"RECESSION!!!???" Whadda you, kiddin' me or what?

You gotta be fucking kidding me here. (11.75 / 4)

Sure I see beemers on the road all the time too. I see a lot more ancient cars all taped together with bondo.

I know people too, who are buying shit like that on credit; and then figuring since their about to go chapter 11 or 7 or whatever the fuck, it will be wiped clean.

Recession my ass... its a fucking Depression, dude. Sure, when you are working the people who can still afford concert tickets of any ilk, you see our upper echelons.

But the fact remains I don't know ONE household anymore that isn't either unemployed or under-employed by one of its members.

Drive the sidestreets not the mainstreets and see the foreclosures every third house.... See the fucking homeless camps springing up.

I do. EVERY fucking day... and the "Will work for food" people on every corner.

You think there is no monetary problem here? Our food banks are overwhelmed. People are freecycling clothes at Churches, and garage saling for the rest. People are dumping all their former toys, boats, jet skis, snow mobiles, even bicycles.

They "recession" isn't making people buy more, its making them trade more among themselves.... making families move in together, crowded as hell.

A drive by and your some middle america expert?

This is beyond recession, maestro, we are dying here... a slow death that will only get worse as the numbers PROVE my opinion.... the class and asset division between the haves and the have nots have risen exponentially this last decade.

I'm wide awake, my brutha... and just cuz you drove by my window and smelled the stew, don't mean you know how many I'm feeding inside or when they last ate.

Middle america ain't buying shit. We may watch TV, but we are already THERE by necessity; and don't need any outsider telling us how good we have it. We already know we are doomed, and are setting up to survive it alone.

Fuck capitalism. We are already there in an army of jobless migrants.

Your rant is totally tone-deaf, babe.

Tone fucking deaf.

---

by: Diane Gee @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 19:46:16 PM UTC

Remember (0.00 / 0)

Arthur G used to be your soulmate, right? He still is. You two are moving through different mindscaped. As you say yourself, he by necessity is seeing places where money is still flowing. So allow yourself to latch on to his mystery tour and he might appreciate your experience better.

Don't Panic

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by: fortytwo @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 00:09:39 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Never a soulmate.. (9.00 / 3)

I use that term only rarely.

He is kind soul I have met, but we operate on different frequencies.

I am not angry with him, and he knows me well enough to know that... but we have no problem butting heads until we find common ground.

It is hard for me watching all of us choke and gag from black mold, and my ceiling caving in & no money to fix it when I used to have an excellent job, when I am always one paycheck away from foreclosure, as are my friends to hear anyone say its all a joke.

Fuck that. He is a friend, not a soulmate, and as a friend my duty is to call bullshit.

He may have dropped out once, but right now? By his own admission, he is playing for people he does not respect, and going places he doesn't like... all to make his cash.

We are all whores when we have to be.

For another thing, no life is purer than anyone elses.

Noit unless we can magically walk in another's shoes.

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by: Diane Gee @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 00:41:32 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Surely you jest.. (10.00 / 3)

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by: Mary4 @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 21:47:30 PM UTC

Hey bud (12.00 / 3)

 I opened my mail up on Friday morning to a panicked daughter. She's been unemployed for almost two years and she didn't receive her unemployment check this week. She's been getting food stamps and her medical is provided by BadgerCare up in Wi. She just had major surgery a month ago, she's still recovering and hasn't gotten the green light to begin physical therapy. She was pulling in about 8 bucks an hour as a chef before the restaurant she worked at closed.

She's one of those statistics you read about - you know, one of the 5 applicants for every job opening. The blue dog democrats and asshole republicans in the senate killed the emergency unemployment extension last week. By the end of the month there will be 1.25 jobless Americans with no income.

No meager safety net.

We live on social security disability and veterans compensation and we'll pull it together to send her what we can.

Ironic, eh?

Don't fucking tell me that the recession is some manufactured crisis. I live in a working class neighborhood. Mixed housing - some rental duplexes, some single family homes and 6 houses on my street are empty showing auction and short sale signs.

Our friends are broke and falling further behind. Their kids, like ours, used to make enough to get by. Now everyone I know has tightened their belts and cut their  budgets.

We're not buying fancy cars.

We're not buying toys and taking vacations on credit.

We're hanging on, making do and trying to prepare for shit to get worse because we see the signs.

 

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by: Louise @ Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 23:34:35 PM UTC

Folks... (0.00 / 0)

Are people paying some dues?

Sure.

I'm one of them. Been scuffling...with short periods of relative prosperity...since I dropped almost completely out of the mainstream Omertican scene in the late '60s.

By choice.

In a criminal society, the honest human is if not criminalized at least marginalized.

Money is the domestic sword of this system. Go along to get along and you will be taken care of.

Rebel?

Question?

Your ass is outta here.

My point is that...back and forth and  up and down this country...the majority of people are thriving.

On credit?

Yup.

That's the way (Uh huh, uh huh) they like it. (Uh huh, uh huh.) (The controllers, that is.)

Is this system headed for a dead end?

I dunno.

I doubt it, myself.

The rest of the world...the whole enchilada, the big, big picture, the gestalt of it all...needs us to keep sucking down their goodies.

The continual economic dirge being sounded on the mainstream media? Night and day, day and night, deep in the (dark) heart of it?

A ploy to keep the rubes running scared.

Buying scared.

Watch out, motherfuckers or you will end up scuffling like Diane G., AG and all'a them brownish people you see looking for work. Pay attention. Obey!!!

And "we"...the smart ones, the best of the best in some respects...swallow the line whole.

Why...yes indeed. The whole thing seems to be falling apart!!!

I call bullshit.

Sure, there are some people paying some dues.

Always have been; always will be.

BUT THE MACHINE JES' KEEPS ON A'ROLLIN' ALONG!!!

I am here to tell you that over the length and breadth of this country, the clomp-clomp-clomping middle class is out spending money.

On cars.

On houses.

On entertainment.

On bullshit of all varieties.

This is an undeniable fact. I have seen it with my own eyes.

In NYC I recently walked past a 60-ish group of tourists on 44th St. near 8th Ave...the edge of Times Square. As they went by me I overheard one...looking around at all of the taxis, the people headed out for a night on the town, the hotels and parking lots being constructed...say to his wife "I thought there was a recession going on!!!"

I have seen the same thing on the highways and byways of America over the past two weeks.

Everywhere.

Shocking but true.

Sorry, folks.

You've been had once again.

Ain't no "recession."

Just an ongoing control mechanism.

Too big to fail.

Bet on it.

AG


The best lack all convictions, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.-W.B. Yeats

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by: Arthur Gilroy @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 04:15:10 AM UTC

"the majority of people are thriving" (8.50 / 2)

You just aren't getting it.

This has nothing to do with disinformation or propaganda - if we believed that we would believe the "green shoots" and "recovery" crapola they pour on us.

I'm talking on-the-ground, talking to our neighbors, friends and relatives reality here.

THERE.

ARE.

NO.

JOBS.

The only part I remotely agree with is that this is a planned shock doctrine to make us grateful and complacent in becoming a third-world working class.

China is becoming a bigger consumer than we are.... hence the fight over who controls the oil and gas going there.

The people you see "out" aren't spending "excess" income for the most part - they are doing without in some other area of their lives for a chance at escapism; they are going out and trying to self-medicate in alcohol to ease their pain.

As far as "better off than the rest of the world" Northern Europe laughs at us and calls us wage slaves. All of Social Democracy Scandanavia is much better of than we are.

The middle class ain't spending money, you are only seeing whats left of the UMC- people in FIRE jobs. (finance, insurance real estate)

The rest of us are losing our shit, not buying more - as the class war divides us further into poor and elites by the day. Soon there will be no more middle class.

We make nothing here, there are only paper shufflers. The few cars still being built are all luxury cars, because the elites are the only ones left with the money to buy a thing.

Wait until all those people in the UMC default on the credit cards... you ain't seen nothing yet.

---

by: Diane Gee @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 11:45:25 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

As a side comment... (3.00 / 1)

I find it...entertaining...that so many people no longer see the real world that surrounds them. Instead they see a virtual world that is totally controlled by the corporate-owned media. This ongoing process...the internet is being eaten alive by it as we speak...is by far the greatest control mechanism ever invented by human beings. It puts the next most successful attempt, the various devolved so-called "major religions"...way back in second place.

Way back.

Bet on it.

Not only does it trump religion in terms of making people believe things that they cannot see with heir own eyes, it actually makes them not see what is plainly visible.

Miracle!!!

Turn off your media and go out in the world.

Please.

You be bettah off.

Bet on it.

AG

The best lack all convictions, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.-W.B. Yeats

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by: Arthur Gilroy @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 11:13:11 AM UTC

"see the real world?" (11.00 / 1)

AG, you dropped out 50 years ago and had some kind of epiphany... but not enough where you stayed dropped out.

Perhaps you need to try it again.

Jazz playahs may not come from the Elites, but the world they service certainly is the Elite world. Even whgen we went and saw your fantastic concert that time... do you think for a second you were in a room of average middle class Americans?

No, the people at that event in the room with us were the elitist intellectual snobs, who never had a callous on their hands in their pampered lives.... they are the people whose houses I clean. University People.

You wanna drop out and see my world, put aside your one talent for 6 months, and try and live another way. Who would hire you and to do what, and how would you eat?

Dude. Think about it.If your lips fell off tomorrow, how would you live?

People ain't afraid because the TV or Net hype... they are afraid because there is no income to be had. Change oil for $7 an hour, or be a cook for $8? Clean toilets for the few elites left?

These are people, my people who once had a skill like yours, a specialty they excelled at, and their jobs all went to India and Viet Nam.

This ain't no 50 years ago my dear.

Being off the radar means hunger, illness, death.

---

by: Diane Gee @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 11:54:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

You write: (0.00 / 0)

Being off the radar means hunger, illness, death.

Often true.

And being a leftiness clone appears to mean not seeing the nose in front of your face if said nose does not match your opinion of what is up in the world.

Lord, Diane!!!

Stand by any of the 46,876 miles of interstates easily 16 hours a day and look at what goes by at 60+MPH. In any given mile there are quite literally multi-millions of dollars worth of automobiles, goods and expended fuel passing by. A different multi-million each minute!!!

Times 46,876 miles.

Multiplied probably twice or three times again by the non-interstate travel system.

And this is just one corner of the active wealth of his country.

The millions of people who are working for the hundreds of thousands of companies still thriving.

The millions of still profitable stores and consumer businesses like restaurants, auto shops, gas stations, grocery stores, dry cleaners, etc. How do I know that they are still profitable? Because they are still fucking open for business.

The black market drug world. Hugely profitable.

And he biggest moneymaker of all, the military and its suppliers.

The U.S. is still the largest, most successful business in the world.

is it "correct?"

Not in any moral sense that I understand, but in the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest sense? Yup. "Correct" like a motherfucker because it is still here!!!

Will it survive. this herd?

I do not believe that there is any extant combination of predators and plagues  in view that is powerful enough to take it down in the foreseeable future. An act of God...the huge west coast earthquake  that has been predicted to someday occur, for example...or perhaps a nuclear error of some kind, but other than that? Nope. It's not going anywhere.

Can you not see the sheer power of this country?

Sure you're in trouble, as are many of your friends. But I am here to tell you that...unfair as this may be...there is still more than enough to go around here. You have to go out and git some.

Any which way you can.

I had a great brass instrument  teacher who used to say "You can't practice a note until you can play it. If it sounds bad, at least it's there."

The work and money are out there. It is not "moral" work and money in many respects, and you have to be able to swallow your pride (and often a large amount of bile as well) in order to get it and do it, but it is there. Do you think that I am out here playing avant-garde jazz? HELL no!!! I am performing a necessary function in a schlock situation in order to finance my living needs, and so it goes.

Your friends, family and yourself? Survival of the fittest, my friend, and the word "fittest" does not always or even often mean "the most morally correct" in any sense that it such a concept is normally understood. The life of Life...evolution, the idea that used to be called "the will of God"...works in strange and mysterious ways. It has no truck with individuals or their needs or desires; it just does shit. In its own infinite interests. Figure out what it is doing at the moment and then find the best survival path that is somehow in line with that set of actions. Are we totally doomed here in the U.S.? Is it all going to collapse around our heads like a house of burning cards? Then emulate the brave Central Americans who undoubtedly work (and perhaps live) in your neighborhood and get the hell out of Dodge any way that you can. Head for Canada or Sweden or China or wherever else seems to you to be the most likely place where you can survive.

Or...hunker down and work your ass off.

I am.

And good luck to you any way it goes.

But...not seeing the thriving woods for the struggling trees is an act of hypnosis, whether that hypnosis is self-inflicted, media-driven or any combination thereof. Go stand by your nearest interstate and count the cars and trucks going by. That is the lifeblood of America flowing past your very eyes, million of dollars per minute. If you ain't getting any (or enough) then go git some!!! You have the talent and intelligence to do so...as do most of your friends, more than likely.

I dunno what else to say, Diane.

The monster is not nearly dead. Sacrifice yourself In some way because you find it ugly?

I hope not.

Later...

AG

The best lack all convictions, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.-W.B. Yeats

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by: Arthur Gilroy @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 15:56:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You are right (11.33 / 3)

There is no depression.  If I just stopped paying attention to the media, I wouldn't have seen Wolf Blitzer's story about my struggling tree of a father and how the house across the street from him is selling for 15 grand. According to Diane Rehm, it has been on the market for about one year.
Yup...it is all a lie by the media....the same media that is telling us things aren't REALLY that bad with the economyoilspillxenophobia....and what wars are u talking about? Those ended the day the DaliObama was elected, didn't u know that?

Wake up dude.  that forest is 99% struggling trees, and there is a clear cut  coming. We struggling trees are gonna be used as mulch for the ruling oaks.

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by: Elián Maricón @ Tue Jun 22, 2010 at 20:15:40 PM UTC

Watch (0.00 / 0)

And wait.

Everything gets better except the last thing.

And this is not "the last thing."

Not by a long shot.

Watch.

Life ain't through with us yet.

Watch.

AG

The best lack all convictions, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.-W.B. Yeats

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by: Arthur Gilroy @ Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 03:43:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm sure Pompei Residents (0.00 / 0)

thought much the same.... and those who stayed for Katrina and ended up drowned.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the end... I am just saying you have to measure the old can-do spirit with the science.

This corexit will be devastating if it heads north, and the jobs are gone.

Pesky facts!!!

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by: Diane Gee @ Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 10:06:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Heh...we must be on the same menstrual cycle or something (12.00 / 1)

This makes me think of Romulus Augustus sitting on his throne, filled with certainty that the Holy Roman Empire would last for at least one thousand more years.

America is a comparatively young empire with the hubris of 20 Romes, Persias, etc. There a quite a few people still around who can remember the era prior to America's ascendancy to "super power" status.  

I agree that life isn't through with us yet, but I fail to see the connection with the persistence of the American empire one way or the other.  Oh g_d, I almost broke out into a little ditty 'bout Jack and Diane....

Perhaps many (most?) of us won't live to see the final brick in the White House finally crumble into dust, but the writing is on the proverbial wall...and all over the Middle East...and in the Gulf....and yes, it is even scrawled across the economy and its endless vista of struggling trees despite some folks' delusions to the contrary. I am fairly certain that if I had kids, they would live to see the end of this especially brutal empire.

Seriously, even a perfunctory glance at the "official" indices should be enough to convince anyone that "we" are fucked, e.g., unemployment, property values, the $ for what we call our "welfare state", etc.  

And I dun went n got me sum fancy-schmancy book-learnin' what says everything's a whole lot worse in reality, if'n that makes sense. An' it weren't from no tv or nuthin' that I dun heard it neither...nope, I dun bought me sum books Pa!

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by: Elián Maricón @ Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 15:26:59 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well, Elián... (0.00 / 0)

Having personally been in almost every region of the world over the last 10 years or so, all I can tell you is that other than the allied capitalist/corporate/multinatonal countries...Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim (S. Korea Japan/S.E. Asia/Australia etc.) I see no system that is not so flawed that it will not be able to survive long enough to take said capitalists down.

Not China...way too diverse, it will stumble and or crumble eventually of its own inner contradictions. Inordinate greed after centuries of poverty among billions will take it down.

Not India...the massive poverty will drag down the tech thing eventually.

Not the Islamic conservative militants...a regressive system that is to the right (and thus even stuck further in the past) than the Tea Partiers, etc.

Not Russia. It is a primitive kleptocracy masquerading as a country. Mafias only go as far as their leaders want to take them for their own personal profit and glory.

Not black Africa...civil and tribal wars will hold it down for another 50 years. Possibly longer. Bet on it.

South/Central/Caribbean America?

Maybe. But only if it unites, Mexico to Argentina. La Raza!!! The final and triumphant blending of European, African and AmerIndian/Asian strains of homo sapiens. And that will also take 50 years or more if it happens at all. Generatons.

What's left?

Rotten ol' us.

Sorry.

I really am.

But there it is.

Watch.

AG

The best lack all convictions, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.-W.B. Yeats

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by: Arthur Gilroy @ Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 21:39:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]