What Does it Look Like to You?
Sharon October 7th, 2009
It has been a while since I’ve had people post their updates of what they are seeing, but this article at Huffington Post encouraged me to ask how things are going in your neck of the woods? Are things as much better as the news reports?
I find myself fascinated by the insistence of the media that things are getting better – it is true that the stock market is up, and that the rate of job losses has declined slightly (although not nearly as much, we learn, as the reports suggest), but the idea that not losing quite so many jobs constitutes recovery is sort of fascinating. The definition of “a good sign” or an indication of “recovery” keeps changing, and getting lower.
Meanwhile, at the practical “affects how you actually live” level, things are getting worse. Deflation seems to have taken full hold, state budget receipts are falling, leaving deficits that state constitutions don’t permit, and services for those most in need are falling. The big question is how long the nation can borrow from the future to keep things going.
So what does this look like through your eyes? Are things getting better? Worse? How about for your community?
Sharon
Here in Queensland Australia things are going on just as normal. There were some layoffs at the beginning about 12 months ago but they are gone and forgotten and things are forging ahead. I just heard that this months unemployment rate was less than last months. Of course, we don’t pay for health care and unemployment benefits are unlimited.
Seeing documentaries and current affairs programs, it seems that the underclass are hurting. But then they always hurt and things never seem to get much better for them. Anyone who has a home and a little financial stability is going OK. Even long term unemployed people become quite skilled at living frugally on their benefits and the lower interest rates have meant a few less increases in their rental amounts.
Anything concerned with the government is going up. Council rates, registration of motor vehicles, electricity supply, water charges, fuel taxes, alcohol and tobacco taxes etc etc. Food is not dirt cheap but its OK. Good meat is quite expensive but cheap meat is still quite affordable.
The biggest problem this state has is youth unemployment which is ongoing and concerning. Good full time employment for young people is very scarce and they need this to be able to establish themselves in the housing market.
Like Lori in Queensland, things at the other end of Australia are looking suprisingly normal. I’m in Tasmania, and while there are still some companies closing and layoffs being made, the unemployment rate seems to have stabilised.
On the other hand, the unemployment rate wasn’t that brilliant to begin with, and there seems to be significant numbers of people juggling study and underemployment to get by (I work in education).
One good thing is that there seems to be a stronger tradition of home vegetable gardens and local business here, but I have noticed there are a few people on our street (including us) making effort to expand and improve home production. One neighbour had wood stolen this winter, and costs for any heating form are going up – but at least we are moving into spring now.
I’m not sure if the ‘back to normal’ is media illusion, national situation or personal delusion.
The stock market is not a reflection of the health of the economy regardless of what the major media outlets tell us.
The balance sheets of the banks certainly don’t tell a true story either. The mortgage-backed securities that are on their books have not been valued correctly thanks to the “mark to market” accounting changes that the financial institutions and politicians forced. There are more defaults coming i.e. commercial loans, “alt A” and “prime” mortgages. The bankers know this and are holding the money where they will be properly leveraged later. Money is just not flowing. Small businesses that are struggling can’t go to the bank and get a loan. It appears that the only significant movement of money in this country is between the government and the financial institutions. Personally, I’m hoping to see legislation to regulate the banking industry and the ratings agencies. We need laws that protect us from “too big to fail” and that penalize the ratings agencies for failing to do their job. (Still can’t believe they slapped triple A ratings on those crappy mortgages that they didn’t even review.)
While credit is frozen, more businesses are failing. That means fewer jobs. No jobs means no recovery despite what the mainstream media tells us. If you lose your job or you are worried about losing your job, you buy only the essentials. At least that’s what we’re doing.
In our town in southeast TN, several small businesses have closed. Some had been in business for forty years. Several manufacturing businesses have had layoffs. We see lots of empty storefronts in the strip malls, fewer cars at the local restaurants, more people begging for money. People look worried. I’ve seen more women in the grocery store with calculators and coupons. The cars outside our local grocery outlet are much nicer than the cars that I used to see there.
On a personal note, my husband’s employer has had two layoffs. He managed to survive both cuts. The ones who remained were told there would be no raises for the next couple of years. We were so happy that he had a job and we had insurance, we didn’t mind. In order to cut costs, the plant has been shutting down on Fridays periodically when the orders are light. He’s been told if there is another cut, it will affect his department. We are hopeful but still try to prepare as best we can. We preserved quite a bit from our garden this year. We try not to buy anything that isn’t necessary. I retired early three years ago so we are accustomed to living frugally.
All of our lives have changed whether we realize it or not. Most people do not realize it yet.
Memphis has been in decline for some time, and getting mugged is considered “Memphis tax”, so other than my DH being unemployed since last September, and more “for rent” signs than usual out in our neighborhood, things look normal. I live close to work, but cannot walk or bike because it is unsafe. We have my grad student income, so we’re OK, but uber-frugality is the norm for us.
I guess my alarm happened in the spring at a banquet at a scientific conference. The topic of the humor-based key-note address was the effects of economic stress, but the scientists (many of whom study the deleterious effects of excessive alcohol consumption) were slamming back the wine and raising their glasses for more like a man on a drunken binge slamming back hard liquor. For a student, it was scary to realize that most of our grants were (and are) being paid by a government running extreme deficits, and some of the private foundations were going bankrupt. It felt like the stimulus money was a 2-year reprieve on a death sentence (these people have to keep grants to keep their jobs, so the pressure is intense when the cutoffs fall to 1 or 2% getting funded), and we were all standing on a very high cliff, not knowing who’ll get pushed off when the 2 years ends. That mood is now muted, but still there, like a muted large-screen TV showing tragic pictures at a dinner party. Scary.
Jacksonville, FL
The newly expanded port facilities are operating at 20% capacity but river channel dredging continues with Fed dollars. The suspended silt from the dredging coupled with an odd rainfall pattern (10 inches at a time) has meant fewer fish in our summer diet. Fridays are now as popular a fishing day as Sat used to be so more people must be off work. The rainfall also increased insect problems for our gardens. The local feed/seed stores sold out early due to increased demand for vegetable seeds but the national chain stores (Home Depot etc.) are still offering mostly ornamentals and flowers.
Apartment rents are down and new commercial construction is at a standstill except for government projects (courthouses, military base renovations) and the incessant road building. Infrastructure may actually have a chance to catch up with the now stalled population and housing growth of the past 10 years unless the money runs out. Even hospitals are postponing expansion due to financing problems and uncertainty over pending regulation. Property tax assessments are down but tax rates have increased to maintain local govt budgets. I know of several families living in homes they have stopped paying on and if you look, you will see abandoned houses without For Sale signs in every neighborhood.
Hours at our shop have been cut along with 40% of our former workforce but even with that reduction we are still below our newly diminished capacity. We are finally starting to see some smaller competitors fold. Traditionally that would have meant more work and profits but we are still seeing the market contract.
A couple of weeks ago I saw something that said it all about the times here: matching His & Her(2) jet-skis and ATVs for sale in a front yard. Can you imagine the look that would have put on Jim Kunstler’s face?
dave
Here in central Ohio, things don’t look either promising or terrible, at least not yet. State government, a big industry here in the state capital, has been cut drastically because of falling tax revenue. Ohio was second only to Michigan as far as dependence on the auto industry is concerned; articulating the notion that this industry is actually dying and won’t be with us in a decade or so is usually met with blank stares and denial. At any rate, our governor tried to make up for lost revenue by authorizing gambling operations (specifically, the installing of slot machines at race tracks), but that effort has been at least temporarily stymied by the courts. Meanwhile, another gambling proposal (to build casinos in each of Ohio’s four largest cities) is on next month’s general election ballet (along with a proposal that you would be interested in: a farm industry-supported plan to authorize a state board that would regulate the treatment of farm animals, ostensibly to make sure they’re treated humanely, but in reality, and more cynically, to forestall any effort on the part of animal welfare organizations to effect real reform in that area).
Just what we need to balance our state government’s budget: encouraging a parasitic “industry” like gambling. But the tax revenue collections continue to come up short. More cuts are in the works, I’m sure.
My wife, a librarian for the state historical society, has survived several rounds of layoffs. Now she has more responsibilities than ever with no increase in pay and unsure prospects about here own job’s survival. I’ve been somewhat underemployed as an adjunct college instructor for about seven years; the prospects for full-time, semi-permanent employment around here seem remote.
The most visible sign in these parts of the current economic times is the growth of abandoned commercial properties; empty stores in strip malls, empty big box retail centers standing in the midst of empty acres of concrete, half-filled office parks, and the like. Some of this has been caused by longstanding sprawl, as retailers abandon more central locations for “nicer” digs in newly developed areas, but the trend of boarding up these venues has accelerated during the last year or two.
Here in the suburbs of Boston things have been dampened some, but it’s still doesn’t look like a dire situation. Most people I know still have jobs and the roads are still jam packed with vehicles. The few times we’ve been in restaurants, they still look pretty busy, although we haven’t had to wait much.
Driving around (when I’m not on my bike), I do see a good deal of houses for sale, but most don’t seem to sit for more than a month or two, and builders have still been at work, especially on the large apartment complexes near the highways. (Gosh I simply cannot imagine living in those bird cages with nothing outside except a parking lot by a highway interchange.)
State government is facing large deficits that have to be trimmed due to state constitutional requirements, and my town is cutting back a bit, but in general government here is still going like gangbusters. A few months ago, our town voters approved a new multi-million town library while at the state level, stimulus money spending is quite evident in all the highway construction projects going on at night. (Again, traffic is way heavy during the day.)
At the residential treatment center I work at, we went without merit raises this past year, but we still have plenty of clients and business. The state hasn’t raised what it allows DCF to pay us for child care and we have canceled all our overtime, though due to the amount of work still to be done, that’s left some shifts short-staffed. We’re still hiring everything from program managers, to nurses, to direct care staff. Other programs run by our agency, programs doing after care and other things not mandated by law, on the other hand, have been cut or even eliminated.
At my place, I have a larger home garden than ever and have really gotten into saving the excess. While I hear lots of talk of others doing gardens, I only know of one other garden on the street and that one’s been there for several years already. I have been keeping a large garden at work, along with developing an orchard and small fruit plantings, and there has been some talk amongst the other staff of the importance of what we produce. On the other hand, there has been very little interest in any of them about actually helping out in the agricultural activities or helping incorporate what we produce into the kids’ menus and lives, but that’s probably because most of my coworkers have so little knowledge of how to go about farming and gardening and cooking with real food to begin with. I try to help them out and show them things, invite them out to the garden and what not, but it’s been slow going. (They’re mostly 20-something urban-bred folk.) On the other hand, several coworkers have been taking more produce home with them “to share with my grandmother” etc. than I recall them doing last year.
We take the student/clients to the malls (all too often imo), so I too visit the larger enclosed malls around here. Just last night I noticed several vacancies in one of the area’s premier malls that weren’t there last month. If the stores are going out in the fall, what vacancies will develop after the holiday shopping season I can only hazard a guess.
In short, I see a recession, mainly in the malls, but as for people around me losing jobs and preparing, I don’t really see it much yet. Still, I’m glad I have a full wood pile and lots of food in storage.
Things are better for us … if you don’t count that we haven’t even paid LAST month’s rent yet. Uh ….
The client load for our home business is up, but that won’t start to bring in cash for a couple more weeks. But one big client has had a change of management which resulted in a turnaround for their company and thus cash to spend on us working on new products and logo for them. Another has gotten matching funds for our project with them from the govt. We alsohave one or two new clients starting up. And sales of our original B2B USB HID programming tool are up.
OTOH, we had to turn over one client account to a collection agency which is a first for us. But I had to emotionally disinvest in that rather than take the verbal abuse from the guy.
I have hope of catching up on my bills starting in three weeks. Did catch up on health insurance!
Frondly, Fern
I think that things are bad but the suburban area that I live in (northern NJ near NYC) hasn’t been too badly hit. There are some foreclosures, some businesses closing and some empty stores. But plenty of people are eating out (the diners and many restaurants are often packed), people are shopping at the malls and I see a fair number of homes being redone (it’s a much older suburb).
I think what has kept this area going is an easy train commute to NYC and a lot of people in the financial field.
Housing prices have fallen about 15% but they were stratospheric before they fell and there are still homes that sell in two or three weeks.
For me things are not so great. No one wants writers anymore. There are tons of writers/journalists who can’t find work. I know people who have lost their jobs and know that they will never replace them and will have to go into something completely different. I think we’re headed for a lot more tough times.
I live in an apartment so can’t grow my own food. I try not to spend much on anything. Haven’t bought clothes in a couple of years and have been selling some stuff on ebay to make ends meet.
I was surprised at how relieved and touched I was that someone would think to ask someone like me what I’ve been observing. This flood of sad and anxious posts has been very moving and galvanizing. I also apologize in advance for the length of this post; I suppose I’ve had a lot on my mind, and I appreciate the opportunity to unburden myself a bit.
In Portland, the view is troubling. My partner lost his job of ten years. Without the federal COBRA subsidy, we would have no health care. I had worked for years in customer service jobs and in desperation tried to return to jobs that could only keep us afloat if I worked two jobs and for which I was overqualified to begin with. I begged; it was pretty humiliating. No jobs. Our living expenses are kept to a minimum. My partner knows it’s important to be preparing for a post-oil world, but he’s so depressed after the layoff that he can barely get up in the morning. I am so worried about him.
All of my friends are nice normal young people in their early 30s; most have us have been underemployed since we graduated from college around 2000. Now it’s the exception rather than the norm if one of us has a job at all. We joke sometimes about everyone moving in with the couple that has *two* incomes. Ha…
I reluctantly returned to school for a “marketable” skill, and ended up interning for the State of Oregon just in time for a front-row seat to its budget implosion. I was ridiculously fortunate to secure a temporary job for the labor department. From that vantage, I have seen many employers taking shocking advantage of their employees, and enforcement agencies are too weakened to protect workers. Schools have also been eviscerated; unemployed teachers have swamped the job market.
All of my family works for the state of California, and they have all taken pay cuts in the form of furloughs. My mother is supporting her family on 24 hours of work per week; her husband is in construction and hasn’t worked in a year, and his adult children keep moving in with them. My old graduate school friends who still teach in California colleges have seen their class loads increase by 25% while their pay has been cut by 20%. One institution fired 21 of its 25 English lecturers.
I’ve never been someone who worries about whether crime will impact me. But our neighborhood, which had been rapidly gentrifying, has gotten increasingly hostile. We hear gunshots a couple of times a week. My partner had to duck behind a car in the middle of gunfire a couple of months ago. I feel like the city has decided to cut out of our community.
It makes me kind of ill when the mainstream news sources trumpet things like “Job losses less than expected for July!” or whatever Pollyanna nonsense they’re spewing that day. I don’t mean to be overdramatic, but I feel our economy is a couple of good energy price shocks away from total collapse (crazy, right? that would never happen).
This has certainly been informative and entertaining—reading about the experiences and circumstances of others as we tumble off the edge of the abyss. I wish more writers would identify their homeplace.
For myself, I retired from many years of nursing in 2005. I’ve tried to live a “low overhead” life for many years, so I’m fine as things go now. My small town in East Tennessee has been in decline for decades, since the mills moved out, and is looking shabbier by the month. Downtown is a disaster, and the small hospital I work in occassionally is moving soon to a new location (thanks to a corporate buyout), yet the city is pinning its hopes on a renovation of the old movie theater to spark an urban revival. What a joke!
I don’t know where or how my neighbors work. There isn’t anything around here but fast food and WalMart and pawn shops.
More depressing is the realization that things probably will get a whole lot worse and nobody seems to have a clue. I turned my TV off a year ago because the MSM had no clue and wasn’t telling, even if they did.
My income is static and, thankfully, is sufficient for today. Instead of saving, I’m putting what few bucks I get in food storage and bullets.
As an afterthought, I wish someone would initiate a blog dedicated to the question of how things are going where you live.
Bill – done.
Started here: http://viewfrommytown.blogspot.com/
I’ll put up instructions for anyone who would like to submit updates.
Tara
I’m in Baton Rouge, LA.
My employer– a small staffing company– is barely making ends meet, because when companies are afraid to hire, they don’t need our services. The office scuttlebutt (from folks who have been here- in the city, and at this company- a lot longer than I have) is that we’re hanging on by our fingernails and something’s got to give by Q1 2010. I don’t know how long we can stay open otherwise, because our owner will not run us at a deficit, or drain her own savings. I try not to worry about my job security because I can’t function well when I’m all wrapped up in anxiety; there’s time enough to worry when the axe finally falls, I guess. In the meantime, I go to work every day and do the best I can with what I’ve got.
My husband’s employer is a multinational company heavily tied to the oil/gas industry. The fear of upcoming legislation has put a severe damper on things and there are not enough projects to keep everyone busy. Layoffs started there last year, Christmas week! He has specialized skills so he managed to hang on for a long time, but still worked only 3 days a week during August and September, and he’s currently on an unpaid furlough for at least another month– we’re basically treating it as a layoff, because we have little hope that he will be called back to work unless something dramatic happens. There are next to zero local job opportunities in his field, and few others in any field that pay a living wage for a family. If we can figure a way to pay for it, he might go back to school next year to learn something different. Right now he’s considering working as an overnight stocker for a big box store (ugh) for $10/hr, simply because it’s more than unemployment insurance is paying. Speaking of insurance, while on “furlough” we can’t afford to keep paying for the (fantastic) employer-provided health insurance, so we’re megadosing on vitamins and avoiding illness/sick people like… well… the plague. Husband was having headaches so I made him get an eye exam and new glasses (new prescription put into his old frames) two days before the insurance ended.
We had hoped to buy a house this year– pushing for some independence from apartment life, and space for a real garden!– but that’s on hold indefinitely. We had been talking about having a baby or adopting in the next year or two– I don’t see how it can happen now. So far, amazingly enough, we have not had to dip into our emergency fund (a few thousand dollars), but we’re being forced to slow down our debt-reduction snowball (and I am so grateful that we already have eliminated $800/month of debt payments, and are that much better off!). We are currently in the throes of choosing a cheaper apartment, because we just can’t stay where we are now for very much longer. I’m being very, very careful about our expenditures; we have bought very little other than groceries over the past few months, and I can’t remember the last time we ate out. I’ve quit shopping at the big store nearby and instead watch the weekly sale ads like a hawk for a grocery store a bit further away– but I can keep the food under $50/wk that way. I’ve always had a full pantry and some extra food reserves, so we’re still eating well, but I’m making a lot more use of sales and coupons than I used to (and I was a tightwad *before* all this!). Donations are way down and demand is up at the local food bank; I try to give even a little bit whenever I can. Thankfully I have been able to cut our spending enough that I have not had to reduce any of our charitable contributions.
We live at some distance (350 miles) from most of our friends and family, and I have no idea if/how we will be able to make any holiday visits this year. I’m willing to clip all the coupons in the world to make ends meet, but when finances cut into my relationships… well, I feel that loss much more acutely than any of the other “deprivations”. Praise the Lord that our 13-year-old has been a trooper– even offering to give up her monthly allowance! (I told her I wanted her to keep getting it, but that she would be required to use it pay for more things for herself that normally Daddy or I would have covered for her. Candy bars aren’t in my grocery budget anymore.
)
Now that I type it all out, my circumstances feel dark and heavy– but we’re making do, really, we are. Because we’re in a capital city that is also a huge college town, I think we’re insulated from a lot of the difficult things that people are experiencing. When I get discouraged I remind myself that at least we’re not in Detroit, where things are truly awful. (Sorry, Michiganders.)
The capital city of Washington is funded by state government and nearby military bases so Olympia has only had a mild downturn sofar. Our rural home remodel project was completed last month so we were able to relocate my MIL from the independent living home in Phoenix this month. Our household income is steady due to pensions and SS but I have worries about a fixed income in face of anticipated rising prices due to inflation over the next several years. And of course, one can never quite get a handle on how the coporate pensions funds are doing in the current investment environment, So there is a concern about the (broke) federal govenment taking over potentially failed pensions and paying 10 cents on the dollar.
Next year we will have a vegetable garden! This year, our garden consisted of one cherry tomato plant that yielded a total of three (3!) cherry tomatoes – not quite a good investment since we bought the plant for a few dollars. And our single old apple tree produced 3 apples. We are not quite self sustaining in our food production.
I could talk about a lot of subtopics under this one heading, but I am going to concentrate on the animal dumping a lot of folks here have mentioned. I am seeing this in droves here and I know the animal shelters are operating above budget (my county shelter is now a “city only” shelter because they spent what the county gave them, but the county just keeps bringing in animals). I live rurally and the number of feral dogs has become amazing. I lost my entire flock of chickens and 5 rabbits this year to strays. I also now have 8 cats hanging around the farm and I can only account on the origins of 5 of them (a pregnant mama dropped off earlier this year and her four kittens); the other three just showed up and joined the “herd”. I need to get them in for spaying/neutering soon as they are growing fast.
Last month, while away on a work assignment in LA, my 5 year old, gentle ram disappeared. He is quite tame and would not just wander off even if he figured out a way to get out of a sheep proof fence and solar hot wire. I suspect one of two things: 1. stray dogs (reported by neighbor to have been seen near my home near the time he went MIA) chased him out of the fence and into one of the nearby woods and killed him or 2. Someone stole him either for his gorgeous “mountain sheep” horns, food, or for their own flock. I have hiked the woods and can’t find a corpse.
I suspect an increase in animal drop offs as shelters max out budget or close altogether. I suspect an increase in animal (particularly livestock) theft. I used to work as an animal control officer and in times of hardship the shelters quickly fill up to capacity (which for a municiple kill shelter meant more animals, less taxes, fewer adoptions, more euthanizing).
I am hoping to put up wildlife cameras soon in my pasture to help figure out the mystery of the disappearing livestock, but I also plan to concentrate on smaller livestock like poultry and rabbits and phase out the larger types. It’s easier to “hide” smaller livestock from desperate people.
Oops…I forgot I am in Northern Indiana.
I live in one of the north suburbs to St. Louis, MO. Like Dewey said, it doesn’t seem real bad here, for the moment. Our housing never got as inflated as housing did many other places because most people don’t consider St. Louis an especially desirable place to live, and we don’t depend on just one industry so I don’t think our level of unemployment has gotten quite as bad as some other places.
As some of the other comments mentioned, there is an obvious and growing difference between those who still have high-paying jobs and the rest of us (those who never did and those who lost theirs). I am in Webster Groves, one of the wealthier suburbs, every week. No difference there that I can see; people still walk, houses are still being remodeled (although houses do seem to stay on the market for much longer, judging by how long For Sale signs stay out), it still feels like living in the land of happy families. In Spanish Lake, where I live, houses continue to go into foreclosure, lawns go unmowed and houses go unrepaired, no one plant mums anymore because they can’t afford that small gesture of beauty. The people who don’t have jobs have no safety net. I fear my neighbor will lose her home at the least, and perhaps primary custody of her daughter as well (especially if the other parent has a job). She needs way more help than we can provide, and her family members don’t have enough to help her.
Governmentally, I don’t see big changes at either the state or local level. Roads are still being built. Libraries are still open. I understand that just about every agency at all levels is dealing with reductions in budgets, but so far, from what I hear, most of the cuts have come from normal attrition and general belt-tightening and there have been, relative to other areas, few layoffs. So far. Even the St. Louis public transport agency got the state to cough up some stimulus funds and actually restored some of the routes it had cut last March. On the other hand, the Dept. of Conservation, which is funded from a 1/8 cent statewide sales tax, is actually having to cut their budget for the first time, because sales revenue is down statewide. That’s significant, because they are the most popular state agency by far.
Personally, we are fine because we live off income from our investments, and so far that has gone down only a little. After taking the AIP course we are planning ways to reduce cash outflow even further, and the ways we are choosing will also reduce driving and energy use, which will have other benefits as well. Most of our friends are managing more or less well, at least so far. My family seems almost unaffected, so far. I keep saying “so far” because I don’t notice any macro change to support real optimism. It seems more to me like a temporary respite. Let’s see what happens during the rest of the year – that will say a lot.
I don’t get out much (c;
But earlier in the week I traveled to the state capital area, not into the city, but the very developed ‘burbs.
I saw quite a few “for lease” signs and empty commercial buildings.
Some of my self-employed friends and acquaintances have told me that they are living hand to mouth.
There are a number of unleased commercial spaces in my little town, and it seems more than there were five years ago.
Another city, about 15 or 20 miles from here, has an organization that last year averaged feeding about 14,000 people a month. That is up to 40,000 for last month, and earlier this week they ran out of food.
I’m in Iowa, in a college town. Things here have been slowly collapsing, both for us and for the area. My husband lost his job in January when he company he worked for closed. It turns out that in a crunch, people stop buying educational testing prep materials. He has managed to become marginally employed, working from home, writing for an energy company based in Texas.
I work at the University Hospital. We have seen round after round of budget cuts and layoffs. I have been fortunate to keep my position but now the new rumor is for mandatory 10 day furloughs for all employees between now and July to help save the budget. Our state just announced that it has received about 7% less tax revenue than expected which translates to further budget cuts for all state funded entities.
We purchased an acreage this spring and moved out of town which was great for having a garden but our old house still hasn’t sold. We lived in a great area of town, near campus, in one of the most sought after school districts but still- no luck. Still, financially we’re hanging in there although our cushion is shrinking. We’re not the only family with homes not selling or jobs lost.
We’ve been trying to produce much of our own food or buy locally but prices have been climbing, except for factory-farmed pork, which we try not to eat (for many reasons).
I have numerous friends who are un- or under- employed but many people who were fortunate to have maintained their jobs are going on like nothing has happened. But those are becoming fewer and farther in between.
I’m in Dallas, in a transitional neighborhood near downtown — what passes for the “inner city” around here. This week, our neighbors across the street moved out. They lost their house to the bank — this, about nine months after losing their business. They moved out to northeast Texas to live with relatives. We’re very fortunate to be doing fine, but I work in an industry (newspapers) that’s in deep trouble. I work at what may be the most solid big newspaper in the country — “solid” in the sense of being debt-free, run by a management that’s determined to fight for survival. But it’s undeniably the case that the upheaval in the broader economy, as well as the technological changes re: the Internet, plus the cultural changes we’re living through, are all working massively against newspapers. We are forced to consider that we may have to move, and I may have to give up, or at least radically change, my journalism career, simply for the sake of economic security.
I feel bad even posting this here, because at least I have a good job that’s reasonably secure in the short term, unlike so many people we know. But I don’t know many people who are able to rest well at night. Most people I know are living with the anxiety that it could all go away soon — “it” meaning their security.
Here in the UK the mood is gloomy but not yet terminal.
Many local retail shops have closed, often to be replaced by ‘charity shops’ or ‘one pound stores’. These tatty shops plus the closed shops make our shopping centres look like the Third World.
Getting a job is now VERY difficult – even for highly skilled people.
(The low end jobs are generally taken by Eastern European immigrants – not racism, just a fact)
The UK in particular has a looming energy shortage problem, which only now is being discussed in the open … probably too late to prevent some years of huge energy bills & energy rationing as new nukes are built.
Our increasing reliance on imported natural gas as our own North Sea supplies go off line over the next few years is also hitting our balance of payments severely. The UK economy in a few years time could be well and truly derailed unless something good magically turns up.
Our government is broke – and we will soon (?) see the effects of Quantitative Easing through inflation and a very much weaker pound.
Our politicians & top bankers will however be OK … as they have been found to have been thieving from the British people for years … whilst failing to properly equip our soldiers fighting abroad.
I believe that the sudden lack of respect that the populace now has for our politicians and our police bodes poorly. I expect social disturbances etc to be more prevalent in the future.
On a personal level I run a one-man business in a vital medical sector so I will survive … although I’m working MUCH harder to simply stand still. (Discounting has run rampant in all sectors of the economy)
We also grow much of our own food which helps.
We have also taken out a HUGE mortgage to buy a smallholding …. eek …..
(Actually it was an opportunity we couldn’t miss … we need to live our dream before we are too old … we simply can’t let any silly recession ruin our lives)
The only cutbacks we have made are: fewer newspapers, fewer McDonalds, no more paid-for coffees or snacks from the cafe near my work … I now make/take my own. It’s amazing how much money that just these simple cutbacks save us!
The UK now has a choice: economic collapse … or a bright new future based on a total infrastructure rebuild involving broadband expansion, nuclear power & renewable energy.
We need a very strong government acting with determination, honesty & integrity to achieve the latter … so in fact we are totally stuffed …
Well here in Aust. it seems far less gloomy. The papers have stopped giving a lot of space to the world financial crisis and i think our local paper is saying its on the way up.
I know a couple of people that have lost jobs that can’t get back into their area of work and we have had one or two companies go bankrupt in our town.
Mostly I’m not affected, however I don’t have a lot to do with jobs and money (still in high school).
People are still talking about the “crisis” but the general feeling is that stuff will get better.
Its a bit shocking to get on the computer and hear a completely different story.
I live in a small town (pop. less that 400) about 20 miles outside Flint, MI. Things just continue to decline here. The church in town has a food pantry open 2 days a month. They helped 477 people in August and 494 in September. The same church is doing a free food give away at the high school in November. I’m hoping to volunteer. It’s big news when a local employer adds 15 or 20 jobs at just more than minimum wage. My mom works at an elementary as a parapro and once the new state budget passes they’ll be losing $130 or so per student. Stimulus money runs out next year and if something doesn’t change they’ll have to close. That’s the case for all the small rural districts in the area. Do we homeschool or drive 20 miles to another district??? My parents have had a rough go of it for the past 2 years or so after my dad lost his full time job. They make too much for food stamps but they don’t make enough to buy food. The pantry at church gets a lot of use. Each month my parents have to decide if they’ll keep paying on the house or not. They’ll probably let it go in the next few months and then they’d move in with us.
My husband works at a local bank and things aren’t good. They’re losing millions of dollars each month. He’s the computer network manager, so he’ll last longer than most. They had a big round of lay-offs in the spring and those who kept their jobs took a 5% pay cut. I’m sure we’ll see more of the same soon. They’re working on next year’s budget now. Any departments wanting to add expenses to the budget have to be willing to let FTE (full time employees) go as a trade.
I make soap and sold it at farmers markets over the summer. I’m still doing about $30 a week with repeat customers and have been using that money for grocery shopping. I’ve starting knitting up fingerless gloves and selling those as well. It seems to cover the extra little expenses that come along. I’m hoping to make enough at holiday craft shows to pay off a few bills. I start my new minimum wage at the library this week. For a stay at home mom, I’m out working an awful lot lately…
We had a nice garden over the summer and put up a lot of food (canning, freezing, and root cellar). The pantry is well stocked and we’re getting used to having soup often. Our chickens are moving out of the chicken tractor and into their winter home shortly. (made with all free materials)
Our renter took off with a weeks notice and now we have a second house payment we can’t make. Apparently the roof was leaking badly and she was responsible for maintaining things… Now we have to take out a loan for roof repairs and find a renter. My SIL is interested so I hope that works out for all of us.
So, yeah, things are bad. Sorry for rambling complaints!
Jill in Michigan
Well, this is what the situation in the US looks like to me from over here in Sweden:
http://life-after-oil.blogspot.com/2009/10/effects-of-crisis-part-1.html
…
I can not (from a Swedish perspective) recall reading many articles from this point of view: about (many) single individuals, whose lives have taken a turn for the worse in the wake of the crisis.
Also American reports often remain silent about the millions of newly poor that follow in the wake of the crisis. As we all know, being poor is much worse in the US than in Europe in general and in Sweden in particular due to the less fine-meshed social security net. Personally I notice this lack of understanding when I speak to intelligent people without crisis awareness, who think everything is pretty OK now “when its so cheap to hire a craftsman”.
To raise awareness about the bottomless abyss that has opened below the feet of many Americans, I hereby begin writing a set of texts about the losers of the crisis – a growing underclass – that is all too often dismissed and made invisible. We have the concepts and cultural frameworks to easily accept and understand stories about skillfull “upstarts”, who climb the social ladder, working their way from the factory floor to the corporate boardroom, or becoming the first person in their family to achieve a university degree and “become someone”. But we don’t have the same clear framework to understand downward mobility, and the stories about individuals who due to stupidity, less fortunate choices or pure bad luck find themselves out in the cold, economically and socially.
[...]
The storytelling technique I use in this set of articles is similar to Dante’s descent into the circles of hell, thus I will begin with describing milder effects of the crisis (worsening economy, new patterns of consumption, increased prudence), and step by step move ahead to those worst affected that now are moving toward, or already live in, complete misery.
…
I have followed the subject for some time and when I started to write, I just couldn’t stop. The snippet above is from the first out of seven Sharon-long texts about the effects of the crisis in the US – as seen by a European who has lived in the US and Canada (some). Enjoy! (And feel free to correct any misconceptions.)
We live in a university town in Florida where the main employers are colleges and hospitals.
1/ The residential construction industry has tanked. Nothing is being built. Trades and construction workers are unemployed.
2/ Several chain restaurants have closed. There are more commercial spaces for rent. But overall, it’s not that bad — you don’t see foreclosure signs — but people’s houses take a LONG time to sell. I know a lot of people who are “waiting for the market to come back up” to sell their homes, to downsize, etc.
3/Fear re: how the town and schools are going to make it when the 2010-2011 state budget kicks in. Florida has a huge budget def. on the horizon — about $2.6 billion.
4/My neighbor worked for a now defunct car dealer; his job is gone and he hasn’t found another; I don’t even know if he’s looking any more. He is in his 50s. He and his wife had paid their house off and live frugally; she works a p/t job and they inherited this year, so they are doing OK. Another friend is looking for a job and doesn’t even have his resume acknowledged when he applies. I know several young people who are having a hard time finding jobs… The job market is very tight in our town.
5/But we are lucky in that our local unemployment rate is 7 percent, the lowest in the state, while the county south of us has a 12.5 percent rate. So there are signs of economic issues here, but our county is faring better than other places. Maybe b/c we are mostly state workers…? No furloughs. No salary cuts here yet. It’s always been hard to get a good job here since there are a lot of very highly educated people and no industry…. One of the groups I volunteer for had a p/t job open up and received over 100 applications.
Personally: my partner just finished grad school at age 50 and is changing careers, working in renewable energy. He got a consulting job out of state for 9 months, right out of school — it pays really well — we feel so fortunate! — so we are socking away his paycheck and paying off debt. We don’t know what will happen when this is over; how good he will be at this new work!?! — if he will find more work; where it will be; and his contract is such that he can be let go with 2 weeks’ notice at any point — so we are treating his salary as a windfall and trying to save as much as we can. By next summer or next fall we will have a clearer sense of his employability. Since he is in renewable energy we feel that sector has no where to go but up, unless the whole economy collapses or there is no credit to fund projects.
I do communications for a small college. If the budget gets really bad, they will cut to the bone to keep mission critical workers… so they might cut my dept. No raise for the past 3 years, but at least I have a job. I want to do different work but feel like it is hopeless to look right now and maybe it would be stupid, too — newest hires are the first to be cut. Another 18 months and I will be vested in Florida’s state retirement system, one of the most generous in the country … one wonders if there will be pensions in 15 years… so it seems “smart” to stay at least that long, even if in the long run there is nothing there….
We are both gardeners; both frugal — we have one car, a paid-off 2000 Toyota — we’ve never bought new furniture — we aren’t into stuff and don’t make crazy financial decisions. We have 10 (paid off!) acres about 25 miles from town; if it gets bad, we could live out there… just haven’t wanted the daily commute (and when gas was so high a year ago, we didn’t want the expense of a commute) and would miss the community in town. We would invite friends and family to live out there w/ us in the event this all goes to hell.
My dad and his wife live here (he’s 71). He lost a lot of wealth in the stock market last year; he is doing OK; working p/t for his church and he and his wife are collecting social security. They are not poor — they have a condo at the beach — just not as well off as he used to be. It’s done a huge number on his mental outlook; so much of his self esteem was tied in to being wealthy and successful at finance. In a way, maybe it’s been good for him to decouple from the idea that success = material accomplishments.
So as I write this, I realize we are in a good situation, overall, and I should be counting our blessings — and yet I still feel pretty anxious. Maybe it comes from years of financial struggle as a single mom and being used to being anxious. My partner and I just married this summer… I am not used to having help or thinking of 2 incomes… And also, I read, I think, I see what is happening via the media. I am so worried about the environment and our economy. It seems like corporations and rich people are breaking the backs of the lower classes so that they can get mega rich… the health insurance companies … my Blue Cross went from $2K out of pocket to $5K the next year… it’s crazy.
Solid information here. I am continuing to for more info on natural health and would very much appreciate any recommendations. Thank You!
Very considerate and thrilling post! I’ve been trying around for one of the best Jobs In Dallas TX and located an awesome website for them and your site looked like your readers might value it so I’ve linked to it here!
Test it out!
- All the very best
I like your website’s post and all and i enjoy the template also the visuals but maybe it needs a renovation, its been quite some time, what do you guys think?
*I was very pleased to find this web-site.I wanted to thanks for your time for this wonderful read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post.