.

These thoughts have bothered me for a long time. I'm old enough to remember the race riots of the 60's and 70's. Imagine that kind of reaction to a depression.

[butterfly77]

7. My thoughts exactly...

I look and see these things happening everyday and everyone seems to look at it as, things are going as usual. There are many other things that I could add to your list. Sometimes I think is it just me or what? I put in application after application and submit resumes with little to no results.

When I hear people say its just a cycle we are going through the only thing I can think is they must be rich,or they just haven't felt it yet unless it becomes very close to them or someone in there family. From, what I am hearing in a lot of the country and layoffs everyday I am wondering why I don't hear more...

[blues90]

8. Good point .

This issue seems to come under the same heading as the homeless , not until it has a direct effect on someone does it get noticed .

I really don't understand why the topic of job loss in so well hidden .

We see topics here at times on the number of jobs being lost or companies closing but there are little responses by those effected unless they have no computer anylonger or feel a new job is just around the corner . Maybe they move back home with their parents who knows .

There are no web sites I can find about this issue either , just sites telling you that there are 6 steps you go through after losing your job , well no shit .

Many times I get the impression that most people on DU are doing just fine for now or just don't want to talk about it for some reason .

However , I know it's as real as the sky above .

Both parents have to work in order to support their family , what about one adult on $10 per hour , how does this pan out , not well I am afraid . Not unless they live in small communes who rent one home with three others if the rules allow this .

[butterfly77]

9. Boy, it seems as though you and I have ...

been reading my mind you are portraying my thoughts exactly. I have even been searching for places to looking to see if anyone is discussing this on any other sites. I have also believed the same thing about people who have lost their jobs and can't post, and people who have lost jobs who can't protest at some of these events because they don't have the money. I have been listening and reading about layoffs for years now and it seems as though it hasn't had an effect... or it is known and the republicons count on this knowing that more voices can't be heard...