[redrockcoulee]

Wasn't trying to minimize it..........and yes, paper losses can be devastating.......

Gotha you

[Ratmagiclady]

What is right is some people do not know how to manage money, some people are doing fine until the wheels fall off and some people cannot live without sources of incomes for indefinite periods of time. Also too many have been marginalized by society and by the economic climate and some people are not able to compete with the majority for many reasons, many of which are not their fault.

And, actually, that's a bigger part of the problem than some seem to think, especially if they are of the opinion that "Wealth='Favored and virtuous, thus obviously I 'worked' for this.' If you 'lose' at our zero-sum game, it's not the system's fault, it's got to be those less-favored are lazy, cause I want to flatter myself and all."

Part of the problem indeed is that the rich and the corporations and all seem to have an idea they already 'own' profits they haven't made off us yet, and I think that gives them the idea that not-continuing to get tax breaks that have made the government revenue crisis *and* strangles economic activity.

That the same people are spending that money to bankroll things like Religious Right agendas and ethnic tensions and all... marginalizing people further in ways that may not even have a thing to do with job performance just makes it that much harder for marginally-employable people to get by: one thing I noticed when I was younger was just how much the 'information age' meant that employers grew both * pickier* and more *demanding.* while both the jobs-available and the types of people they considered 'competitive in the job market' got more and more homogenized. (And that lack of economic diversity *really* hurts there. When more and more of the jobs available are, say, 'Warm bodies for the service industry: You're overqualified cause you have some college,' and there's fewer and fewer factory-like jobs that tend to be jealously guarded (and generally, 'You're not our kind of people, college girl,' just for starters.

Add in a little discrimination on one count or another, especially combined with a physical limitation, forget about 'competing,' you're hoping to find a position that you can both obtain, handle, and keep hold of, while competing with people who don't have those limitations in a market where there just arent' enough jobs to go around, *then* hope there's no bigotry coming into play. (It's not like any one thing is a constant, but it *really* kind of sucks when it's that appropriate job you *find* that turns out to then be like, 'What church do you go to, where's your family, who's this 'roommate' of yours?' It's not us, you see, it's our customers...' And if you're an 'undesireable' to someone, they tend to treat under-paying you like charity. )

There's a narrative of 'personal morality' that is used to try and justify a system that's been getting more and more hostile to more and more people, especially as health seems to decline and more and more hours are demanded to get by with less and less in the way of benefits: There's also really a tendency to dismember one issue from another: and there'll be the story of the homeless person who cleaned up and had help and some luck and 'made it' or the disabled person who overcame their disability, ...what they don't realize is that for many, it's not any one thing, it's a combination of a lot of things that the privileged take for granted as all going right at once.

This whole thing even about 'competing' like anything's OK if you say 'Free Market' or 'What The Market Will Bear' acts as though that same system *ever* could employ everyone. (When in fact, even its own numbers say you need four or five percent unemployed and job-seeking for their system to 'function,' ....even the employed though, are under-employed, quite often. This is why when they go after social supports, pass regressive taxes to try and make up revenues going to feed coprorations, (cause *they* want even more money this year than last year to produce less) ...they aren't attacking some 'wasteful disincentive,' ...what they're doing is attacking the very *base* of the economy. (This may or may not be something addressed in this thread, but one of them: blame is cheap for them, and may seem to make common-sense, but cutting out social supports drags *down* wages because workers fear destitution more, and can be pressured to get less renumeration for their work... Which is the same reason full employment is something the big money system would see as a *problem* despite still wanting 'infinite consumer growth.' Wasting resources and ignoring the costs of waste and pollution regarding those resources might prop up the top of that pyramid for a while, scapegoating minorities and even the workers and consumers themselves may have bought them a few more years to loot and try to gain more power, but there's only so much they can take out of any of us with work and debt and all.

Meanwhile, too, in trying to squeeze still more profit out of regular people, we find that all these fancy computers don't *simplify* life, they make complication and error faster and more pervasive.

It also inhibits *real* competition, say from Main Street, cause they own the market, with their Wal-Marts and inflated real estate profits and even monolithic control of investment. Why can't the local five-and-ten cent savings bank compete? Cause they were run out of business by the S&Ls before *those* got caught cheating, and became something else... Somehow *less* regulated or just making it all too complicated *for* regulators to keep up with, if they even want to cause they aren't industry-shills put in by a bought-out government...

It also actually kind of stops things like a bunch of people like me, who may have deteriorated a fair bit through all this, from getting together with some others squeezed out of the system, being able to get together and produce something in our local economies, ...pretty much precisely because the money supply's all tied up and over-leveraged at the top, while the same bunch of corporations keep the costs of doing business or even living ...too high to even keep a coherent little tribe together. (Which goes to the personal debt thing: if you can't borrow because you didn't borrow, and if you can't borrow cause you *did,* where are you? ) Then they say, 'Just be enterpreneurial. And your bills and bank fees 'have to' go up, ...Hey, you can't stop our tax-cuts-for-the-top, it'll 'hurt the economy!'

And we ALL have been victimized by the greed and extremely bad business practices of wall street, even those not living under the laws that govern it. Wall Street's mismanament has most likely cost be 5 to 10 grand in loss revenue, maybe 40K in my RRSP and $75K in real estate values and all I hear coming from those who make the rules is to loose the rules for the banks even more and make it harder for the low income to use the banks and that will mean I will continue to lose value and the American rich and powerful will just get richer, not sure if they could become more powerful,

None of my comments were meant to reflect on your situation, simply that no matter how we rant against the wrong doings of Wall Street and their puppets, when people like Mike make comments about the regular folks part we should acknowledge it even though by far the bulk of the blame lies squarely on Wall Street and the US deregulation. Just because those who lay the blame on some carpenter falling behind on their payments does not mean we have to be as blind as them.

And we all should feel empathy and compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves otherwise it is not really a society we live in but I do not know a good term, jungle is not as even the animals behave better

And, Ow, for your misfortunes. (Admittedly, I never had near that much to *lose,* never mind as a percentage, but, yeah, when we talk about the 99 percent, even people with those kinds of assets and investments.... Are most often part of the 99 percent who are getting screwed one way or another by all this.

You apparently live on several orders of magnitude of more-money-in question, but probably aren't that top 1 percent, either. But you have in fact apparently lost more off the top than I've, well, probably ever seen in this life. And that's a problem, too, of all the money going to the *top* and then gambled around, with the ultra-rich taking out a bigger and bigger cut every year. If the government went into too much debt, let's not forget that that debt was pretty much the same people taking out foreign loans (And loans from *them* ...To pay *them* to profit ever more off gutting our local economies and infrastructure and resources. Even the 'blood and treasure' that the wars cost. (And make a very few a lot of money.)

[Ratmagiclady]

In a way it is a paper loss but in a way it is not. Anyone needing to cash in investments/mutual funds/RRSPs in the last couple of years or the next few have a lot less funds than if there needed the money a couple of years earlier. I need a rebound in the next three to four years or else retirement may be either delayed or a lot less comfortable. The loss of value of my own home is of little concern as do not plan on selling unless we either move out of town or can no longer manage the steep stairs, especially to the third floor darkroom.

I suppose that does go to different orders of magnitude in the money we're dealing with. Apart from being like 'Once again, I don't really know what I'm going to do in a month or two,' ....while losing a big chunk of comfortable retirement blows, I kind of doubt I'll live to see any such thing, anyway. I don't intend to 'retire,' no matter how much money I had, though: I feel like I'm twenty four years behind on *getting started.*

That's something that's a vanishing dream for a lot of the people here, of course, ...I don't think I ever got around to having *that* except maybe being part of a good community that wouldn't mind slowing down a bit.

And part of the OWS thing about that is, the ultra-rich want to gut even Social Security to fall back on and the rest, ....after they lose billions in other people's money, they get handed billions more. If I lose sixty bucks, I'm in deep doo doo... the people that lost you that small fortune and other people billions and trillions more... They're still making more money this year than last and demanding less regulation and more subsidies and tax and budget cuts.... and they're still living high on the hog and asking the rest of us to blame each other... For them having taken all the money. (Notice how we're *at* the point where this 'crash' means they already have more of the money than they could expect to make off us *again,* even if they invested everything they had in some scheme to take absolutely everything from the rest of us?

Maybe that's why their 'growth' means just trying to strip things bare and deny the real needs and lives of the real people.

[redrockcoulee]

I suppose that does go to different orders of magnitude in the money we're dealing with. Apart from being like 'Once again, I don't really know what I'm going to do in a month or two,' ....while losing a big chunk of comfortable retirement blows, I kind of doubt I'll live to see any such thing, anyway. I don't intend to 'retire,' no matter how much money I had, though: I feel like I'm twenty four years behind on *getting started.*

That's something that's a vanishing dream for a lot of the people here, of course, ...I don't think I ever got around to having *that* except maybe being part of a good community that wouldn't mind slowing down a bit.

And part of the OWS thing about that is, the ultra-rich want to gut even Social Security to fall back on and the rest, ....after they lose billions in other people's money, they get handed billions more. If I lose sixty bucks, I'm in deep doo doo... the people that lost you that small fortune and other people billions and trillions more... They're still making more money this year than last and demanding less regulation and more subsidies and tax and budget cuts.... and they're still living high on the hog and asking the rest of us to blame each other... For them having taken all the money. (Notice how we're *at* the point where this 'crash' means they already have more of the money than they could expect to make off us *again,* even if they invested everything they had in some scheme to take absolutely everything from the rest of us?

Maybe that's why their 'growth' means just trying to strip things bare and deny the real needs and lives of the real people.

I now make about 60K a year and about 6 years ago I could say that half the previous decade we lived below the poverty line. We have made the most of our opportunities and have had some good fortune, so I do not expect others to all have done what we have. Our first rental property we bought cost 55k and we put up a 5 K and assumed the mortgage. Sometimes things are tough especially when places are empty or renters skip. Our home and the rental properties are what was called an undesirable neighbourhood, was the working class part of time and the kids who grew up there wanted out but compared to other cities it is a very nice clean and safe one and since we moved in we have noticed great improvements and the property values have reflected that (did not improve due to us but others seeing it as perhaps the nicest place to live, next to downtown and the river and several parks.

Ten years ago I got back more than I paid in income tax due to GST refunds and now I pay quit a bit. But I know that we got lucky, it was due to a friend that I got this job indirectly and due to family that we are in the position we are in now. I remember when we had to wait until payday to buy groceries but also when I worked construction and did not. But even the construction days were not for a long enough time to be able to put anything away to speak of and we have never been ones for spending much money except perhaps on books and art and in the very recent past on vet bills.

Too many who have not been in the without category do not know what it is like or refuse to even try to understand. What would I do if my fortunes changed drastically? I would like to think there is a social safety net to prevent me from hitting the ground and splattering, the landing will be soften but not soft and cushy and that is what they do not understand, people like you are not looking for an Acura, a large swimming pool at the back of the house and several servants all without paying for. But the powerful have succeeded in demonizing low income people and dehumanizing them and have made many hard working people afraid that they will lose everything to those who are too lazy or greedy to work. No they will lose it to those who are greedy and rich before they will lose it to those greedy and poor. Note to everyone else, I do not mean that all those who are rich are greedy but referred to those who are rich and powerful and wish to take away whatever they can from those poorer then they are.

[Ratmagiclady]

I now make about 60K a year and about 6 years ago I could say that half the previous decade we lived below the poverty line. We have made the most of our opportunities and have had some good fortune, so I do not expect others to all have done what we have. Our first rental property we bought cost 55k and we put up a 5 K and assumed the mortgage. Sometimes things are tough especially when places are empty or renters skip. Our home and the rental properties are what was called an undesirable neighbourhood, was the working class part of time and the kids who grew up there wanted out but compared to other cities it is a very nice clean and safe one and since we moved in we have noticed great improvements and the property values have reflected that (did not improve due to us but others seeing it as perhaps the nicest place to live, next to downtown and the river and several parks.

It's actually one of the places where the real estate bubble really did a number on the lower classes even when times were supposedly booming: the low end of rental prices just kept going up, and in a lot of cities, even that just kept getting pushed further out, often where the artsy people would improve matters, then find themselves priced out, Which really forced a lot of the little tribes apart, which made it harder to find decent people to live with, again more expense (Also making it harder on some landlords when some misfortune suddenly means a house can't make rent, etc, etc,) ....result: Once again more expensive to be poor, relatively speaking. And there's certainly only so many units out there that someone like me can possibly manage solo, few to none where one can really live car-free: a lot of the difficulties are in fact these monolithic models of 'how to live,' and if you can't afford or keep up with it, well, they say 'Work harder,' or 'Live cheaper,' ... and the fact is, especially if you're someone like me, who *isn't useless,* but *can't keep up,* ...the high rents (Or even lack of cheaper ones,) are a huge issue in a lot of places. I was searching the whole country for a place to go, and just try finding a place where the disabled and underemployed aren't putting 80 percent of what we take in just on rent... and of course, how do you *access* that when obviously landlords prefer their tenants not to be running that thin.

That's where that squeeze comes in, you've got the job market saying 'Compete! We want 120 percent out of those who can give a hundred, and oh, by the way, we're only paying for 70 percent. So we can say 'Buy your own benefits out of your thin paycheck, and don't get sick, by the way, there's plenty desperate for your job,' (I was reading a site someone showed me: it's called 'butyoudontlooksick.com' And there's a certain amount of venting from people with conditions like mine or fibro etc. Actually, in a way I should have seen that sooner, but something that struck me was when someone said, 'People are expecting your 100 percent, and not realizing your 100 percent is maybe the same as their 40 percent.)

And that's where everyone being subject to 'What this market will bear, and this market will bear, and this market will bear, and then work harder,' becomes such a drain. Even if maybe someone has some weeks where their 100 percent only adds up to *95 percent* of what the increasingly-monolithic models of getting by in this economy demand. Or even when people who are 100 percent have been giving 110, and now the big money wants, say, 138.

Certainly when it comes to the less-able, part of the problem, for tenants and landlords alike, has really been the very lack of economic diversity of the debt/consumer/service/resource consumption based economy that was used to gut our country down here and create much of the debt and unsustainable life-arrangements in the first place. There's pretty much a floor of *expenses* that's been just rising, (Again, all that money goes to the top, who are still making their record profits and sitting on most of the wealth) while for decades, there's been a sort of minimum level of capability to be in the job market at *all..* And especially at the bottom, the demands on even those who fit into that minimum-wage sort of model of 'Productive' keep going up, while the number of jobs and the compensation shrink. And that's just an equation for downward-mobility. (And people not making their rents, which are in many places, 'Too Damn High.' Thanks to the bubble itself. And if the landlords are holding the *bag* for that bubble, the rents just don't go *down.* )

But more importantly, the increasing demands and the cuts to pay and services just squeeze more people *out.* They've been doing so for a long time, and that means there's a lot of people like myself, who've basically been in the 'unmitigated expenses' column when we do actually have things to offer: if *nothing* else as a little buffer for local businesses: if all the old folks on Social Security or a pension can't afford a cup of coffee at the little diner (if the corporate economy didn't do that already by turning them into Starbucks or some other expensive chain counter) ...what happens to the little diner? Or even the Starbucks. One thing about this town that kind of strikes me sometimes: 'Where's the old people?' You know, those people someone like RML could talk to, while taking a bit of a walk through this thing we used to have called 'Downtown' before they made it kind of more like a mall.... I could go in there, warm up/shelter from the Sun/rest the knees or feet a while, talk to those old folks, mostly just hearing whatever was bothering them at the moment, but sometimes getting the *good stories* ....I guess they're all tucked away somewhere out in suburbia, as isolated as me, sitting here trying to stop my tendency to agoraphobia from going from, 'Nuisance and occasional challenge' to 'Crippling f'n problem.' (You know, I love people, but sometimes my limbic system gets other ideas, almost like I had some bad experiences or something. It's kind of a constant process of teaching the dreaming mind better. You know, go meet people, remind yourself they're not monsters or soulless systems and all. ) They start cutting back on *life* and sell you an Xpad or Ibox or whatever. Say 'You should pay a car loan to go to the big box store, stress about the bills and save save save.' What we *lose* is neighborhoods. Ordinary street life. Even funky artsy places with some *real* vibrancy that way, even before aging RMLs have to go home. (I really don't know what it was like here 'before' in a lot of ways, but it seems by reputation there was something awesome between the 'Happy Days College Town With Apartheid' and the 'Welcome to our fine selection of high-priced boutiques, eateries... And high-priced parking opportunities.' I do exaggerate a bit in this town's case, but yeah. The developers still have their thumbs on the downtown: they're still demanding bubble-sized rents out of the downtown properties, cause if they don't get those rents they can just write off the empty space against their other properties' and schemes' profits. So the only hope for a business is to 'take your shot at something gentrified or forget about it,' Go further out and you've got people building big stuff right next to perfectly-good *vacant* stuff cause they make money on the development *transactions.* Don't even get me started on the politics. Never mind the generally-better off 'Christian Right' types who'd rather see *their* whole district/neighborhood boarded up than see businesses owned by certain minorities actually do OK. And this pretty inexplicable "What, we can't rent this space? Clearly we haven't chainsawed enough greenery! '

(Sidebar: That's a mentality I'll never understand in a place as hot and bright as this: Shade is your friend. Mine more than most, but anyone's. And you can be to the people with the woodchippers. "Thanks, that woodlot and undergrowth was really impeding our exposure to the gigantic paved *radiator* down the way. You know, the one the turkey vultures can coast into freaking geostationary orbit on the thermal from? I'm sure it'll make that cinderblock house much more desirable to purchase. *clicking tongue.* Thanks so much. It's the *little* madnesses of this economy that sometimes get to me. A place stricken with drought and flood, and the 'lawn care' people dutifully come by to mow dead lawns the moment it rains, with blades set way too low... (Just picture the conversation, "You're just mowing dirt, mostly, give the poor grass a chance, let it grow a bit and don't mow it wet." "It keeps the dust down if it's wet." "That's cause you're *mostly mowing dirt.* Which you're exposing more of every time. Put your two-cycle engines and leaf-blowers away and plant or feed something. Or bring the stuff, go away, let the filthy heathen d*** cripple do it, and you can say say *you* did it when there's something to mow.* " Yeah, I contain those rantings in person, Cause I'm just a tenant around here. But it's just kind of insane. It's spending fuel and money to wash what's left of the soil in this area down the storm drains. (Via, everywhere else between, actually, ...Are no wax floors a chore? Try more soil erosion in a drought/dounpour environment! ) )


Little madnesses like that, part of bigger ones, perhaps, but they speak of that whole 'money system way too long detached from anything it's supposed to be or could be doing.' It's like you try to shout up the economic ladder, saying, "You're screwing up the world" and the barking chain comes back down, "Can't afford not to! Jobs!" *back up,* "What jobs?" ....*back down, after much denial and delay....* "Don't worry, there'll be more jobs when we screw it up down there, more! You don't mind paying more, of course? Great! Can't afford not to....By the way, I told everyone else you have no values and are a threat to the American way of life! "


Speaks to the whole mess having become some kind of machine, using people and our lives as parts, but even the machine itself doesn't know what it's doing.