Dropping in...
We've just returned from two weeks in Denver to celebrate my mother-in-law's 80th birthday. It was a wonderful event with over 220 people.
Still overloaded and overbooked so don't have time to write but I wanted to share this economic commentary from James Quinn, senior director of strategic planning, Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania.
The most significant quote for me was this one... "The debt induced spending that occurred from 2001 until 2007 accounted for virtually all the GDP growth over this time."
Here's the article with some excellent charts from several different sources.
The Great Consumer Crash of 2009
~Enjoy
posted by Gayle Washburn @ 3:50 PM
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I watched in amazement for years, wondering how all the people around me could afford 2,000 sq ft houses, new cars, three vacations a year, and weekly movie and restaraunt visits while my family never went anywhere, couldn't afford to, rented a really small house and had to buy a used $1,000 or $2,000 vehicle with our income tax return in order to make ends meet.
Despite our constantly, for the most part, penney pinching ways, we are still further in the hole than we were last year when we were nearly debt free and had some savings. This year we are very much more in debt, and have barely any savings, and have also given up, for now, on our dream of buying the home we hoped to get last year though my husband is working overtime like crazy. Not because of frivality but because the cost of gasoline and rent are higher, the cost of food has skyrocketed beyond belief and we have 4 kids to feed.
I told my two oldest daughters, who couldn't get aid this year (although we are low income) they are better off finishing community college with an associate degree for now and working their way up the latter than getting $40,000 in debt for a bachelor degree and then not being able to find a job to pay for it.
Employers are going to have to get back to the basics we had before the 1990s when you didn't need a bachelor degree to flip burgers for minimum wage.
Do I sound negative? Well this article struck a cord with me. Those living high on the hog may be now paying the piper, but we are too despite the fact that we sucked it up for years, constantly doing without, buying clothes and furniture at the thrift stores and used on Craig's list and working our fingers to the bone for nothing.
What did we get in return?our landlord got greedy and uped our rent $600 more a month one year, so we had to move and then someone tampered with our vehicles to the tune of $6,000 in one year in Fillmore. So in order to ever get to where we could save any money we had to spend our tiny savings of $4,000 to move just so we could save up. Add to that my employer cut me so he could get another two people to do my job for much less money because he was angry at me for not being willing to go to a business meeting and work all night on my daughter's birthday. One of the people he hired is a woman who complained about me so she could steel my job away. Then the people all spread a rumor around El Dorado that I got fired because of her complaint which wasn't true. I got cut because I wasn't willing to work on my daughter's birthday. And thank God I didn't because the ass hired the woman to work at the same place though she tried previously to get me fired.
Then realizing the two people he hired couldn't do the job I worked at relentlessly for nearly four years for DOG SNOT WAGES he asked me to come back in the most insulting way. Adding further insult to injury he then proceeded to publicly praise the people who couldn't do my job. Adding even more insult to injury after over eight months of his never being able to truly replace my talent (a vindication from God on my behalf) and after I turned down a much better paying job with a more prestigious company than he could ever compete with, just so I wouldn't have to put the ill tempered individual out of business by working for a competitor he could never compete against.
now the blogs are praising his company because he found a so-so other employee to replace what the woman who stole my job never could.
I still love all the nice people we left behind in Fillmore but I'm glad I don't have to live there for the next election. I am also glad I don't have to live with the mean cold spirited rumors any longer, or the car tampering, or the people who tried to destroy my talent, which was God given, and I had long before I ever lived there.
I will miss those of you who are genuinely nice and care about Fillmore, and I don't refer to any particular political affiliation.
But I won't miss all the mean people and I'm sure they won't miss me.
Thank you for letting me vent Gayle.
dear chat: Thanks for your comments. My heart goes out to you for the struggles you are dealing with.
It is so much harder to make it in today's world. Wages have been falling since the 70's (except for some of those jobs paid for by the taxpayers) and working people can no longer afford that middle class "American Dream". It's not just California real estate either. While we were in Denver, where housing is relatively cheap, we saw so many homeless people - that HAVE jobs!
My best to you and your family.
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