Recession-Depression 2012

The Next Housing Shock

post 4/4/11

99 Weeks: When Unemployment Benefits Run Out

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/30/AR2010063000022.html?wpisrc=nl_pmheadline

By Michael A. Fletcher

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The recession has directly hit more than half of the nation's working adults, pushing them into unemployment, pay cuts, reduced hours at work or part-time jobs, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The economic shock has jolted many Americans into a new, more austere reality, which is likely to have lasting consequences for an economy fueled mostly by consumer spending. More than six in 10 Americans say they have cut down on borrowing and spending, the survey found.
The reason: Nearly half of the survey's respondents say they are in worse financial shape as a result of the downturn, which destroyed 20 percent of Americans' wealth.
"We're going to see much lower consumption going forward," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He blames diminished spending on the drop in housing prices. "People who thought they had equity in their homes have seen it disappear," he said.
The longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression has exacted a punishing toll that continues nearly a year after the economy started growing again. Hardest hit are the 9.7 percent of workers who have been out of a job for an average of nearly six months. Many Americans are delaying retirement and others have lower expectations for their children's futures, the Pew poll found.
Among adults 62 and older who are still working, 35 percent say they have postponed retirement. Six in 10 working adults between ages 50 and 61 say they may be forced to do the same. Meanwhile, half of the survey respondents say they have whittled down their mortgages, credit card balances, car loans and other borrowing.
Four in 10 adults say they have tapped savings and retirement accounts to make ends meet. Others have sought help from friends and family. Almost a quarter say they have borrowed money from someone. And one in 10 -- including 24 percent of workers from 18 to 29 years old -- say they moved back in with their parents to weather the economic storm.
The new, more frugal lifestyles may outlast the recession and its immediate aftermath, the survey indicated. Nearly half of respondents say they plan to save more; nearly a third say they plan to spend less and 30 percent say they plan to borrow less.
While a broad swath of Americans have been hurt by the recession, blacks, who have a 15.5 percent unemployment rate, and Hispanics, whose jobless rate is 12.4 percent, have suffered disproportionately. Not only have they endured massive job losses, but they also have been hardest hit by housing foreclosures. Still, black and Hispanic workers are among the most upbeat groups about their personal financial situations and the national economy, the survey found.
"One likely explanation for these seemingly counter-intuitive patterns is that the election of Barack Obama (which came at the height of the recession in November 2008) appears to have put his most enthusiastic supporters -- especially blacks, Democrats and young adults -- in a more positive state of mind about many aspects of national life, including their perceptions of the economy," the report said.
Overall, Democrats are now much more optimistic than Republicans about the economy, even though they have lower incomes and less wealth and have suffered more job losses during the recession. For most of the time that President George W. Bush was in office, Republicans were more upbeat than Democrats about the economy.
Even as they continue to reel from the downturn, most Americans are beginning to believe that the worst is over. More than six in 10 respondents say they expect their personal financial situation to improve in the next year, which the report called the rosiest outlook since before the recession began in December 2007. Similarly, 61 percent predict that the damage caused by the recession will be temporary.
Results for the Pew survey are based on telephone interviews conducted May 11 to 31 on landline phones and cellphones with a nationally representative sample of 2,967 adults 18 and older. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points for the overall results. Interviews were done in English and Spanish by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.



June 11, 2010

by Tim Cox, Leader of GOOOH (Get Out Of Our House)

A leading member of the Senate argues in this video that the U.S. Tax System is completely voluntary. Yes, you read that correctly. In the most Orwellian bit of doublespeak ever offered, including anything printed in the classic 1984 itself, this leading Senator says with a straight face that our tax system is completely voluntary. You may have to go to jail or pay penalties, but he says, “it is a voluntary tax system." I challenge any person in America to watch the video and tell me the Senator makes sense. The scariest part is he somehow believes what he is saying. Representative Hank Johnson of GA, who worried the island of Guam might tip over if we deployed 10,000 soldiers and their families, might not be the dumbest Congressman after all.
How can our Republic survive if we have politicians like these running our country? Senator Ensign of NV is now speaking optimistically about re-election despite lobbying violations with his mistress’s husband. Representative Stouder resigned his seat after an affair with a staff member, with whom he had been actively promoting abstinence. A candidate to replace Senator Dodd of CT, who is widely assumed to be resigning because of his sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial or his corrupt relationship with Fannie and Freddie, or both, is in hot water for lying about his service in Vietnam, again. He seems to have forgotten that he never actually served overseas, thanks to five consecutive deferments. Why do we support political parties and characters like these?
Now I’m going to make a few of you mad with these next comments, but this must be said. These people are ruining our country. Many of them are idiots and liars, and more than 90% of them get re-elected every two years because WE continue to support this corrupt system. How much longer are we going allow this broken system to persist? For those who are questioning the re-election rate, note in 53 districts in CA on Tuesday, not a single incumbent was defeated. The system is rigged. It is time to fix it.
Two-thirds of those surveyed in a recent USA Today poll describe themselves as "angry" about the way things are going in the USA, the highest percentage in the decade the question has been asked. By nearly 2-1, they would rather vote for a candidate who has never served in Congress over one with experience. The number of people claiming to be Independent is approaching 40%, with less than a third claiming they are Democrats (32%) or Republicans (28%). Yet 90% of incumbents will win their re-election bid in the House this November.
Are you ready to do things differently? We have the solution, but it does not look like we will get the numbers we need to effect the needed change in 2010. That is more than disappointing, but watching the incumbents win in primary after primary across America I am more convinced than ever that our plan is the only solution. Trying to take the politicians on in individual races is not working and never will. We must convince our family and friends to join us.
Albert Einstein once said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” I am as committed to this effort as ever. Our leaders are committed. We are shifting our focus to 2012 and will adjust our strategy since it is obvious the national media is going to ignore us; we hope you will stick with us. We will continue reaching out to every group in America with the understanding that as soon as enough of us rally around this non-partisan approach we can retake control of our government. With two more years, we will have time to reach our membership goal and take the incumbents out in the primaries. If those who feared splitting the vote will get on board, we can elect true citizen representatives in a landslide. I just hope 2012 isn’t too late.
We are building a list of political group leaders. When you receive an email from someone announcing an event or recommending an action, please forward the message to goooh@goooh.com.

There will always be those who insist on supporting the corrupt parties and the broken system, yet we need but one sixth of 1% of the population to join us to execute our plan. Do what you can to get others to become a member. Ask those you have told about GOOOH if they have created an account. If not, help them create one. Convince them we must do things differently or our nation will continue to deteriorate. If they are not yet ready to join perhaps they will be after November. Nothing of significance will change in Washington until we FIRE CONGRESS! I promise to continue doing everything I can to make that happen. I hope you will as well. 

In Liberty,

 

Tim Cox







original post 5/4/10