No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp

No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp
Things are going to get worse. Much worse.

There is a considerable lag between the bad news we hear on the boob toob and when the bad thing really has an effect.

If 600,000 people lose their jobs during one month, well, that month they are still fine. And the next month they will be fine too. And maybe even the month after that and after that. Despair, desperation and consequences take time to manifest itself.

As catastrophic as losing one's job is, especially if it is a 10 or 20 year carerr that had all kinds of stability and good health and pension benefits----the inability to get another job of equal earnings and stability is the real, real problem. It could destroy our economy.

If someone loses a good auto worker job paying $39 an hour with health benefits and a potential pension; but three months later that same person is a substitute teacher making $75/day or $9.25 an hour, the "statistics" will probably count that person as "employed".

One of the overall strategies of Corporations is to have a policy of a high turnover of employees. There is no more loyalty to employees (even high paid employees). Corporations want you for about 5 years, before they have to start paying more for your health benefits and before you become vested in your pension. And within 5 years they've basically gotten everything they can use from you. That's when they pull the rug out from under your feet.

Anyway, there is a lag between bad news and the really really bad effects. So the worse is yet to come.

Once laid off many will not have their helathcare benefits dropped for 30 days, maybe 60 days, then they will see the astronomcal price of COBRA and will sign up for it and try to handle it for a few months and then will drop it entirely because they will be hard strapped to pay their rent, utilities, and food and fuel.

Then someone in the family will get sick and the bill for one day in the hospital will be for $15,000, and 4 or 5 doctors offices will turn the bills over to "collections".

Then they'll realize that their hopes of seeing their kids go off to a decent college are shot to hell, so all those plans will change.

Then they'll realize they really can't afford to stay in their house, but they can't sell it because its now not worth even what they paid for it 6 or 7 years ago.

Then, they'll have some luck but it will be shattered. Mr. Breadwinner will be offered a good job in another State about a thousand miles away, but he won't be able to take it because they wont be able to sell their home; and worse, if they actually still had health insurance they will find that they can't keep the same health insurance company if they move to a different State because that company doesnt offer it in the State they want to move to. And then they will find that if their new employer has just dropped offering helath care benefits for new employees but another plan is available but two of the family members have pre-existing conditions---one has asthma, and one has a bad back and one had chest pains 10 years ago----so those things won't be covered for the rest of their natural lives.

This is the lag. The famous lag.

600,000 got laid off last month, and the month before, and the month before, etc, etc. The lag hasnt really set in yet.

Many have three or four credit cards that will be paid for a few months, but then, the lag. The lag effect will set in and those credit cards will start to pile up late penalties. The the APR rates will be raised to 29%. And then the "collections mafia" will start calling, further rattling the despair that has set in.

With 600,000 getting laid off every month it will get worse because as more GET laid off, more NEED to be laid off. As fewer and fewer consumers can BUY, Corporations need fewer and fewer to PRODUCE.

The price of homes will continue to go down, down, down. The only reason some homes are selling now is because people mistakely think we have hit bottom and that prices are at their low point. My guess is that there is no low point. For years and years, there will be too many homes for sale at prices that are too high. We've jumped off a cliff but we are still plummeting to the ground, only half way there.

The healthcare crisis will be the real clincher. The insurance companies and drug companies are like the "flesh eating disease". They are set to consume every available dollar that America has to spend. They care not about anything but their bottom line, thier profits, quarterly results, bonuses, stock options, pensions, salaries, golden parchutes, etc.

The drug companies are the same. They charge $50,000 for chemo treatment that costs them about $100 to manufacture. And if you are a terminal cancer case their goal is to extract your entire life savings (and your estate) along with everything they can bilk from your insurane company----all in exchange for a lifespan that may be 14 months rather than the 12 months without the chemo.

Thus is the lag, of losing a good, stable, decent paying career job.

The lag is yet to come.

We are not at war with Al Qaeda. We are not in fighting in Afghanistan, nor in Iraq.

The war is more subtle but much more costly. It is with the Corporations. We are being attacked by the banks, the financial services industry, credit card companies, the healthcare insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and of course the death machine---the weapons and defense industry, and those wonderfull war profiteers, the private contractors.

It's all an illusion that our enemy is N. Korea, or Iran or Cuba or Venezuela. We havent had to pour $2 trillion into Cuba in the last 6 months, but we sure as hell have had to pour it into the banks.

The answers and solutions are really quite simple. But as long as America is so divided and as long as we have despicable asshole like Glen Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, and the 42 Republican Senators who are ready to sabatoge America for their own enrichment, plus a handfull of treasonus Democrats, nothing can or will get done.

The big banks should have already been nationalized and broken up.

All primary home foreclosuers should have been frozen on Obamas first day in office.

Obama should issue a signing statement that every citizen will be covered by H.R. 676.

Prscription drug prices should be regulated (and considered an matter of national security). Clinical drug trials should only be permitted by the NIH and all TV drug ads prohibited.

Within the first two years of Obamas presidencey a massive program to expand medical shcools and produce twice as many doctors should be initiated, and three times as many nurses.

A freeze on all teacher layoffs should be initiated and teacher salaries should be raised to $50,000 starting salary.

The minimum wage should be raised to reflect a percentage amount equal what Congressmena and Senators have voted for themselves, but not less than $13 an hour.

A National Policy for 100% full employment should be initiated with 0% unemployment as the goal.

Corporations wishing to locate major manufacturing and services to overseas should be requried to submit a detailed plan as to how that will contribute to our National Policy of Full Employment. If they are granted permission the CEO's total earnings package should be reduced by the total amonunt of lost wages to the American economy.

Of course none of this will happen because assholes like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh are still able to infect our public airways with their con and their scam, are are laughing all the way to the bank. Plus, we really have not found a leader yet who has the balls to take on the Corporate greed machine, in all its ugly forms.

And the war in Iraq goes on.

Submitted by JamesPB on April 11, 2009 - 12:53pm.