So I just read an article in the NY Times about our "creeping" recession. Seems Goldman Sachs doesn't think the job market will appear until late 2009 or thereafter.I am curious: how many times have the Wall Street analysts actually been right? Jobs coming back for who? Guys that were making $100k plus doing some esoteric service in a financial or internet firm?
See, here's the thing - I am trying to figure out what we still make in the United States. Jobs aren't just about some guy in NYC getting his huge paycheck back to fund the outrageous mortgage he has in New Jersey somewhere. It's about the 8 foreclosures my Aunt has on her block in East Detroit. You know, that place where everyone used to make cars?
I'm not going to lay all of the blame at the government's doorstep. The leaders we elect are voted into office (at least in theory). We the people need to take some personal responsbility for
what we do. I've been looking at myself trying to figure out what I can do to take more responsibility for my own actions in an attempt to keep demand and jobs local to our country. As everything seems to be getting more pricey I have started looking more and more at where the actual money goes. Is it to an American firm or some firm anchored off the coast of Belize or China? Are these grapes grown in California or Ecuador?
These are small decisions to be sure. I constantly wrestle with decisions that are large and small that make my country a better place to live and help my fellow Americans. Almost everything we don't use gets donated and my wife and I both work and sell stuff on eBay just to break even. Our gas and electric bills are so friggin high, I wouldn't actually even care if I knew that an American worker at the gas or electric company was seeing some benefit but they don't. I talk to them when they are on my street or working on my gas or electric. They are faced with the same pink slips we all see and hear about daily.
I must admit some serious confusion though. My wife and I pick up those Real Estate books in the supermarket or whenever we see them precariously placed for maximum effect. There are quite a few homes in them for $1 million plus. There are many homes around my neighborhood that are really pricey. We've done this when we visited Detroit, Houston and Los Angeles over the past few years. Same thing. Who the hell buys these expensive bits of real estate all over the country? Which part of America can afford a home with a $5k per month mortgage? I can't afford what I pay now (and it is way, way less than $5k) and I know most of the people on block can't either.
Ya I know, I'm rambling a bit. All I know is everytime I pick up the phone to call someone in my company for support or call for help with any item I've purchased (even the American made stuff) I get transferred to a call center in South America or Bangalore. Further, I look on the bottom of most of the items I have to purchase and they are made somewhere else. Everything is just so damn expensive and I want to do the right thing for my family and country.
It's getting harder and harder to reconcile our leadership and the have's versus the have nots. How do we inject some reality into our spiraling economic debacle? Justice and Equality for all shouldn't be based on a buck.
Marc
