I think we have a ways to go before we really start feeling the effects of a depression.  Tuesday we have the new stimulus bill, which is suppose to create millions of jobs.  Don't expect this type of results.  If any jobs are created they will be short term.  I believe tuesday is also the day GM and Chrysler have to come up with their plans on how to stay in business.  The best they can do is bankruptcy and start over.

So far we haven't had bank closures or reorginizations via bankruptcy court but they will be coming.  Expect another $1.5 trillion dollar bank bail out bill and that won't be enough.  The sooner we bite the bullet and let the banks that are in trouble (and they caused this mess in the first place) go under, the quicker we will get thru this crisis.

Personal problems, as you watch your neighbors loose their houses and they go into foreclosure, most likely they had a pocket full of credit cards and all of them will also go into default, so the problem is being compounded.

The shopping centers are loosing tenants and that is money the owner is loosing and it becomes harder and harder for them to make the mortgage payment, so as the slow down accellerates, so will commercial foreclosures.

Really exciting history in the making.  We can read about the 30's depression and now we have a front row seat.

    I wonder how any plan can help the "middle class' ( poor) that is so slanted to bailing out the wealthy. It could have been worse if the other guys go their tax breaks in the bill through.

The overseas un employments rates are also scary many countries are facing 20% + , so it is only a matter of time before our #s go up.

   8 years of buffonery didn't help much, Driving up the national debt. during   "good times", only come bck to haunt you during the current crisis in spades.. When the dollar sinks to nothing and un-employment checks run out, times will get extremely hard for most. The hand writing was on the wall but fools "rushed" in.

Rome fell and we will also. All of this play by play discussion is distracting us from the real goal. Like the frog being boiled one degree at a time. Prep. Prep. Prep. Get ready to take care of yourself and defend yourself.

cgh18 wrote:     I wonder how any plan can help the "middle class' ( poor) that is so slanted to bailing out the wealthy. It could have been worse if the other guys go their tax breaks in the bill through. The overseas un employments rates are also scary many countries are facing 20% + , so it is only a matter of time before our #s go up.    8 years of buffonery didn't help much, Driving up the national debt. during   "good times", only come bck to haunt you during the current crisis in spades.. When the dollar sinks to nothing and un-employment checks run out, times will get extremely hard for most. The hand writing was on the wall but fools "rushed" in.

8 years of spending by the Bush administration caused this mess but somehow even more massive spending by the Obama administration is going to solve it. (and I am sure that the "buffoonery" and increase in the national debt did not cause the many other countries that are also experiencing a financial downturn to have one.)

To me it makes no sense to blame the spending on the one hand for causing this and then to hope that more spending is going to solve it.

I do not believe our gov is capable of forestalling or stopping recessions. If they were we would not have them, on average every 11 years, would we?

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

Something is going on tonight.  Markets seem unsettled and gold has rissen substantially.

gold can easily be tracked at www.kitco.com.  It looks like about $25 up. overnight.

Everyone is avoiding the D word. But there is one thing very clear. Things are not good and they appear to continue to deteriorate. A quick look at the Dow will show it at 7552. Finally it has stumbled more seriously, and approaching the 7100 which would signal in some ways, a crash.

Truly wish these people could subtract. It was at 7600 yesterday - there has been almost 300 drop which would put it at 7300 and well - this phenomena eludes me. .

But hey, I'm not the economist. Just the messenger, and why don't we look to the big boys on Wall Street and some serious and sobering statements in which could be (another cringe statement) It was the best of Times it was the worst of Times.  People who know about this stuff are concerned. The trend is - it's coming.

>posting<

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/business/16econ.html?_r=1

Here's a real ray of sunshine ... not.

“This is just horrible,” Ian C. Shepherdson, the chief United States economist for High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research note. “The sustained volatility in the markets, the rise in energy and food prices and, of course, the catastrophe in the housing market, is making consumers extraordinarily miserable.”

comment: people are not buying the hype are spin that its just another bump in the road. Despite feverish efforts to sooth the concerned American - it is working.

A closely watched measure of consumer confidence, the Reuters/University of Michigan survey, fell to 69.6 in February, the lowest reading since February 1992. It stood at 78.4 in January.

comment: That is near 8% in one month. Since time is brief and writing must continue.. maybe check out the link. Now we wait to see if the 'plan' and the bailout are going to help.  We can speculate and quote experts, but it is the American people who have the power to believe or not believe, and it is only a growing confidence of the people- that things will even start to get better. Gold and Silver - especially gold is a good investment. I have been told people cannot legally own gold. I have a friend who has a gold mine and keeps a lot of laced ore and also buys a lot of gold coins.

Medclinician

cgh18 wrote: [QUOTE=LaRo] gold can easily be tracked at www.kitco.com.  It looks like about $25 up. overnight.    Gold was approx 500$ in 2005-6. So it is basically up 100%. Stocks went down approx 50%. So if you sold 1000$ worth of stocks and and brought 2 ounces of gold, You would have 2000$ in gold while your stocks would be worth approx 500$. So that seems like 4X to me.    Kitco prices are just a spot price, silver generally sells for 2-5$ over spot and gold approx a + 5-10% premium. I know American silver eagles sell at a large premium due to scarcity and demand at approx 20$ each.    Even at todays' prices very soon they could look like very cheap , very soon. CH

Cgh - question. I was talking to coin dealers in California some time ago and just from a few visits to coin shops, it appears that they certainly don't like to buy gold coins when the price is high as it is, and will sell - but you pay more than the normal price.

Is there anything backing the American dollar since we have gone off the gold standard? Is it truly just paper in one sense of the word and good only as long as other countries continue to value it. Also heard the Euro is taking a hit as well. Maybe the Amero is not that far off. This is a kind of whispered thing that has been discussed. For those completely unfamiliar with "the Amero" this might be interesting.

One of the best kept secrets. The public has not been informed at all on this.

The following is highly controversial and almost unknown to the American public. Classically I would post this. I found it interesting. I neither support nor even affirm this will become a reality, and yet the money transfer which can be traced was very real.

So... just for information

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hiPrsc9g98

this is for entertainment value only... right.  But the is 1.2 trillion dollars in a Chinese bank account to support the initialization of this currency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amero

The North American Currency Union is a theoretical economic and monetary union of the three principal countries of North America, namely Canada, the United States, and Mexico.^[1]

Implementation would probably involve the three countries giving up their current currency units (U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, and Mexican peso) and adopting a new one, created specifically for this purpose. The hypothetical currency for the union is most often referred to as the amero.^[2][1] The concept is modeled on the common European Union currency (the euro), and it is argued to be a natural extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP).

Conspiracy theorists contend that the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico are already taking steps to implement such a currency, as part of a "North American Union (NAU)".^[1] No current members of any country's government have officially stated a desire to create such a body, nor introduce a common currency as part of this concept.^[3][4]

NOTE to readers: I am including a fair share of clickable links. The more incredible - the more documentation and research that is needed.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7854

The concept of a North American currency has not only been the object of discussion within powerful big-business think tanks, but has, in fact, been discussed in government positions. In May of 2007, Canada’s then-Governor of the Bank of Canada, David Dodge, said that, “North America could one day embrace a euro-style single currency,” the Globe and Mail reported. Further, the article stated that, “Some proponents have dubbed the single North American currency the ‘amero’,” and further, “Answering questions from the audience after a speech in Chicago, Mr. Dodge said a single currency was ‘possible’.”¹⁶       In November of 2007, the Globe and Mail reported that, “Canada should replace its dollar with a North American currency, or peg it to the U.S. greenback, to avoid the exchange rate shifts the loonie has experienced, renowned money manager Stephen Jarislowsky told a parliamentary committee yesterday,” and quoted Jarislowsky as saying, “I think we have to really seriously start thinking of the model of a continental currency just like Europe.”¹⁷

comment: one could go on. Its all over the net, but not the media. It is not discussed widely because it is one solution to the unthinkable. If the American dollar collapsed or was so hyper-inflated that we wound up like Zimbabwe.

Such thing do happen. In Zimbabwe their currency utterly and totally collapsed.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1819727,00.html

It is unlikely and in the words of some impossible that the American dollar would ever spiral downward in this fashion.

Yet, IMHO while those who hold big money in accounts and do not want it devalued to pennies are going to battle fiercely to maintain the illusion all is not well with our economy. And since that is an illusion which cannot hope to be spun, its companion is the "bump in the road."

The spin factory has learned a new technique. That is when you don't like a word being applied to a situation i.e. What is a level 4 alert for Avian by WHO - or what is hi-path or a dangerous strain (you see, still aware here we are on an Avian Flu Talk site) what do you do?

Redefine the term. Years ago high path was 20-30%. So you boost it up to 50 something percent and you can declare an outbreak low path and they will keep selling poultry.

This is not a pretty sight in the economic world. Changing definitions and intricate explanation with (Alice's Restaurant) circles and arrows on the back- cannot obscure job loss, dropping confidence, and what is this with Japan is in a Depression - the D word.

Well, said one guy one Wall Street, they have been living on the edge for a long time since the dismal 90s.  Japan is certainly not insignificant to the total U.S. economy and two days ago their economic system took a nose dive.

Are we really in a Depression? - survey says - yes in parts of America - we are.

Medclinician

Unemployment in the current crisis

Mike Elsby   Bart Hobijn   Aysegul Sahin 14 February 2009

With the US economy officially in recession and other major economies set to follow suit, the spectre of rising unemployment once again occupies the minds of policymakers and media pundits alike.

At any point in time, many workers flow into and out of the unemployment pool. It is well-understood among economists that changes in the rate of unemployment among developed economies are underpinned by substantial changes in these unemployment flows (Marston 1976; Blanchard and Diamond 1990). Recent research has identified a clear pattern in times of recession. Increases in unemployment are preceded by a rise in unemployment inflows as jobs are destroyed, followed by a rise in the duration of unemployment spells as workers fail to quickly find new jobs.

A natural question, then, is whether the recent ramp-up in US unemployment has evolved any differently. Despite many similarities with previous recessions, the rapid inflow of workers into unemployment during the current downturn confirms that this is one of the most severe recessions in recent US history.

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3071

Well, the California jobless rate is not at 7.6% it is at 9%

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/23/news/economy/california_jobs.reut/

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- California's unemployment rate jumped to 9.3% in December from 8.4% in November and 5.9% a year earlier as job cuts swept across most industries, with recession tightening its grip on the most populous U.S. state, officials said Friday.

California's December jobless rate marked a 14-year high for the state and was significantly higher than the month's national average of 7.2%, underscoring a surge in job losses over the last three months of 2008, said Patti Roberts, a spokeswoman for the state's Employment Development Department.

reality:

Some pretty solid voices including President Obama as well as Bloomfield - a major player and data source - has this to say

Millions more U.S. workers are likely to lose their jobs after the economy’s freefall sent unemployment in January to the highest level since 1992 and payrolls tumbled, reinforcing the need for an economic stimulus plan. >posting<

Christina Romer, chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said yesterday “the unemployment rate could reach double digits” without a stimulus, in a statement after the jobs report.

Obama yesterday said the nation faces “an urgent and growing crisis.”

Yesterday’s report showed factory payrolls fell by 207,000, the biggest drop since October 1982, after declining 162,000 in December. Economists had forecast a January drop of 145,000. The decrease included a loss of 31,300 jobs in auto manufacturing and parts industries.

News of job losses continued this week. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. will reduce almost 10 percent of its workforce by 2011, and Estee Lauder Cos., the maker of Clinique and Bobbi Brown cosmetics, will slash 2,000 jobs over the next two years.

Government jobs are now also in jeopardy. The U.S. Postal Service said it plans to trim headcount through attrition and early retirement, and has asked lawmakers to allow it to reduce its six-days-a-week delivery schedule to pare expenses.

parts of this report were written by Shobhana Chandra in Washington. For the full article and information go to http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7jpCSt.gQoM&refer=home

Medclinician

and its just got 401 points to lose.

It will lose 80% not just 50% in my view

We are going into a depression

Noticed your thread Kilt2 and you are right.

Our lab is closing today and unable to get the financial backing to survive 2008, our corp is not dead, but it is going into a coma.

I have made arrangements to relocate our HQ to a MUCH humbler location so I can hold on to the Internet, finish the book, and hole up with family to hunker down. To be blunt, we are shutting down our business.

So in a way we have lost our job. A few clients will make the trek to privately visit us, but bye bye cool lab, we can no longer afford you.

As Truman was it said, when your neighbors loses his job its a recession, when you lose your own it is a depression. Today, in a sense, I lost mine.

As a small business we simply could not get any support financially to keep us afloat. There were no programs except for nearly useless tax breaks and anything but raw capital to keep us afloat.

So we downsize to a miniscule shadow of our former selves and i don't care what the numbers say - we are in a depression.

People, bill collectors, everyone is getting hungry and pressing hard to collect collect - and now I will have to prep for a larger group of people than before. With a whole lot less to do it with.

Water is cheap after you boil it and filter out the toxins as best you can.

It is 2:10 a.m. and I think of Macbeth or was it Hamlet when someone said "thou has murdered sleep."

Small businesses, hang it up. Help from the state or feds, smoke and mirrors. It is all about jobs- you supply a hundred jobs which cost you how much - and then you might get a token handout.

We needed people to work on more orders and the way things are messed up now, we could not afford to hire them.

At 60, let me tell you, this is not the time to deal with a depression. Did you know the state tax people are stopping refunds in some states?

Dismal.

When I started this thread, I did not seriously think we would actually go into a depression.

Hey, if any of you know of any of the money in that new package to help us small business- please clue us in.

I think that part got cut. The one we needed the most.

There was this woman closing her shoe store after 50 years in business. I got a pair of VERY good shoes for $15. The kind that would have cost hundreds for 5% of what they were worth.

The lady cried. She could hardly sell the last of her inventory or talk.

Awfully quiet today after the big signing of the bill. For the first time in 6 issues or whatever the cover of Times was a little different.

Poor little Skye, our son. The innocent who has no clue what daddy and mommy are about to go through.

Somehow, as long as there is an Internet, I will find a way to access it and post what is happening - what is really happening.

Medclinician

Quote: Is there anything backing the American dollar since we have gone off the gold standard? Is it truly just paper in one sense of the word and good only as long as other countries continue to value it. Also heard the Euro is taking a hit as well. Maybe the Amero is not that far off. This is a kind of whispered thing that has been discussed. For those completely unfamiliar with "the Amero" this might be interesting.

   My quotes!

" It seems to me the backing was taken off the backs of the common man."

" The only sure backing is to go back to basics"

" When you listen to the average stock broker, You will surely go broke. "

" During average times, being average is good enough, when the going gets tough, you better be exceptional."

Med, i'm sorry to hear of your troubles.  I hope you will continue with this site, i have always enjoyed reading your comments.

MC,

South Texas is a great place to live! We were stationed there twice when DH was in the Navy, the second time we chose to go there again because we liked it so much the first time around (chose it over Hawaii and CA, DH is from CA and he hates it there and I already lived in Hawaii 3 years when my dad was military). We lived in Aransas Pass which is near Corpus and Port Aransas, we were stationed at NAVSTA Ingleside.

I was talking to my grandma today and  she is 91 yrs. and so she lived through the great depression was telling me she thinks we are in a depression because of the jobs lost of course there were alot of more people now than then.So we could say we are in a deep recession.

Treasury will be looking for 1.5 trillion to bail out the banks again.  No end in sight.  It's time to stop throwing good money after bad.  Shut them down and let the recovery begin.

One of the commentators I say suggested to let the big banks ( with toxic assets) fail and give the money to small banks and credit unions loan out the money since they seem to know how and who to lend to. That sounds like a plan to me.

   One local bank lent some $ to a person I do business with, they made sure all the Ts were crossed and the Is dotted and they actually check the books and the building that they gave the money for every year. No funny business allowed! And this was done 3-4 years ago when other banks gave loans and lied about their worth.

ALDI IS HANGING IN THERE:

Elver wrote: GDP declined the past 2 quarters.  This is a clear sign that our economy is in decline. Q1/08  11,646.0 Q2/08  11,727.4 Q3/08  11,712.4 Q4/08  11,599.4   Source:  http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp     The articles on this website scare me to death.  http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/

Elver, this site and some of the posters who know about economics have been my primer over the last few years.  One thing I kept hearing over and over was that the GDP was a true solid indicator of the real deal. I was told the Dow fluctuates, although it seems to be fluctuating rather intensely and downward. Since it started dropping from 8000, which seemed to be some kind of sanctuary point, it looking more dismal. Ironically, most of what I post included sizable quotes from experts and informed people. No one is saying its alright, a lot are saying we might improve it, but we need a lot of money to that.

The one thing that I have not heard yet, and anyone in the media is free to use this... is what we have done RIGHT in the last 3 decades that made our economy improve.

This would be much more productive than continuing to repeat tired solutions which did not work in other countries. Obviously in the 60s and late 70s - something was going right. That is when I made my first million and I was certainly not alone.  1981 however, was like the last blast of the horn around Jericho.

As in treating patients, or any endeavor, we need to focus on what has worked in the past, if we have a comparable present which is not so different, it won't work.

We need to examine the track records, the achievements and especially legislation proposed and passed by every congressman - those who helped us and those who hurt us.

Most of all, we need to look at who passed legislation that help our country as a whole, rather than a specific area, and bills which help only a single company or entity.

This is important, for as the money is given to each state, it is more than a hand out to pay bills - it is money to invest in areas which will stimulate the economy.

It amounts to this. If you give to a charity (Sally Struthers in some Latin American country who frowns and says 'this is hell') and only 5 cents of the money goes to helping and 95 cents goes to the organization, who is making money and who is really getting the most help.

We have institutionalized help to the point where the jobs created are those made in the institution and executives, and little else is done.

This is a flaw which we must really look for in any recovery package. Money flowing to infrastructure as opposed to actual jobs created and funds lended to the people. Our quagmire is that we have become lendaholics and to help you must lend to those who need it and give them the jobs to pay back the loans.

Medclinician

comment: so much for the bump in the road.

We haven't quite made the depression mark yet, although there are areas of the U.S. that are edging delicately close. Personally, we are locating to a new building, one a little smaller and within our current means, but we are not out of the ring yet.

Good to be back - we have been working 17 hours a day to be sure we stay afloat and since areas we work in would probably still continue to be profitable even through a full scale depression, thus far, we are still  treading water.

No doubt we are looking at a coming storm which gets nastier and darker by the day, but we are certainly not in the 1934 scale of things where unemployment was 20-25% and up to 29% in Canada.

Where are we at? I had posted double digit unemployment  in at least four states last week and we have areas of country (Wisconsin is parts) at 20%.

Lets take a look at REAL unemployment.



Actually according to this (credits in chart) - 1933 - 1934 was pretty nasty and saw the peak of the the unemployment. With the coming of World War II, put those people to work building bombs, guns, tanks, and bullets, and you are sure to have a surge. At least that is how it has been until we ran into the drainer wars - Vietnam and Operation Freedom. Yet Vietnam did spark our world in the 60-70s in the "hippy days" and baby boomer troglodytes like yours truly- coming of aging to a world of JFK, nuclear scariness (which certain fueled the economy with great fervor and not better red than dead."

Instead of Osama's we were looking for communists and they were everywhere. Between the threat of the bomb and the threat Khrushchev banging his shoe on the podium and growling "we will bury you" as they had swooped in taken as a World War II trophy he Eastern Satellites and had close to nose nuclear submarines and missiles, fear fueled our economy as it has for the last 100 years.

If the people won't cooperate then scare the whatever out of them to build bigger and more powerful bombs, jets, and armies, and then start meddling and sticking your fingers in the government of every country around the globe.

As  has been said, and much to the chagrin of Cheech and Chong walking along the beach with long hair and the unmentionable smokables of which some famous people "didn't inhale" and some did - but that is career and posting poison. So we won't even go there. - what has been said - is wow man- what happened to the way it was. Well, about the same thing as Bogart and Bacall swigging alcohol at 10 am and chain smoking - the way of the worms.

I sigh deeply as we prepare to bottoms our blue vials at the Institute and follow Cynthia Kenyon and Imminst to immortality when the boomers, and there a lot of boomers and oldy kinda moldies like myself in positions of great power refuse the to learn the classic lesson that wiped out Rome-

What worked in the 20th century does not cut it in the 21th century. After 40 years of hard work I can sing a passable Beatles song, but my teen friends (the shiny computer geeks of the Z generation - yep - I would call 11 years olds and a little older who can almost outwrite me in code, the Z bunch) look at me blankly and say - David Bowie who? Different land, different universe, change with the times or die. That is the absolute. Forget how it was, because it isn't that way anymore.

For 100 years we have played scare the American children with bogymen of foreign wars- remember -those not buried yet- James Bond and Goldfinger and the plot to take over the world. Well, as I was told in the 90s in between serious relationships (marriages) what is the aphrodisiac of the 90s?  - money- even more so the 21st century. For many many people money all that maters.  What is the guy that really turns up the flames of many a rising male or female (you must live with the reality of asexual- although I will always be a gospel Christian pulling to the hard right conservative (add all the explicitives my democrat friends have for us) - the guy or girl.. Sharp dressed man with bucks and what rules the planet.. well now we have to look at the Hong Kong Exchange, the Japanese market, as well as Wall Street. It is amazings someone hasn't taken a hndred

Point of this rant:

We are not in Kansas anymore..... heck we aren't even in the United States. Where is the work labor core of the future - Southeast Asia. We connect with Thailand and Vietnam and India - and Mexico - where are the jobs going offshore.

So - we don't get a nice plunge in a day like the good old thirties - at least not so far. No we have put up so many buffers and clandestine hide the problem, that you are going to see a long rather intense decline.. to be continued

Medclinician

abcdefg wrote: If you have a job it is a recession, if you are unemployed it is a depression.

This chart does not post well-  so

I've summed up some figures from the chart...

here's a great Time Trek back to the Great Depression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCNKq0-9p3w&eurl=http://purplejunction.com/2009/02/14/great-depression-unemployment-versus-2009-and-the-coming-storm/

Credit to Hurley's Blog Trackback (thanks Hurley..) - http://purplejunction.com for this bit of work. I definitely have been spending too much time with some of my best friends who are CPAs - tax season I guess- which is to say - to look at these tables and find them increasingly more interesting. Of course it it all can be tweaked but look at construction worker unemployment hits - nasty huh

for those of you who don't want to play eye ping pong with this chart

coal and other miners went from 2.2 to 7.6%. Let me tell you another not so well kept secret of West Virginia. Miners make the bucks. People get the picture of some poor Uncle Tom's cabin type(not that there is not dignity and respect for every level of income and walk of life)  or struggling families.. it is rare that miners around here can't find a job- they work hard, play hard, and can support a family of 5 pretty decent on what they make in the mines. Yet when you triple the unemployment in a year - you are looking at a big problem. Same goes for construction workers. In Silicon Valley the home of the megabucks programmers.  We made our family fortune on my dad driving a truck for Pittsburg Des Moines Steel (He was a double semi- trucker driving when everybody else went home and then he bought houses and apartments and more apartments and quit driving truck when his hair turned gray. He grew up in the Depression 20 years Navy lifer. But when he got out he worked until salt used to crystalize on his tshirt when he would come in at midnight from carrying steel. Loading and unloading it.. trucking it. . That's how he got rich). And there was money in driving a truck. I used to work at Viking doing invoicing for what these guys and gals - there are some serious women truckers out there.. look at what they would make driving across the U.S. (being part computer nerd)
shoot - big bucks. Better than what I was making So when you go from 4.6 to 9.1 this is pain.
Construction guys.. yea.. hard work.. got a friend driving a Cat - and turned his back into a jigsaw puzzle spine wise..   11.4 to 22.4% in one year. Used to look at these guys back in the whatever (and it was early Pleistocene Era) and they'd be surrounded by women, drinking beer, have a nice old house, and I'd tell my buddy.. teach me to drive one of those.

Sometimes people get stressed when I call these people salt of the earth.. but I'lll tell you this a biblical reference.. The Salt and Light metaphors in the Sermon on the Mount include a direct reference to salt: "You are the salt of the earth.

Well, to me our hard core workers are the salt of the earth. And watching them lose their jobs is painful.  Maybe it is sitting over all this coal and watching the miners head down before the sun comes up and come back after its down sometimes.

I am just plain fed up with all the white collars on Wall Street and then the bankers forgetting who is putting the money in their banks and execs prancing around living the life royalty on the backs of our worker class, vamping them by taking their taxes in bailouts and sinking back into their fat cat velvet  parachutes and heading out for the Bahamas.

Want to see some change? Put these hard working people back to work. Sorry.. I'm old school.. Protestant work ethic..nothing more virtuous than a farm hand swinging a mattock or a farmer plowing the south 40, with sweat streaming down his forehead. We need to get back to where making money and having a job and supporting your family is something to be proud of. Take that away, put someone out of a job, and you strip their self worth, their security, and their dignity as a human being.

And if you think nurses don't work.. i used to put in a good 12 miles of walking as a supervisor on hospital looking down the hall you couldn't see the end.. that were 3 blocks long. We'd be up for days. Paramedic buddy of mine drives an ambulance comes over and sees me and says.. well another long haul. Fireman pulling long stretches...

When people aren't working they are thinking, and when they are thinking they are unhappy, and when they are hungry, thinking, and unhappy, you have a real problem.

The Depression.

Not the greatest narration, but some great pics. this is a high traffic link and 9 minutes long. so if you want to check out some great footage of the the Great Depression.. this is pretty good.

mmm better... more realistic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgR2Buke5MQ&feature=related

Medclinician

I think there are are certain pockets of the country in a depression and the rest in a recession. Did anyone watch 20/20 last night? They did a segment on people coping with the economy, it was really good. I didn't know the unemplyment rate in Detroit was 22%, that is close to depression standards isn't it? They had $100 houses for sale there that had been forclosed on and banks just wanting them off their books to be out from under the taxes. They talked with a classroom of teenagers in a school in CA, this is tha class that had done the video on utube that the president saw "Is anybody listening" I think is the title where just out of the general population almost everyone in the classroom's family was behind in their rent or mortgage, very close to being homeless or already having moved in with relatives due to being homeless. Another portion dealt with the rise in population of the homeless shelters. Another story a guy went from a $750,000 a year job to delivering pizza to make ends meet. Anyway, an interesting watch.