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> Collapse of U.S. Economy Imminent

23 January 2006, 09:52

ike 

i hear what you’re saying. my heart goes out to you and your family. my husband and i live in oregon, the state that is supposedly #1 for children who go hungry everyday. i don’t really believe in stats much though and i believe no state is above or below another anymore when it comes to poverty. my husband makes $1.50 above minimum wage. I make $.75 above minimum wage. we’re both smart, educated people. i am grateful for the income we do have given we recently went through a period where we faced homelessness. but that being said, it also sickens me to know that the work we are doing—hasn’t seen a real income increase in YEARS. in fact when i was in college (late 1980’s), i had a customer service position that at the time paid $7.00/hour. today, very similar positions pay $7.50-$9.00/hour.

most of the available jobs here in our area are at one of the box stores (mart stores as i call them). finding any job with decent benefits is almost non-existant unless you work for the local government. and for those positions, most require bi-lingual. and unless you know someone, forget about it. my hub works 36-40 hours a week with no benefits. competition for even min. wage jobs is very tough. when you’re over 35 or so and applying for such a job and your competition is a high school kid or college student, guess who the employer hires? it took over 2 years for my husband to finally convince an employer to give someone his age a chance.

despite our incomes, my husband and i are still in need of some government assistance. housing costs have gone up greatly since we moved here in the late 90’s but incomes have not—around 56-58% of our income goes to our rent compared to just around 30-35% about 7 years ago. SICKENING we have seen our style of living decrease drastically and it sickens me when some have told us our problems can be solved by moving elsewhere. naive idiots not to mention lacking in empathy. these same people have only slightly been effected by the failing economy and have profited off of the housing boom in our state. of course they’re also in debt to their eyeballs—at least my husband and i have no debt and we own our car. my family? they’re in palm springs now for the winter, enjoying retirement, playing golf, leaving behind their 300,000K homes. not that i’m bitter....lol it’s just that if they were my age, doing the same work and living the same lifestyle now as they did 30 years ago, THEY WOULD BE IN THE SAME SITUATION AS I AM. do they get that? yes and no. oh they’ll admit i speak some truth, but then it’s a change of subject about having another piece of pie or something. not that i expect them to give over their wealth to me and exchange lifestyles. i certainly don’t wish to see them suffer the way my husband and i have. but god............i cannot imagine having a child—at any age—and seeing them struggle and suffer in any way and not be willing to give what i could to help alleviate some of the suffering (especially the UNNECESSARY suffering—which i believe most suffering is). sharing of the wealth is a beautiful concept and could be a saving grace for the world if only people would be willing to see a few things: namely that we are all worthy of all of live’s wonders and gifts, that we are all connected, we are at our core all the same and no one "deserves" any more or any less than another.

the home we live in is substandard but our city considers it livable. i must put towels around the door to keep out the cold. when it rains hard enough and the wind blows in the right direction, some of the rain seeps into the front door molding. i wipe down moisture from the 50 year old aluminum windows daily to keep the mold spores to a minimum. we have mold growing inside the walls in our bedroom and in the bathroom. i know because now and then it makes its way through the wall. an applied bleach solution temporarily solves that problem. the home needs a new roof, new siding, new front door but still—city claims it’s livable and so we cannot force the owner to do anything about it. he did finally put in a new patio door—only because the old one literally fell out one afternoon after i opened it. we had been telling him it needed replacing—it was very loose and was a pain to open and shut. thankfully i was able to catch it. if not, it would have crashed onto the concrete patio.

the ironic thing is—our rent is below that of other similar homes.

no one should have to live like this, whether one works or not. attitudes must change. hearts must open. minds must expand. the class system isn’t a system that any evolved person would support. us vs. them. i deserve more than you. the concepts of rugged individualism, work your a@@ off and suffering are archaic and serve only to destroy. we have overconsumed, over populated and have hoarded wealth and power, creating a heirarchical (spelling—sorry) system.

a friend of mine told me a few years ago that the old ways (of working for a living) will no longer work. she told me this after i was laid off in september of 2001 from a high tech company. she was right. self-employment, i believe, is going to become a growing trend. (aside from my part-time "work for someone else" job, i have a very part-time biz—i pick up dog poop. i only have 2 clients so far but i intend to create more as the rains ease up. it isn’t glamourous—but at least I AM IN CHARGE by undertaking such an endeavour.) although my concern is that if there is an economic collapse, people won’t be spending their money except for the necessary items of survival and picking up dog poop doesn’t fall in that category. maybe then though there will be an opportunity to create small communities where people barter their skills and services. that actually feels better to me than this global economy/big city living we have going on. sure, we’re all connected and all. but i think true success out of any potential collapse will arise when people rely on one another at the local level.

until such a (possible) time, i’m not sure what to believe, what is truth. it’s best to weigh things against your own experience before taking anything at face value. funny how we are manipulated and trained into believing our own government, our religious leaders, our teachers. why, they would never mislead us. so dang sad that we’re encouraged to believe them over our OWN inner guidance. thankfully i was born with a rebellious, idealistic side and always had a distrustful eye to ANY adult i didn’t know telling me what the truth was.

we are taking precautions and are stockpiling food, water and other supplies we deem necessary "just in case". if we had the cash we would be buying gold. we have a few gold and silver items but certainly not the amounts some of these fatalists are saying we should have. ($25k in reserve gold minimum i have heard. i just laugh and ask "ok being you believe in a coming collapse and believe in community and helping out your brother/sister, you willing to help out those like myself who haven’t had the financial success you have had to BUY such amounts of gold??" so surprising that i never hear back from these folks when i ask such a question. odd how many of these folks have really PROFITED off of the same system they claim to despise and speak out against. they own the homes and have their own businesses or work for large corporations. blah blah blah) government is corrupt. find me one nation with a government that isn’t and i’ll pee on a spark plug. secret societies—do they exist? are they behind government policy making? i have read so much information but haven’t experienced it directly myself so at this point i cannot say for sure. gut feeling though? wouldn’t surprise me. the prison camps?? same thing—wouldn’t surprise me if they exist.

i’m an idealist, but a part of me keeps hearing a phrase in my mind, along the lines of the monopoly game. "those with the most money (and/or power—same thing really) at the end, win." question is—are we going to allow the end to be THE end?