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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / A Terrifying Situation

A Terrifying Situation

by John Cole|  September 20, 20109:42 am| 137 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Tax Policy, Assholes

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This NY Times piece is quite frightening:

Patricia Reid is not in her 70s, an age when many Americans continue to work. She is not even in her 60s. She is just 57.

But four years after losing her job she cannot, in her darkest moments, escape a nagging thought: she may never work again.

College educated, with a degree in business administration, she is experienced, having worked for two decades as an internal auditor and analyst at Boeing before losing that job.

But that does not seem to matter, not for her and not for a growing number of people in their 50s and 60s who desperately want or need to work to pay for retirement and who are starting to worry that they may be discarded from the work force — forever.

Since the economic collapse, there are not enough jobs being created for the population as a whole, much less for those in the twilight of their careers.

Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.

It really is just enough to make your blood boil. Millions of Americans like Patricia did what they were supposed to do. They worked their whole lives, were dedicated to a company, they lived within their means (as she must have, because she has been unemployed for years and is still in her home), and because of the economic downturn brought on by unprecedented greed of the FIRE crowd, she may spend the rest of her life barely making it, if she is lucky. There will never be enough job creation in the short term (3-5 years) to soak up all the people like her. Hell, the way things look, we may be at 10 percent unemployment forever.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a bunch of over-privileged whiny-ass titty babies bitching about their bonuses, and the Republicans, the glibertarians, and the blue dogs, all think the people who matter are the bonus babies. Not Patricia Reid. Meanwhile, that same crew of creeps is doing everything they can to extend tax cuts for the very rich while cutting large holes in the safety net that would protect her. It really is this simple- the Republican and glibertarian world view is that Donald Trump needs a tax cut, and Patricia Reid needs to wait until she is 68 or 70 to collect social security- at a reduced rate, because we “can’t afford it.”

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Reader Interactions

137Comments

  1. 1.

    CA Doc

    September 20, 2010 at 9:45 am

    Preach it, brother. Terrifying and disgusting.

  2. 2.

    "Fair and Balanced" Dave

    September 20, 2010 at 9:47 am

    In addition to everything you’ve mentioned above, there’s also the continuing issue of US companies sending jobs overseas and–to add insult to injury–getting a tax break for doing it.

  3. 3.

    Gravie

    September 20, 2010 at 9:49 am

    I went “free-lance” at the age of 56 after working for 25 years for a national nonprofit organization. Like Patricia, I had high-level skills and a lengthy and worthwhile resume. But it wasn’t until I spent three years trying unsuccessfully to find another job — and worrying that I might never work again — that I was lucky enough to land my current position. I know that I’m the exception, and my heart goes out to everyone who hasn’t had the same luck. It is truly terrifying to be without prospects at this stage of life.

  4. 4.

    BR

    September 20, 2010 at 9:49 am

    The part about this that fucking pisses me off the most is that GOP assholes and their Dem enablers have been doing this for the three decades that are leading up to the most fundamental challenges our society will face – peak oil and climate change. You’d think given that these two issues have been known for many decades by scientists (and Presidents named Carter) they would have be putting our economy on a sure enough footing to survive what’s to come. But no, even in the absence of peak oil, we’re at 10% unemployment like John says.

    The best studies I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot) all seem to agree that we’re going to the decline slope of oil production (i.e. be past peak) somewhere between 2012 and 2015. What’s our economy going to look like then? Are we just going to see Goldman Sachs making tons of money on oil derivatives?

    Rant off.

  5. 5.

    BudP

    September 20, 2010 at 9:52 am

    There is your simple slogan Dems…

    The Republican Plan
    Tax Cuts for Trump … Wage Cuts for You

  6. 6.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 20, 2010 at 9:55 am

    Millions of Americans like Patricia did what they were supposed to do.

    Which is what, exactly? Be good little consumers?

  7. 7.

    lacp

    September 20, 2010 at 9:55 am

    This didn’t start yesterday; the age discrimination thing has been around for a long time and the economic mess has made it much, much worse. I first got laid off in 1995, at age 44. Over the last 15 years, I have been unemployed for a total of over 2 years and earned $8/hr. or less for over 5 years. I currently make a liveable salary (for a single guy, anyway) at a job I loathe. Am I planning on leaving? NO. WAY.

  8. 8.

    Emma

    September 20, 2010 at 9:56 am

    One of my best friends is exactly in this situation, with the added complication of having a pre-existing health condition. He has been able to find only temp jobs for the past two years. Currently, he’s living in a friend’s sofa, storing all his wordly goods, and working for the census — until October. I feel lucky to have a job that allows me to help him a bit, but I am terrified for his long term prospects.

    Oh well — I do have a perfectly suitable spare bedroom, so if worse comes to worse, we’ll make do. But God I worry for those who don’t have anything or anyone.

  9. 9.

    Punchy

    September 20, 2010 at 9:57 am

    We could fix this if we’d just deport/kill all those wetbax and allow these pentagenarians to pick lettuce for $50/hour.

  10. 10.

    Scott

    September 20, 2010 at 10:00 am

    When I was last unemployed, I’d just hit 40, and the job counselor I talked to told me, “Congratulations, you’ve just hit the age where employers will start to pass you over for jobs because they think you’re too old.”

    Since then, it’s seemed to me that if you can get hired for a job after 50, you’re almost impossibly lucky. But of course, we’ve got to keep people from retiring until they’re 70 because sumphin sumphin mumble mumble.

  11. 11.

    SpotWeld

    September 20, 2010 at 10:02 am

    @Emma: What you said:

    if worse comes to worse, we’ll make do

    Is a reasonable responce.
    And I think you underscore the point being highlighted by John Cole. Above a certain income bracket, being expected to “make do” with less is just unreasonable for someone making over $250k

  12. 12.

    zzyzx

    September 20, 2010 at 10:02 am

    @BR:

    The best studies I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot) all seem to agree that we’re going to the decline slope of oil production (i.e. be past peak) somewhere between 2012 and 2015. What’s our economy going to look like then? Are we just going to see Goldman Sachs making tons of money on oil derivatives?

    Actually, I think peak oil will help our economy because it will make outsourcing less practical. Manufacturing will have to come back closer to where the consumers are which will create more jobs.

  13. 13.

    flitterbic

    September 20, 2010 at 10:03 am

    Patricia was let go because, obviously, she caused the 2-yr delay of the 777. I imagine her bonus would be upwards of $1,000 had she not caused all the problems. She could have then been treating herself to something nice at Costco instead of reading about herself in the Times. Shame on you, Patricia.

  14. 14.

    ItAintEazy

    September 20, 2010 at 10:03 am

    Can we finally add Bill Clinton to the roster of useless Blue Dog Democrats, because if he and his kind represents main stream Democratic political thought, then what we really have in this country is a Corporatist Party and a Proto-Fascist Party.

    Where are the jobs gonna come from? Where is the money to finance ’em gonna come from? And can people do them? For the first time in my lifetime, David, we are coming out of recession with posted job openings. That is, tomorrow Monday, you could get that job. These jobs have been offered. They’re going up twice as fast as job hires in this horrible economy. Why? Because of two things. First, over 10 million of our fellow citizens are living in homes that are worth less than their mortgages.

    Oh, and I also love this quote:

    There are five million people who could go to work tomorrow, if they were trained to do the jobs that are open, and the unemployment rate in America would immediately drop from 9.6 to about seven percent or 6.9.

    Ha-hee… Last time I checked, there were only 3 million jobs available (if there are five unemployed people for every job available and there are 15 million people unemployed… you do the math). When the hell did he get so out of touch?

  15. 15.

    MattF

    September 20, 2010 at 10:05 am

    Don’t forget Joe Miller, Republican candidate for US Senator from Alaska, who wants to do away with unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Medicare. And says so, in public.

  16. 16.

    mem from somerville

    September 20, 2010 at 10:06 am

    They worked their whole lives, were dedicated to a company

    Yeah, I can remember people telling me about those days….My work career started with a company I chose. I had done the research, I liked them. Three months after I got there they were bought. Layoffs ensue, of course….

    Next company I joined was acquired 30 days after I arrived. Layoffs, site closings, etc ensue, of course.

    You can’t join a company and expect to stay there anymore. Through no fault of your own. But it’s not even possible to be loyal now. Why bother?

  17. 17.

    someguy

    September 20, 2010 at 10:09 am

    Waaaaaah.

    She wanted to work at a huge (and crooked) defense contractor, she made her choices. This is what she gets for lying down with thieves. I guess she should be angry that the Pentagon procurement officers that Boeing bought didn’t stay bought when threatened with jail terms.

  18. 18.

    Southern Beale

    September 20, 2010 at 10:11 am

    A very good friend of mine in his early 60s is in this same position. It’s pretty scary, and the whole idea that we’re going to “save” Social Security by making people work longer is completely idiotic when you remember older people are often the first to be laid off because they have such “generous” benefit packages.

  19. 19.

    JohnR

    September 20, 2010 at 10:12 am

    Yeah – we’re in exactly that situation. I’m lucky enough to work for an organization that’s still pretty flexible about keeping us 50-odders at our excessive pay ($40K! insert clip of Daffy Duck diving into Ali Baba’s treasure piles), but I have no retirement savings, after spending the first half of my career years being a student and working for non-profits. I hope they keep me on until I hit 60; I’m pretty confident I won’t make it past that, since I’m not an administrator. My wife, despite years of training and experience at a very specialized job, finds herself out of work for the rest of her life, almost certainly, because the job market is so tight that employers can hire hot young kids with PhDs to do MS-level jobs, and desperate top-drawer folks with great seniority to do entry-level PhD jobs. Too bad it’s a bit late in life to retrain as a nurse. Well, like the weather, this is the new normal. When we run out of bread, we can always eat cake.

  20. 20.

    Bob In Pacifica

    September 20, 2010 at 10:13 am

    @BR: Since most of the cited advocates of peak oil are connected to Big Oil, I tend to doubt that peak oil is our biggest threat. Peak Oil is a great way to motivate slackers into supporting wars in places where the black bubbly is under the sand.

    I would worry more about Peak Glaciers or Peak Atmospheric Oxygen as far as resources go.

    Otherwise, yeah, I worked my last job at age 55. I reached Peak Employment.

  21. 21.

    Southern Beale

    September 20, 2010 at 10:14 am

    Joe Miller wants to make unemployment benefits “unconstitutional.” A lot of his fellow Teanuts would like to make being poor illegal. Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

  22. 22.

    Face

    September 20, 2010 at 10:15 am

    If you think its f’ed up that wrinklies cant get gigs, you should see the mess that’s facing new college graduates. Huge student loans to pay off, with almost no new jobs available, these kids are screwed more ways than Jenna Jamison. No money, shitty car, shitty living conditions, and huge monthly debt/bills, and they’re serving tables at the Ground Round.

  23. 23.

    toujoursdan

    September 20, 2010 at 10:18 am

    @Bob In Pacifica:

    James Howard Kunstler is connected to big oil, how?

    Actually, Big Oil and their suppliers keep peak oil quiet because it signals a loss of political and business power. Try telling your shareholders or citizens that the commodity that runs business or economy has no future.

  24. 24.

    jibeaux

    September 20, 2010 at 10:19 am

    I’m just sort of winging it here with a new thought, but what if we had a sort of a version of AmeriCorps for older workers. It’s not in anyone’s interest to have scads of workers competing for scarce jobs, to have some intergenerational warfare with young grads with college loans to pay off competing with older workers who may be seen as less desirable employees. It could be a program that pays a stipend to experienced, educated older workers who have skills and experience to share but who may have been unable to get a job in the very-competitive competitive marketplace, and the stipend would be for some sort of service-oriented work like teaching continuing education classes, or tutoring, or whatever else it is you’re good at and can serve the public with. Oh, and my version would also cover you under Medicare, since you are going to need that. My guess is that even with a crappy stipend like AmeriCorps has, if you combined it with Medicare, you would probably get a lot of enthusiastic participants and it could be a win-win scenario.

  25. 25.

    Jeff

    September 20, 2010 at 10:19 am

    either the trolls were let out from under the bridge early, or there is some world-class deadpan snark going on here– I vote for the former, but wish it were the latter.

  26. 26.

    low-tech cyclist

    September 20, 2010 at 10:20 am

    @ItAintEazy: Can we finally add Bill Clinton to the roster of useless Blue Dog Democrats[?]

    Fuck, yeah. After the 1994 midterms kicked him in the balls, he was all but useless as an advocate for anything remotely left of center. And he wasn’t so great before then – thought that if he did a favor for the business community by passing NAFTA, then they’d return the favor by backing him on health care reform. What a sucker.

    What’s weird is that, now, Dems want him to come in and campaign with them. Back in the 1990s when he was President, Dems in those same districts were running away from him, just as they’re now running away from Obama. Dems really are a pathetic bunch of scared rabbits. Too bad the Scared Rabbit Party is as good a choice as we get.

  27. 27.

    JITC

    September 20, 2010 at 10:20 am

    The article mentions this:

    Ms. Reid is in some ways luckier than others. Boeing paid her a six-month severance, and she has health care benefits that cover her and her husband for $40 a month.

    Lucky indeed! There could be an article twice the length of this one on how job loss for those older than 50 has affected health coverage, and thus health care.

    We have no health care safety net for this population in particular – people who have been working, saving and living within their means who lose their jobs. This being prudent disqualifies them from Medicaid or other programs reserved for the very poor. And, at age 50, insurance is usually very expensive due to age alone and/or the very good likelihood of some sort of pre-existing condition.

  28. 28.

    cleek

    September 20, 2010 at 10:20 am

    @mem from somerville:

    But it’s not even possible to be loyal now. Why bother?

    i gave up on loyalty years ago.

    now i’m a mercenary contractor. i refuse to decorate my cubicle, and i do not attend company functions. i see no reason to pretend i’m part of The Team anymore – i know the only real team members anywhere are the management guys – and they’d happily swap me for a guy in Chennai if that’s what the bottom line requires.

    company loyalty is a one-way street: you can suck up to management and you can pretend you’re all in it together. but you’re not. so i don’t bother.

    does that make me more likely to be chosen for layoffs ? probably. but playing the game doesn’t guarantee me a job, either. so, i choose the honset way.

  29. 29.

    Comrade Dread

    September 20, 2010 at 10:21 am

    If we want to avoid such a fate, I suggest we all go into investment banking. The government seems dedicated to taking very good care of them if they run into hard times.

  30. 30.

    Kilgore Trout

    September 20, 2010 at 10:21 am

    I’m 51, and started my current job four years ago. Looking back I was pretty lucky to get it after being self-employed for the previous 10 years (I worked from home part-time and took care of the kids).

    I’m fortunate that I really like my job and make OK money (though the profit sharing went away two years ago when the economy tanked, hopefully that will come back back). But the thought of needing to find a job these days at my age, that’s just plain scary.

  31. 31.

    arguingwithsignposts

    September 20, 2010 at 10:22 am

    @someguy:
    @Bob Loblaw:
    The amount of utter compassion FAIL in both your comments sickens me to the core. I hope to FSM that is snark, because if not, I pity your poor shriveled souls.

  32. 32.

    jibeaux

    September 20, 2010 at 10:22 am

    @someguy:

    Whatever her situation, I think you’re kind of missing the point here. Substitute in an older worker with a squeaky-clean employment record working 30 years for the Widow and Orphan and Kitten Assistance League if you prefer. We have an employment problem, and we can try to mitigate it, or we can blame victims.

  33. 33.

    peach flavored shampoo

    September 20, 2010 at 10:25 am

    Unemployment insurance is anti-Darwinian.

  34. 34.

    Linda Featheringill

    September 20, 2010 at 10:26 am

    My sympathy to Patricia.

    I became unemployed at age 59. Could not even get temp work for 9-10 months. And then part time temp after that. Used up all my 401K, which wasn’t that much to begin with. Finally got this job, which is somewhat related to the old one. Pay is about 50%. Benefits suck. People are crabby [but some of the coworkers are nice]. They don’t have enough employees and we are overworked.

    The only good thing about the job is that they let me move from the office to my home. Cheaper for them that way.

    So I am overworked, underpaid, and frantically treading water.

    And I am one of the lucky ones.

  35. 35.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 20, 2010 at 10:27 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    You’re right, because as Americans, we’re all so goddamned innocent.

    When you play Russian roulette, you occasionally get reminded that one of the chambers has a bullet in it.

  36. 36.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    September 20, 2010 at 10:27 am

    The whole mess is just frustrating to sane people. Pay has been flatlined or declining for decades and many good paying jobs have been shipped overseas, our financial masters have milked the system nearly dry and companies are wondering why people don’t have any money to spend? People want to work, people want to live well and buy shit and all the Masters of the Universe can think about is screwing the public out of their last dollar. There is no long-term thinking going into anything the Masters of the Universe are doing, it’s just get rich quick and damn the consequences. Everything is that next fat bonus, paycheck or golden parachute, nothing else matters.

    What do we do when they have all the money, do we get to hit reset and start over?

  37. 37.

    andy

    September 20, 2010 at 10:29 am

    I feel I’m on track to be discarded like garbage too. We’ve had four waves of firings, a wage cut/freeze, a long period where corporate negotiated with their creditors, bankruptcy, and furlough days with more to come, no doubt.

    I understand that management down in Corporate pride themselves on Bush-style governance. They even have a prayer before board meetings.

    Just once I wish all the misery they have given in exchange for loyalty could somehow be distilled down and visited upon them in turn. I doubt it has even occurred to them that without their employees, they would have legal custody of a bunch of buildings filled with incomprehensible equipment.

  38. 38.

    John Cole

    September 20, 2010 at 10:29 am

    @Bob Loblaw: How neat. You’ve found a self-sustaining, non-consumption based commune that has internet access.

  39. 39.

    BR

    September 20, 2010 at 10:29 am

    @Bob In Pacifica:

    Peak oil is the last thing the oil industry and big business wants to acknowledge. It means for the oil industry that they’re in a dying business and for big corporations it means that their cost of doing business is going to rapidly go up with no counterbalancing rewards.

    While in the very long term this will be a good thing (decreases our use of oil the hard way, halts globalization in its tracks), in the short term it will mean even more economic hardship.

  40. 40.

    chopper

    September 20, 2010 at 10:30 am

    It really is this simple- the Republican and glibertarian world view is that Donald Trump needs a tax cut, and Patricia Reid needs to wait until she is 68 or 70 to collect social security- at a reduced rate, because we “can’t afford it.”

    indeed. the scary thing is these guys aren’t ever going to go away. they’ve been spending generations chipping away at the house the modern worker has built for himself and it’s only out of sheer luck that they haven’t razed it to the ground already.

    but they’re going to keep it up forever. they’re like the fuckin terminator. now i know why people drop everything and move out to greasy backwoods shacks in the country and drop off the face of the earth.

  41. 41.

    Earl Butz

    September 20, 2010 at 10:32 am

    Hard to make a voter give a shit that the Republicans drove the economy into a ditch, when for the last two years the Democrats have been proving that they don’t know how to drive at all.

  42. 42.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    September 20, 2010 at 10:32 am

    @Bob Loblaw:

    And I hope that one of these days you get your turn at the trigger and the chamber is loaded.

  43. 43.

    Montysano

    September 20, 2010 at 10:33 am

    @mem from somerville:

    You can’t join a company and expect to stay there anymore. Through no fault of your own. But it’s not even possible to be loyal now. Why bother?

    Not true. You can work for a small company and strive to make yourself indispensable. That’s been my strategy for the last 20 years.

    But what if the owner of said company reaches the limits of his/her vision, or loses their passion for the work? Well, that’s a whole other set of problems, and that’s where I find myself at the moment: at a dead end. In north Alabama, my other options involve working for the War Machine, which I would prefer to avoid.

  44. 44.

    lol

    September 20, 2010 at 10:33 am

    We should be lowering the retirement age, not raising it.

    Give older workers an incentive to safely retire now and free up jobs for younger folks.

    If we cut the payroll tax cap but didn’t increase the benefits, this would be easily paid for.

  45. 45.

    jibeaux

    September 20, 2010 at 10:33 am

    @John Cole:

    hahahahahahaha

    teh tubes, they iz solar!

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 20, 2010 at 10:37 am

    @Bob Loblaw: I think that if some one has spent her life doing the “right” thing as the society in which she lives defines it and, near what should be the end of her working career, the rules change and she finds out that she has been screwed, that person deserves some sympathy and compassion. You seem to lack empathy; you may want to think about it.

  47. 47.

    Carol

    September 20, 2010 at 10:38 am

    @jibeaux: That’s my idea, too. CETA for Seniors. I was a CETA person back in 1980, worked for a theatre for a couple of years as an aide and loved it. I had my first experience using my clerical skills working there and it gave me a chance to actually appreciate some good art as well.

  48. 48.

    jibeaux

    September 20, 2010 at 10:40 am

    @Carol:

    Yeah! Someone should put us in charge. We’d work this stuff out.

  49. 49.

    arguingwithsignposts

    September 20, 2010 at 10:40 am

    @Bob Loblaw:
    So was not snark. I feel completely justified then in saying Fuck off and die, you heartless sonofabitch. You might want to think about switching parties. The GOP is full of soulless bastards like you.

  50. 50.

    Jamie

    September 20, 2010 at 10:41 am

    Now that corporations are people too, we’re going to see a lot more of this.

  51. 51.

    Shinobi

    September 20, 2010 at 10:41 am

    It is continually ridiculous to me that I am constantly getting headhunted, while people who are out of work cannot even get someone to look at their resumes. While I am in a fairly specialized field, and demand there is quite high I still have several contacts who have been out of work for a while and they aren’t getting messages on linked in.

    Of course no one wants to hire someone whose been laid off, they’d rather try to drag me away from my current firm (After I already left another company to come here.)

    This is especially frustrating for me as my boyfriend has been unemployed for 3 years now, he’s done everything right, looked for jobs, called people, used his contacts, nothing. And now it’s been so long I doubt anyone will even look at his resume. He’s going to have to go back to school, and how we’re going to afford that is beyond me.

    It just seems to me that the hiring practices going on right now are ridiculous. There ARE jobs out there, my company has several openings, but no one wants to do any training or put any investment into their personnel. They just want already trained little monkeys show up and collect a pay check until they get tired of them.

  52. 52.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    September 20, 2010 at 10:41 am

    @mem from somerville:

    Clearly this is your fault. I mean you move onto a new company and that’s the trigger for said company to get bought out and then lay off everybody.

    I’m guessing you were paid for this function. :)

  53. 53.

    SueinNM

    September 20, 2010 at 10:41 am

    Peach Flavored Shampoo:

    Typical creationist line. Social Darwinism is not “Darwinism.”

    http://tinyurl.com/2azyuq7

  54. 54.

    Chat Noir

    September 20, 2010 at 10:41 am

    @Bob Loblaw:

    Which is what, exactly? Be good little consumers?

    No. I worked hard for a company for nearly 20 years (16 in the same job). Received excellent yearly evaluations and supported folks who consistently rated me as one of the best people in my department. Had a good all-around reputation as a team player who worked well without supervision and was able to adapt to changes within the department and within the company. Went through several mergers, reorganizations, and the yearly rounds of layoffs and managed to survive until I didn’t last October. Never got a sufficient response as to why I was getting the ax.

    I’ve been saving money since I started working back in 1990. And I did get a year’s severance so there is some breathing room but I still worry everyday about ever finding another job.

    I’m 43 (almost 44) and have no idea what to do next or where to even start looking for a job. It seems futile to apply online since your application and resume go into a pool of thousands. And I’m one of the luckier ones since my husband still has a job and I was able to piggy-back on his insurance. And we have children of the fur variety so at least we don’t have to worry about college or other educational expenses.

    I have always lived within my means; when I wanted to buy something pricy, I made sure I saved up for it and had the cash in hand when I bought it.

    So there is a lot of collateral damage out there. People like me did what we were supposed to do and we still got burned.

  55. 55.

    chopper

    September 20, 2010 at 10:41 am

    @John Cole:

    it’s like a kibbutz, only in mom’s basement. free grilled cheese sandwiches every day!

  56. 56.

    chopper

    September 20, 2010 at 10:42 am

    @Earl Butz:

    car aint out of the ditch yet, dummy.

  57. 57.

    NobodySpecial

    September 20, 2010 at 10:43 am

    My first company, I spent nearly 10 years with. It pretty much ended when some hotshot execs in the business bought the retail end when it was split off from the production end, and went on a spree of expansion. When it finally came clear that you can’t expand your way out of debt to them (something I knew that the MBA assholes in upper management never ever ever figured out), we were at the point of cannibalizing other outlets for supplies to keep running.

    To finish off, it ended with me being arrested on felony destruction of property when they took away my severance pay on a pretext. Of course, by the time it went to trial, felony had become misdemeanor, and the judge let me off as soon as he heard my side of the story, and the company didn’t have one, because what was left of it’s assets were in the hands of a judge in St. Louis. That was when I decided I’m not working for big companies any more if I can help it.

  58. 58.

    eemom

    September 20, 2010 at 10:43 am

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    thank you. I was trying to think of a polite way to say exactly that.

    (well, ok, “polite” isn’t quite what I was after.)

    ETA: #49, also, and even better.

  59. 59.

    Linda Featheringill

    September 20, 2010 at 10:44 am

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    What do we do when they have all the money, do we get to hit reset and start over?

    If “they” want to save capitalism, yes.

    The real cause of the current economic malaise is that people no longer have money to buy things. And you are quite correct in that the money exists but is being hogged by the upper crust.

    A liberal-commie suggestion would be redistribution of available wealth through taxes. But I am sure that much of the US wouldn’t go along with that.

    One other means of redistribution would be to forget the taxes and explore the implications of the Second Amendment. I, of course, would not suggest that.

    What we really need is some way to circumvent the whole system and still meet our needs. How to do that is still hidden from me.

  60. 60.

    Carol

    September 20, 2010 at 10:45 am

    I’m grateful for the government job I got at 45. Not fulltime, but enough to at least tread water and I’ve gotten regular raises. Government (Federal) seems to be the only thing that pays well and is hiring. Thank God I decided to take this job-at least my agency isn’t going away anytime soon.

  61. 61.

    Nick

    September 20, 2010 at 10:46 am

    Millions of Americans like Patricia did what they were supposed to do.

    And to them, if she had done what she was supposed to do, she’d still be employed. You think the tea party cares about her? Hell no.

  62. 62.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 20, 2010 at 10:47 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    There aren’t any rules. That’s kind of the point. This is just business. There are strata. And if you don’t fall into the right one, bad things can and will happen to you.

    You think because you live in a morally deterministic universe that individual lives don’t behave stochastically. This woman didn’t do the “right” things or the “wrong” things, she did just things. Things that may have made sense at the time, things that may make sense still. But there are always larger structural forces at play.

  63. 63.

    chopper

    September 20, 2010 at 10:48 am

    come work for the gummint. it might be boring but there’s some decent job security. and you get to swallow your pride during GOP administrations and say ‘yeah, technically i work for george bush’.

  64. 64.

    Montysano

    September 20, 2010 at 10:48 am

    @chopper:

    they’ve been spending generations chipping away at the house the modern worker has built for himself and it’s only out of sheer luck that they haven’t razed it to the ground already.

    I’ll riff off of J.H. Kunstler, since he was mentioned above.

    The “modern worker” was also assured that we could manage for everyone to have a 4000 sq/ft house w/3 heat pumps running day and night, 2 new cars, maybe an RV, vacations galore, and all the latest consumer gimcracks. We spent the last two decades cooking the books to make this possible, to make it seem sustainable. It is not sustainable. Of course, any politician who dared to speak this truth was sent to the wilderness.

    The future does not necessarily have to suck, but the future reality will be different. We will not go back to where we were, and our national inability to have an honest discussion about this will only make it worse.

  65. 65.

    FreeIreland

    September 20, 2010 at 10:50 am

    Present conditions make me very, very glad to have slid into retirement on a wing and a prayer. Even though it surely means my demise is that much closer. I don’t relish waiting around long enough to see the world, including America, turn even more fascist than it already is. Mind you, I’m not suicidal in the least and I do enjoy life more than a lot of people appreciate; but there are days when I feel more “ready” to go if called than others.

    When I do check out, though, I hope the world records that I had my finger poked in the plutocrats’ fascist eye right up to the very last. It’s the greatest epitaph I could hope for.

  66. 66.

    jayackroyd

    September 20, 2010 at 10:51 am

    Just want to note that 7.3% is below the overall unemployment rate, and well below that of young black males.

  67. 67.

    cleek

    September 20, 2010 at 10:51 am

    @Shinobi:
    this.

    i’m a C++/C# developer, and i’ve been getting 1 or 2 headhunter cold calls per week for the last month or so. but it’s not that there are so many jobs out there; it’s that companies won’t consider anyone who can’t claim 3 years of experience in every single technology on the job description, so they have to ask every developer in the area until they find someone who can jump right in – and then right back out.

    so they ask me if i can check all the boxes on their form, i say “no. and i’m not looking, anyway.” they ask me if i know anyone who can check the boxes, i say “no”. then they call back two weeks later with a different set of checkboxes.

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 20, 2010 at 10:52 am

    @Bob Loblaw: So fuck her then? That’s what it seemed like you were saying. Further, if you grow up in a society, you will tend to be socialized according to that society’s rules. According to the generally accepted rules of our society, Ms. Reid did do the “right” things.

  69. 69.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 20, 2010 at 10:52 am

    @Bob Loblaw: So fuck her then? That’s what it seemed like you were saying. Further, if you grow up in a society, you will tend to be socialized according to that society’s rules. According to the generally accepted rules of our society, Ms. Reid did do the “right” things.

  70. 70.

    eemom

    September 20, 2010 at 10:53 am

    @Bob Loblaw:

    So what do you recommend, Lollipop? Please…..tell us hapless schlubs what things we and the Patricias of this world should be doing in order to strive for a state of enlightenment such as yours.

  71. 71.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 20, 2010 at 10:53 am

    @chopper: Gummints ain’t necessarily hiring right now. Especially state ones.

  72. 72.

    chopper

    September 20, 2010 at 10:54 am

    @Montysano:

    to a point. yeah, a lot of the american dream really was and is just that, a dream. but the idea of merely having a decent job with consistent pay, so you can actually have kids without getting shipped off to the poor house, isn’t supposed to be out of reach in this country.

    it’s easy to paint modern americans as throwing money to the wind buying all sorts of worthless crap and living far out of their means. but there are plenty of regular folks just looking to get by and hoping to just have a job that pays without looking over their shoulder all the time for the Bobs to come by and ‘downsize’ them. and lots and lots of those people have had the rug pulled out from under them here, including the woman in this story.

  73. 73.

    chopper

    September 20, 2010 at 10:56 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    well the federal gummint is doing okay. not great, but compared to the private sector it’s pretty good.

    still gotta apply tho and there’s a lot of paper on the HR desk right now.

  74. 74.

    Cat Lady

    September 20, 2010 at 10:56 am

    Jeez, it’s Monday morning and I’m another 50 something underemployed working stiff trying to keep despair at bay. Between assholes like Bob Loblaw and bigger assholes like our Galtian geniuses in the post below who need the Bob Loblaw’s of the world to keep the riff raff bickering over the scraps, I want to put a bullet in my head. Just tag every post henceforth with “Fucked-up-edness”, and call it a week.

    Moar pix of kittehs plz.

  75. 75.

    mem from somerville

    September 20, 2010 at 10:57 am

    @cleek: I did this too for a while. And it was odd: during one round of subsequent layoffs I survived when others on the team didn’t.

    @Montysano: Well, after I did the contractor thing for a while, I started my own small company. We are treading water, but this isn’t easy. And I wouldn’t call it safe to be indispensable. I’m rather indispensable now, but if the larger economy means customer’s budgets are frozen….

    and yeah:
    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage: the reason I got out was because at least if I failed later I failed under my own power, and I could see it coming….

    One thing I will say: if this is the new world order of contracting and gig-to-gig, or trying to hook up with small companies, we need an infrastructure that supports this. Such as portable health insurance. I have to say that since MA got our health insurance system it has been much easier for me to get insurance than it was before. I don’t know how people in other states can deal with this.

  76. 76.

    pablo

    September 20, 2010 at 10:57 am

    WATB?
    Like this scumbag?

  77. 77.

    srv

    September 20, 2010 at 10:59 am

    I am shocked at how few of my 40 & 50-something peers are actively working on a Plan B (retraining, building skills in something current, living with permanent reduced hours, second job options, relocation, etc).

    I work for one the largest multinationals out there, and we have let go of some of our best talent. Assume there is a bulls-eye on your back right now.

    All signs point to a period of long, chronic unemployment that will target the new and old workers. How long? You can assume until the Dems have 60 senate seats w/o Lieberman and Nelson… So that’s probably forever.

  78. 78.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 20, 2010 at 11:01 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Fuck her, fuck you, fuck me. We’re all getting fucked eventually. Make the most of it. The earlier you make your peace with it, the happier you’ll be.

    There isn’t some spiritual transcendence to be had. Our lives are still immeasurably better than our forebears. We just aren’t guaranteed individual justice any more than they were, any more than anyone else is.

  79. 79.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    September 20, 2010 at 11:01 am

    Maybe we can lower the age requirement for Obama’s death panels.

  80. 80.

    Gus diZerega

    September 20, 2010 at 11:02 am

    The corporate and financial aristocracy, and their “free market” mouthpieces, are always warning us of class war – meanwhile they wage it ruthlessly.

  81. 81.

    scav

    September 20, 2010 at 11:03 am

    If we’ve got to deal with the dregs, can’t we at least get some high-functioning sociopaths? The one cluttering up the thread here is getting dull.

  82. 82.

    fanshawe

    September 20, 2010 at 11:04 am

    I hate that this is happening to people, and job creating measures need to be taken, but I’m getting a little bit tired of the “middle-aged-or-older-career-white-collar-worker-is-suddenly-out-of-work” genre of story. You know who has a better than average chance of having a job? Someone who is “College educated, with a degree in business administration, [who] is experienced, having worked for two decades as an internal auditor and analyst at Boeing.” I know this, because the New York Times tells me that the unemployment rate among people 55 and older is 7.3 percent, which is significantly below the overall unemployment rate for the country right now.

    Again, Patricia Reid is in a bad spot. I feel bad for her and for everyone else struggling to make ends meet right now. But there are a huge number of unemployed Americans who were born after the Eisenhower administration and who didn’t and may never even get the opportunity to build up retirement savings to burn through prematurely, and they deserve attention too.

  83. 83.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 20, 2010 at 11:05 am

    @Bob Loblaw: I get it. Our lot in life is inevitable; the only thing one can do is make peace with it and be happy it’s not worse. Pretty sad. I prefer the idea of trying to do something about.

  84. 84.

    PurpleGirl

    September 20, 2010 at 11:05 am

    It’s even more terrifying when you run out your benefits and you use up what savings and retirement investments you have. Not to mention that you still have 4 years or so until you could get early REDUCED benefits.

    You all know that you pay income tax on unemployment benefits, right?

  85. 85.

    Chat Noir

    September 20, 2010 at 11:05 am

    Krugman’s is as good today as ever. The Angry Rich.

  86. 86.

    lacp

    September 20, 2010 at 11:06 am

    @Bob Loblaw: WTF? Are you aspiring to be the dollar-store Arthur Jensen? Certainly “shit happens” and “life’s a bitch and then you die” can constitute some sort of personal philosophy, but I really do expect a bit more of a response from a so-called representative government than “suck it up, whiners.”

  87. 87.

    piratedan

    September 20, 2010 at 11:06 am

    aye, I feel her pain, was laid off after Christmas 2008, lots of nibbles, no bites. Wife is still working thankfully at a job that pays well. Have to excuse me, time to head back out to Monster and CareerBuilder and check on leads.

    As for Bob and his ilk and their subsequent ability to be above it all, that’s fine, I’m sure he’s kind to animals and his parents.

    There are times when I wish Oliver Stone had never made Wall Street, it seems like the business community adopted it as a template for operations rather than the ethics parable it was meant to be.

  88. 88.

    Face

    September 20, 2010 at 11:08 am

    Stoopid libtards. This provides a million new jobs for the Salvation Army, soup kitchens, Goodwill, and foreclosure attorneys. Without this recession, they’d all be unemployed.

  89. 89.

    chopper

    September 20, 2010 at 11:10 am

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    maybe we can lower the retirement age to loblaw’s IQ. retirement for everybody!

  90. 90.

    Jeffro

    September 20, 2010 at 11:11 am

    Serious proposal: any unemployed office worker who can clear a background check should be sent to the nearest public school (elementary, middle, high school) to work as a tutor/mentor. Give them 35 hours a week and a decent benefits package. Tell me that wouldn’t help tremendously.

    Pay for it all by not only letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, but add an additional 2% on top of that for their being such WATBs.

  91. 91.

    Citizen_X

    September 20, 2010 at 11:11 am

    @mem from somerville:

    if this is the new world order of contracting and gig-to-gig, or trying to hook up with small companies, we need an infrastructure that supports this. Such as portable health insurance.

    This, in a really big font, blinking, with sirens.

  92. 92.

    Mike E

    September 20, 2010 at 11:14 am

    @Bob Loblaw: I can be a “realist” just as hard as anyone, but, I come here for the Juice therapy. Not for your brand of “medicine”, which is described in the DSM as “abuse.”

    Another self-obsessed purity troll, you are. Keep showing us your ass, sport. It seems to be your best trait.

  93. 93.

    Danno

    September 20, 2010 at 11:16 am

    This morning on “Even Liberal NPR”, they had an economist on making the case that the retirement age needs to be raised and benefits need to be cut so we can afford more tax-cuts, because the tax cuts will stimulate the economy. The reporter—in a rare moment of realizing what his job was—asked the logical follow-up question: “If we cut benefits, won’t that take more money out of the economy, offsetting whatever benefit the tax-cuts might have?” The economist replied that raising the retirement age will keep people working longer, and therefore keep them contributing to economic growth “much latter into their lives.”

    Leaving aside the question of the over-50 unemployed, this line of thinking shows an amazing amount of outright indifference, or blatant ignorance, of most American’s lives. Most people don’t have office jobs where they just sit all day, much less cushy think-tank jobs as economists who speak on NPR . They’re either working in the service-sector, retail, or in the rapidly-shrinking manufacturing sector. Most of these jobs, physically, are very difficult to perform into one’s late-60s, and nearly impossible to save enough to retire without social security benefits.

    Building a better life for those on top, who will still be able to retire whenever the hell they want, on the backs of those who are barely getting by seems like the most small-D undemocratic thing in the world. But I guess oligarchy is the new democracy in America.

  94. 94.

    El Cid

    September 20, 2010 at 11:19 am

    @Danno: Also, the only way to save Social Security so that people can receive their benefits is to deny people their benefits, because this is true and SHUT UP.

  95. 95.

    Oscar Leroy

    September 20, 2010 at 11:19 am

    Don’t worry: when President Obama’s hand-picked deficit commission recommends cuts to Social Security, people like this lady will see a big change in their situation.

  96. 96.

    celticdragonchick

    September 20, 2010 at 11:20 am

    It really is just enough to make your blood boil. Millions of Americans like Patricia did what they were supposed to do. They worked their whole lives, were dedicated to a company, they lived within their means (as she must have, because she has been unemployed for years and is still in her home), and because of the economic downturn brought on by unprecedented greed of the FIRE crowd, she may spend the rest of her life barely making it, if she is lucky. There will never be enough job creation in the short term (3-5 years) to soak up all the people like her. Hell, the way things look, we may be at 10 percent unemployment forever.

    Invisible hand of the market, bee-yotches.

    According to Ben Stein, maybe she just needs to improve her work ethics. ////

  97. 97.

    eric

    September 20, 2010 at 11:21 am

    Here is the fundamental issue: people are suffering (here and around the world) and we (collectively) undoubtedly have the means to end that suffering, but it requires the taking from some and providing to others and the takees dont want to share.

    The takees control the media to manipulate the discourse to make the takees’ plight the plight of the everyman thereby crippling the hope for positive lives-altering change.

  98. 98.

    Jeff

    September 20, 2010 at 11:21 am

    @Bob Loblaw: Thanks for the fucking sermon– so your not a Republican asshole, your just a nihilist asshole. Either way, the s**t still stinks.
    Governments are instituted to ameliorate these injustices, not enshrine them.

  99. 99.

    Brachiator

    September 20, 2010 at 11:25 am

    Not Patricia Reid. Meanwhile, that same crew of creeps is doing everything they can to extend tax cuts for the very rich while cutting large holes in the safety net that would protect her.

    I absolutely agree with most of John’s post. Except for this “safety net” thing. People in their 50s want jobs, they don’t want safety nets or early Social Security.

    And this NY Times article was a long time coming. I’ve known people in their 40s and early 50s who have been laid off or who took early retirements in the 80s and 90s as companies downsized, who have never been able to get back on the same career track that they were on before. Some of them have children in school or getting ready for college. Others also take care of elderly parents.

    Some of these people have been underemployed for at least 20 years. Sometimes the initial blow was cushioned by early retirement bonuses, but that money was quickly used up. Later, some folks dipped into their retirement savings (whose value has dropped precipitously due to Wall Street craziness).

    There is no safety net wide enough to adjust for this. And I don’t know if the Democrats have all the answers, but I am certain the the obstructionist Republicans don’t have any. It’s going to take some innovative thinking to help revive the economy.

    @BR:

    The part about this that fucking pisses me off the most is that GOP assholes and their Dem enablers have been doing this for the three decades that are leading up to the most fundamental challenges our society will face – peak oil and climate change.

    Climate change is a big problem. Peak oil probably less so. But I haven’t heard anybody with a plan that connects solving these issues with creating more jobs and broadening the economy. Yeah, there are fuzzy notions about green jobs down the road, but this is not doing much for the here-and-now.

  100. 100.

    celticdragonchick

    September 20, 2010 at 11:27 am

    @Bob Loblaw:

    Which is what, exactly? Be good little consumers?

    What the fuck kind of society, and with what kind of evolutionary biology, do you live in?

    Do have chlroroplasts in your arms, or something like that for nutrient intake?

    The rest of us have to pay for our necessary goods and services.

  101. 101.

    celticdragonchick

    September 20, 2010 at 11:30 am

    @someguy:

    Waaaaaah.
    She wanted to work at a huge (and crooked) defense contractor, she made her choices. This is what she gets for lying down with thieves. I guess she should be angry that the Pentagon procurement officers that Boeing bought didn’t stay bought when threatened with jail terms.

    My nominee for Worthless Shrieking Bastard of the Day.

  102. 102.

    arguingwithsignposts

    September 20, 2010 at 11:32 am

    @celticdragonchick:

    My nominee for Worthless Shrieking Bastard of the Day.

    It’s still early yet, and there’s already some tough competition between someguy and bob lobsterclaw.

  103. 103.

    Linda Featheringill

    September 20, 2010 at 11:34 am

    @Cat Lady:

    Good morning dear.

    To fend off depression, I suggest rebellion. Doesn’t matter what it is, just so that it would piss off the establishment if they knew about it. Rebellion can be an effective painkiller.

    What’s the alternative? Lie down and die? Where’s the fun in that?

  104. 104.

    PurpleGirl

    September 20, 2010 at 11:38 am

    @Bob Loblaw: Tell me, how do you live with NO money?

  105. 105.

    El Cid

    September 20, 2010 at 11:39 am

    @Brachiator: You see this shit all the time from pop ‘free’ traders — and not just on trade. Like Yglesias.

    It’s basically, ‘let’s not have any sort of national development policies such as trade or industry, and you just keep increasing the social safety net for the losers.’ Which, of course, is exactly not what the up and coming rivals are doing now, and is not what we ever did during our periods of growth. (We had national development support, just without any social safety net.)

    If the non-policy-based approach doesn’t work and the increased social safety net doesn’t so much help with generating jobs, then what? Who will keep paying for an increasing social net, and how do the effects of not working or having increasingly shitty jobs affect the population?

    That’s why this stupid ass, off-the-top-of-the-head economics pisses me off so much.

  106. 106.

    binzinerator

    September 20, 2010 at 11:46 am

    @Cat Lady:

    I want to put a bullet in my head

    You know how these people Hate It when the undeserving non-producer types like you get anything that rightfully belongs to them. So don’t you dare even think about leeching their bullet. That there bullet’s got their name all over it, they’ve earned it. It’s all theirs. They must not be denied their due!

  107. 107.

    Kryptik

    September 20, 2010 at 11:47 am

    I honestly can’t even muster up rage for this. It’s so depressing as to make me just absolutely numb, mostly for the wallbanger realization that, thanks to our motley crew in Washington, not only will this not get better, but the whole of the Republican Party and at least a third of the Dem party in Congress is actively lobbying to WORSEN the problem, because obviously the only way to get out of this mess is MORE TRICKLE DOWN, MOTHERFUCKERS.

  108. 108.

    Linda Featheringill

    September 20, 2010 at 11:49 am

    @binzinerator:

    Wow.

  109. 109.

    Carol

    September 20, 2010 at 11:50 am

    @jayackroyd: Not long ago 7.3 was considered high unemployment, you..you..I can’t curse on the internet yet. Of course these people also have kids and parents to take care of as well, so if they aren’t working, they suffer too. Or do you expect an 80 year old to go back to working fulltime along with a 15 year old kid?

    Many of the people on this board weren’t going for excess, just a living wage so they could live in a decent neighborhood and own something better than junk. Now they can’t even keep a roof over their heads. Is that better?

  110. 110.

    jayackroyd

    September 20, 2010 at 11:53 am

    @Carol:

    I am saying, Carol, that this sub-population is not suffering more greatly than other sub-populations.

    What I am finding most disturbing about this recession IS reflected here, though. That is, the length of job search time is growing–once you get tossed out, it is hard to get back in.

    And that gets worse over time. As Atrios has said, once you’re out of work for a year or more, your value shrinks rapidly.

  111. 111.

    ruemara

    September 20, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    You want terrifying? Be there at 40, well, 34. Look at the working career you had at 29 and see that you will not be earning that not even median salary again. Then look back at 34 and marvel at how much worse things can get. I’m sorry for Ms. Field, she deserves better. But she’s actually owned a home and has reserves. Fucking country. It’s like the electorate actually wants slavery and indentured servitude returned.

  112. 112.

    daveNYC

    September 20, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    I absolutely agree with most of John’s post. Except for this “safety net” thing. People in their 50s want jobs, they don’t want safety nets or early Social Security.

    Yeah, jobs would be nice, but I don’t think there’s much of anything the government can do to help all the 50 year olds get their employment on. Even if there was enough stimulus to get the economy going again, getting the U3 down to full employment levels will take time, and ‘full’ employment means a U3 of 4.5% (give or take). The government can do a lot of things to help, but realisticly, older workers who have been unemployed for a year or more are probably just screwed. Increasing the safety net to cover them would be the best course of action.

    Sadly, as screwed as the older workers are, the young ones just coming out of college are even worse off. At least the older ones have some assets and the age of 62 to aim for. I can’t even imagine being 21, with $60k+ in student loans, and stuck living at home flipping burgers or whatever because the economy is in flames. And even they are better off than those without the college degree, and that’s not even getting into the situation of the non-honky population.

    Sure we have trickle down, but it’s from a blackwater line.

  113. 113.

    Montysano

    September 20, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    @Shinobi:

    It just seems to me that the hiring practices going on right now are ridiculous. There ARE jobs out there, my company has several openings, but no one wants to do any training or put any investment into their personnel. They just want already trained little monkeys show up and collect a pay check until they get tired of them.

    Bingo.

    I work in stage and theatrical lighting. We have to have people who are technically skilled and artistic, people who can get a system up and working and then make it pretty. But our owner’s hero is the owner of a large national company who has figured out how, by deleting the “artistic” part, to do it with $8.00/hour trained monkeys. Will our company join in the race to the bottom, to the least common denominator? Magic 8-Ball sez “Better not tell you now.”

  114. 114.

    ruemara

    September 20, 2010 at 12:14 pm

    @Shinobi:
    And they don’t want to pay a decent wage. That’s a big part of it. Older people have expenses, so if we hire young people with no skills, we can pay them less. ???? then profit. Guillotines are too good for them.

  115. 115.

    Hiram Taine

    September 20, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    I’m one of the ones sleeping on a couch in someone else’s spare room and I understand where Bob L is coming from, he’s just further down the road to despair than a lot of you are.

    I haven’t worked for over two years, a divorce left me with basically no money and I don’t even have a car, I’m getting around on a quite literally thirty year old motorcycle that has 145 thousand miles on it and I didn’t even have that for over a year.

    I’m sixty, don’t expect to ever work again and if I get seriously ill I fully expect to just die.

    Fuck this society, we spend trillions of dollars killing people on the other side of the planet, the vast majority of whom don’t even know who the fuck we are and have never done a damn thing to us, but we can’t, or worse won’t, even take care of our own by having something resembling a policy that encourages investment in real jobs for real people.

    I used to be angry like most of you are, eventually anger burns out and all you are left with is a numb resignation to your fate.

  116. 116.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 20, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    @Mike E:

    I can be a “realist” just as hard as anyone, but, I come here for the Juice therapy. Not for your brand of “medicine”, which is described in the DSM as “abuse.”

    I’m not sure what it is that you want. Catharsis, maybe? Did your righteous commiserating on an internet message board do anything to help this woman’s situation, or are you just so impressed with your unparalleled compassion for your fellow man that you’re sated for now?

    A woman was fired from her job because she costs more to employ than simply forcing her coworkers to be more productive in her absence. That’s very unfortunate. Society is capable of doing more for her, and should. And we should all act to help force that process along as best we can.

    But it isn’t a tragedy. 35% of young black men in D.C. are unemployed. One in five American children are born in poverty. Port-au-Prince will never be wholly rebuilt, and when you consider the starting point, that’s saying something. Millions of people are shelterless and starving due to the Pakistan flooding. There are over 50,000 murders a year in Brazil. 2% of the people in Malawi have access to electricity, while over 12% of them have HIV/AIDS. Women get stoned to death for adultery in Iran and Afghanistan. There’s awfulness everywhere, and most of it will persevere for now. This isn’t some game that can be won in this lifetime, or any other.

    You’re being disingenuous when you talk about how much this breaks you up. Because it doesn’t. It can’t. You got to look out for you and yours first. We all do. Entropy wins.

  117. 117.

    lacp

    September 20, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    The only reason I was able to get even a half-assed job was because the hiring agent for the nonprofit I work for told them they would get sued for age discrimination if they didn’t consider anybody over the age of 25 (which they weren’t in the habit of doing). They were stunned to find out that an old fart of 55 actually knew what he was doing.

  118. 118.

    PurpleGirl

    September 20, 2010 at 12:32 pm

    @daveNYC: Yeah, I had some assets but now the assets are gone.

  119. 119.

    debbie

    September 20, 2010 at 12:36 pm

    @ Omnes Omnibus:

    You seem to lack empathy; you may want to think about it.

    In my 57 years, I’ve learned that you get back what you put out. They’ll certainly get theirs.

    I almost cried reading this article this morning (before going to an appointment to register at, gulp, Employment for Seniors). I’ve been unemployed for more than a year after my 15-year freelance business died, and my cash reserves are now less than my credit card balances. I don’t stop trying to find work, but I know I’ll never get my life back. I just wish I could go to bed at night and not lie in the dark feeling absolute panic.

  120. 120.

    Mike E

    September 20, 2010 at 12:43 pm

    Shorter Bob Loblaw:

    Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank!

  121. 121.

    Brachiator

    September 20, 2010 at 12:47 pm

    @El Cid:
    That’s why this stupid ass, off-the-top-of-the-head economics pisses me off so much.
    We may be on the same page here. It’s frustrating to see so much wrong-headed conventional economics “wisdom” being tossed about. You’d think these people would get a clue when they look back and see how wrong-headed they were about “robust” financial markets, but no.

    @daveNYC:

    Yeah, jobs would be nice, but I don’t think there’s much of anything the government can do to help all the 50 year olds get their employment on…. The government can do a lot of things to help, but realisticly, older workers who have been unemployed for a year or more are probably just screwed. Increasing the safety net to cover them would be the best course of action.

    If you can’t find a way to grow the economy and sustain a prosperous middle class, you cannot have a safety net. Period.

    I used to be angry like most of you are, eventually anger burns out and all you are left with is a numb resignation to your fate.

    When I was a young worker, two of the most inspiring individuals I knew were two men who had retired and come back into the job market because they were bored and figured they still had a few things to contribute. They found ways to use the wisdom they had acquired to master new technologies and they inspired all us younger folk.

    Also, too, in the words of Vincent Hanna from the movie Heat: “I gotta hold on to my angst. I preserve it because I need it. It keeps me sharp, on the edge, where I gotta be.”

  122. 122.

    someguy

    September 20, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    @celticdragonchick:

    My nominee for Worthless Shrieking Bastard of the Day.

    Boeing doesn’t make wars. They just make the stuff that make wars better. This is the company that bought the DOD’s procurement shop to get it to sign a $30 billion contract to buy Boeing’s tanker for the Air Force. What exactly gave rise to her expectations that this company would treat her any more honorably than it treats the rest of the country? Her whining about this is comparable to a mob employee whining about having to work with thieves and lawyers. You don’t want to deal with that garbage, you probably shouldn’t work for the mob. Yeah, it sucks for all of you that your job isn’t as stable as you’d like, but I’m betting none of you are working for companies convicted of federal felony bribery.

  123. 123.

    Triassic Sands

    September 20, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    This (permanent, involuntary retirement) has been building for years. Just this morning, I heard an economist from a think tank (I didn’t get either name) explain how good it would be for workers and the economy if older workers put off retirement. Apparently, you can be an economist in this country and be totally unaware of reality.

    At this point, I would expect that most people know at least one person in the the PIR group. I have a friend (64 years old) in California whose husband (about ten years her junior) lost his job in January 2010. Up until that point he had worked continuously throughout his adult life. This wasn’t the first time he’d lost a job, but this time the job search is completely different. No one is interested in him and this couple (she is retired — shame on her for retiring before she hit 75!!!) has begun to realize that he may never work again. Unfortunately, her decision to retire at 62 was based, in part, on his continuing to work for another ten plus years. Even, if he is lucky enough to get a job, it probably won’t look anything like his previous jobs — salary/wages down, benefits down or nonexistent, vacation probably not paid, retirement plan = a firm handshake and a semi-sincere “Good Luck.”

    This is one of the things that has always bothered me so much about the political discussion in this country. So-called experts spew a bunch of learned crap that has nothing to do with reality. Presidents, elected officials, and economists talk about the need for people to put off retirement — ignoring the fact that many people who had physically demanding jobs are worn out by those jobs and can’t continue into their seventies doing manual labor. Neither can such people simply switch to non-physical jobs, for which they have few or no qualifications and little or no experience, and no one is going to hire them except maybe Uncle Biff, assuming they are lucky enough to have an Uncle Biff.

    Another way in which the experts ignore reality arises when they complain that people on unemployment are passing up jobs because they aren’t good enough. Taking a crappy job when one is 50 (and up) greatly increases the likelihood you’ll be stuck there for the rest of your working days. It’s hard enough looking for work when you’re unemployed, but trying to find a job when you’re already working full-time is exhausting for older workers. In many cases, the workers themselves are also ignoring reality. The reality is that in the US most workers over the age of fifty are not attractive to most employers. So, holding out for a job as good as the one recently lost may be completely unrealistic.

  124. 124.

    daveNYC

    September 20, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    If you can’t find a way to grow the economy and sustain a prosperous middle class, you cannot have a safety net. Period.

    True, though borrowing from China seems to have been working so far. The problem is that unless we manage to get some sort of riproaring late 90s-esque boom going, there’s just not going to be enough jobs to employ both the young and the old.

  125. 125.

    Comrade Kevin

    September 20, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    You know what would be great? For Bob Loblaw to go back to his fucking Law Blog, or wherever, and take that other sack of shit, someguy, with him.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    September 20, 2010 at 2:10 pm

    How many people reading this blog are in or could easily be in this situation?
    For all intents I fit the description of a late 50’s under/unemployed person. My last job was ending for a lot of reasons, mostly bad management and so I had to leave. I looked for almost 2 years for some sort of a job that would take me to 68-70 years old so I could start collecting SS at the amount I should have been getting at 65. I was promised that I could collect the max at 65 when I started paying in, but no that changed. So I started a small business. Now we are in the middle of the largest recession with no end in sight. (BS on the recession ending in June 09 BTW) So my company is struggling, I’m trying to stay afloat. I’ve invested everything because I saw no other possibilities.
    I don’t want a handout.
    I don’t want pity.
    I want people to get jobs so they feel comfortable about purchasing the things I sell. Which they wished they could buy and enjoy.
    But every day I feel like that piece of dog crap that some rich fuck stepped in and is scraping off his shoe. I’d at least like to feel like his shoe.

  127. 127.

    Brachiator

    September 20, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    @daveNYC:
    RE: If you can’t find a way to grow the economy and sustain a prosperous middle class, you cannot have a safety net. Period.

    True, though borrowing from China seems to have been working so far.

    I’m not sure that we are borrowing anything from China. We have, on the other hand, shifted a lot of manufacturing to them. Small wonder, then, that they are beginning to have the kinds of employment problems that we used to have (Illegal immigrants pour across border seeking work):

    As familiar as this sounds, this is not the United States or Europe, but China, which is attracting an increasing number of undocumented workers to fill the bottom rungs of its booming economy. Tens of thousands of foreigners from Southeast Asia, North Korea and even faraway Africa are believed to be working here illegally.
    __
    Among the most active areas for the furtive crossings is China’s 800-mile southern borders with Vietnam, whose people are drawn by jobs in China that may pay twice as much as they do at home.

    But here at home, I don’t know that we have to reproduce the bom boom 90s to expand the economy, but we need to do much more than we are doing currently. And yeah, this is easier said than done, but the obstruction of the Republicans is a sad, and tragic, distraction.

  128. 128.

    PurpleGirl

    September 20, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    @Brachiator: The Chinese, I believe, have bought a lot of Treasury bills (bonds). Bonds = borrowing.

  129. 129.

    bjacques

    September 20, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    Yep, Russian Roulette, all right, like in The Deer Hunter. Since about 1980, we’ve been playing it with a revolver while guys point AK-47s at us, economically speaking. Only it’s Strip Russian Roulette–every time the hammer falls on an empty chamber, we lose an item of clothing. At the end of 2007, we went to five loaded chambers.

    Well, we can do like Bob Loblaw says, keep on playing until that final bang, thinking to the end that our economic situation is fixed by the laws of nature, as some pop economists would have it. Or we can do something about it, like Christopher Walken managed to, at least for awhile. Politically and economically, of course.

    I just hope Ms. Reid and all of us here have their voter registrations up to date. And anyone who’s still out of a job in November, election-monitoring doesn’t pay anything, but it doesn’t cost anything, either. Just sayin’.

  130. 130.

    someofparts

    September 20, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    When Reagan’s policies created homelessness nobody cared.

    Ever since the Reagan landslide victory I’ve tried to come to terms with the fact that Americans may just be a fascist people.

    I’m not, and neither are those on at this blog, but no gathering this literate is typical of Americans at large.

    Do any of you readers in Europe or South America need an English-speaking pet-sitter and housekeeper?

  131. 131.

    Mr Furious

    September 20, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    @someguy:

    Her whining about this is comparable to a mob employee whining about having to work with thieves and lawyers. You don’t want to deal with that garbage, you probably shouldn’t work for the mob.

    Substitute “Boeing” for almost any other corporation of international scale, and the story is the same—doesn’t matter that they made planes, weapon systems or fucking sports apparel. She put in her time and got kicked to the curb when this quarter’s earnings report demanded it.

    Now she’s screwed. Like millions of others—most of whom also didn’t personally weld the depleted uranium into baby-killing tanks.

  132. 132.

    asiangrrlMN

    September 20, 2010 at 5:14 pm

    @Kryptik: I’m right there with you. The most I can summon is bleak despair. I don’t see this turning around any time soon, unfortunately.

  133. 133.

    Justin

    September 20, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    @daveNYC:
    That’s about where I’m at right now. The future doesn’t look good, my fiancee and I can’t even get our own place to get married and live together. What kind of future is that?

  134. 134.

    urbanmeemaw

    September 20, 2010 at 8:41 pm

    I was let go from my contract job a year ago, shortly after I turned 60. I was on unemployment for the first time in my life. I’ve been very fortunate in obtaining temp work and I still have most of my unemployment “bank”. I have a small pension and savings (which are shrinking), otherwise I could not survive. I would think that the millions of us unemployed could be an electoral force, no? (Though I quaver at the thought of John Boehner accusing us of being a”special interest” group. That is snark, btw). But, really. We need to organize.

  135. 135.

    Janus Daniels

    September 21, 2010 at 5:40 pm

    @Bob In Pacifica:
    I suggest TheOilDrum.com
    for bedtime reading.
    @someofparts:
    Our bleeding heart liberal left wing media has yet to report that, “… Reagan’s policies created homelessness…” so that never happened.

  136. 136.

    Julie Lovelass

    September 22, 2010 at 3:54 pm

    I manage a new restaurant specific on-line hiring site, http://www.wyckwyre.com. It is amazing (and a bit scary) the amount of “over qualified” applicants simply looking for a job regardless of the title. The restaurant industry is the 2nd largest employer, behind the Federal Government, so there are always jobs available.

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    September 20, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    […] in Business, Daily life, Government at 9:29 am by LeisureGuy John Cole at Balloon Juice: This NY Times piece is quite frightening: Patricia Reid is not in her 70s, an age when many […]

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