Recession?

Here's a news item from the MSM(mainstream media):

The Associated Press reported today that Goldman Sachs, Wall Street's biggest investment bank, thinks a recession will be inevitable this year. The housing meltdown/credit crunch threatens to "slingshot" the economy into a recession. (Slingshot--I like that analogy. It's so Biblical!)

Here's a news item for the MSM--free of charge. Those who labor at the bottom of the economic food chain are already in a recession. Matter of fact, we're in a CODE ORANGE economic depression, and have been for years. Don't like the "D" word? What do you call it when you walk past people sitting on the cold sidewalks, or sleeping under highway overpasses because they can't afford rent? What do you call it when you see men, women and children in the subway stations asking for some help? This situation isn't limited to NYC. It's nationwide. Like countrywide's CEO severance pay, it's a nationwide disgrace.
You remember us, don't you? The little people Leona Helmsley referred to when the tax dodger said, "Only little people pay taxes." We're the workers who earn less than $102,000 a year and have to pay social security taxes on those wages. We're the ones most likely to need that meager income that we worked for-- when we become disabled, or when we retire with no golden parachute, no employer paid pension, and no free health care for life.
Remember Social Security? The People's pension fund Wall Street is so eager to grab, and that Bush tried to give away to Wall Street.
Mortgage meltdown refers to the predatory lending SCAM perpetrated on consumers who bought into Bush's "ownership society" and who tried to buy a cornerstone of the American Dream for themselves and their families. Loan sharks dressed as mortgage brokers were happy to oblige them, one and all, with subprime variable rate loans. When the mortgage payments ballooned and these home owners defaulted, the mess hit the fan.
But not to worry. Bank of America bailed out Countrywide, and the CEO of Countrywide will (eventually) land in Unemploymentville aided by a golden parachute worth $1 million plus. In addition, Bank of America will keep the executive on as a paid "consultant" for a few years.

Not so fortunate are the record numbers of workers facing the New Year on unemployment lines. And the retail workers/hourly wage slaves who get their hours slashed. Already trying to survive on wages that barely surpass minimum, hourly wage slaves are having to survive on even less.
What's a wage slave to do? Complain to yer union--if you have one, and if the one you have's not on life support. Oh, wait: labor unions were outlawed by the Bush administration...no, wait-- not quite--yet.
But the Bush Administration and the good folks in Washington stand ready to rescue us with a tax rebate, much like the one in 2001 that was sent out to low wage workers. I remember that rebate. After our hours and our OT had been cut at the factory for months, that $300 came in real handy. It allowed me to partially pay my very late back rent. My second job paid the rest.

Thanks George!

BTW: We don't need no stinkin' rebate. What we need in America is a country wide slave revolt.

Gimme Shelter

In her worst imaginings, Nancy B never foresaw she would be homeless at age 74. This mentally sharp, take-no-bull New Yorker says she cried when she had to go into this New York women's shelter, because she did not want to come here.

At an age when she should be, she is retired and trying to survive on Social Security. She has worked all her life at jobs ranging from factory work to waitressing, and now has health problems: emphysema, heart problems, arthritis, seizures.

A new owner bought the apartment house she'd been living in for years. This new landlord wanted the building for personal use, and when Nancy's lease ran out, she was pushed out--literally into the street. She's a native New Yorker, but she cannot afford the soaring rents anymore, so here she is-- in a Queens women's assessment shelter for 21 days. After 21 days, if you have not found permanent shelter, out you go. For now, she relies on her Catholic faith.

For senior citizen housing, she has been told the waiting list is five years. She doesn't need housing in five years, she says. She needs it today. Words fail me at this point, except to say this: the war on poverty begun in the 1960's has mutated into a twisted war on the poor-- the elderly poor, the working poor. Poor people of color and the so called (not my words) "poor white trash."
Without a doubt, we are a country at war. Not only against Iraq, but against our own people. The ones whose labor kept and continues to keep this economy running.

To the titans of Wall Street: "You're welcome."

Social Insecurity

He was featured in Sunday's New York Times recently. His name is Patrick and he is disabled from a heart condition, a liver disease, and seizures. He sleeps on the subway trains, waiting for an answer from Social Security disability determinations. As for me, I wait for the same answer. Lately, I sleep in the Y.

It's not that I minded working. I'm bored in fact, which is why I started writing this blog when I went on a short term leave of absence from the job. After a decade of heavy physical labor on the night shift and the graveyard shift, in hot environments with no air conditioning, my body gave out. Enough: no more could I live and work the way I had been. I have a college degree in communications (print journalism) but the HR gods have never given me a chance to show what I can do. So, as picketing farmworkers used to say: Basta! (Enough)

When you work forty hours a week, you have certain reasonable expectations. One is that your job won't kill you, and another is that you'll be able to keep a roof over your head, and I did, just barely. But at what price? Sometimes, after paying my rent or the electric bill or the car insurance (There ain't no subways in Florida, kids) I literally lived on rice for the next two weeks. Rice and ketchup, rice and soy sauce, rice and brocolli grown on my porch, rice and peppers grown on my porch, rice and nothing.

You'd think I'd hate rice--right? Wrong. I love rice. It kept me alive for years. Rice is God's food.
So back to Patrick, a man who sleeps on the F train while he awaits a decision on his Social Security disability application. The New York Times story describes the scar he bears from open heart surgery. Like I do, he also has a liver condition. Two organs you can't live without: a heart and a liver. You'd think it'd be a no brainer, wouldn't you? The man has worked, now let him have his well deserved rest. Let him have his SSD so he can move inside out of the cold. I think about him, on this cold day. He was discharged after the heart surgery, in February of 2006. Where was he discharged to--the street?

Tuesday at 4 AM. After two days and nights of this pain in my back, in both legs from pinched nerves, I dragged myself to the nearest emergency room. There's nothing they could do for me at that moment, except offer me drugs. The irony of this: we spend millions (billions?) fighting a drug war against marijuana...and everywhere the mainstream culture encourages drug consumption. Now it's Prozac for dogs.

The pain this morning, on a 1 to 10 scale, is 11. I'm offered Percocet, Vicodin, a shot...I choose prescription strength Motrin, and walk away with a prescription for more of the same.

Two days later, I'm back in the emergency room. Diarrhea kept me up from 2 AM on. I haven't experienced anything this bad in any recent memory, and I was scared. The hospital kept me around for the day, pumped in some fluids, drew out some blood, and let me know it was an intestinal virus. They did what they could, and they did it well, and they even made me laugh. Now it's back to the street, to the battleground that is my life, in what feels like a long running war against the poor and working poor in my country.