Not just statistics

One in ten homes is behind in mortgage payments. While a fair portion of these represent people whose homes are “underwater” and who have chosen to walk away, with the financial ability to rent or buy cheaper, others are like me. Many, many others who are said to be one paycheck away from destitution  are losing that paycheck as I type.

I was, by all measurable standards, part of the middle class. The lower middle class, yes, but the middle class – with healthcare coverage, an option to have a 401 (K), a decent job and all that means.

Looking around, it’s the lack of decent-paying jobs that’s most troubling.  In order to increase globalization “parity” the top wage countries must come down in wages to meet the pay scale of the other rising countries. Which is why you saw Republicans playing hardball with the UAW — they will not say what they know: to “compete” on an international stage our wages must drop.  Problem is, our COLA is not dropping. Instead, what we’re likely to see from the 700 billion dollar bailout and all the other bailouts that are forthcoming in 2009 is inflation, rather than a drop in prices. Inflation comes as a result of more paper money being printed. So the cost of goods and services will likely RISE.

Goodbye, middle class.

There are times I think our oligarchy would love to see us all starving in the streets. It makes their riches somehow richer. How else to explain a ruling class that helped create this mortgage mess and enriched itself on the profits?  Like nobody could see this as the end result. Right.

Fortunately, for now I have a safe, softer place to land (more on that later). But what of the other 1 out of 10 homes? These aren’t just numbers, just as housing is more than sticks and nails. These are LIVES being destroyed as people run out of jobs and options.  I’ve scattered ten years worth of accumulated living to four winds: three places to store them – perhaps not long term, depending on whether or not I find a job – and some of it coming with me as I enter the next phase of my life.

Do you have any idea what it means to pack up and toss ten years of your life, or the desperation that must set in when you realize you could wind up on the streets, living in your car or worse?

And what of that federal bank bailout money? Has one cent of it gone to help the people who so desperately need help – the homeowners who are losing their homes, security and everything they ever tried to build for themselves?

Don’t think so.

Please, this holiday season, forego Walmart and give money to your local foodbank. They are all low on food and funds right now.  If you are still living somewhere secure and safe, think of the million or so people newly out of work, and those who fell off the unemployment rolls already. Take care of each other. We’re all we have.

Moving, Part II

Never thought I was much of a consumer, but packing has disabused me of this notion: so much stuff, and so little space to put it in.  Ten years is a long time to accumulate stuff, and I’m no different than anyone else in this regard.  It’s depressing and bittersweet, going through the memories of ten years, knowing that I’m leaving behind a lot of beloved people and things.  I wonder if I will ever manage to come back here, even when my parents pass. It might still be unaffordable. I may still not have a job.  But for the grace of others, we would be homeless. That’s…scary as hell, and pretty common right now. I’m trying not to think about that too much, but it pops in, unbidden.

It’s hard to prepare myself to say goodbye to Marlon. Seems like yesterday when we got him from the APL,  and it was in 2000.  He had a little trouble adjusting at first, and we thought he was deathly ill from his symptoms. Turns out it was nothing, and I often thought it might have been his nervous system, trying to figure out and deliver what these new humans expected of him.

I hope he is well taken care of in his new home, and have every reason to believe he will be.  No matter what, it’s better than the alternative.  My views on everything are radically shifting as the earth shifts beneath our feet: this country of prosperity and consumerism is no more.  I will never again feel a sense of safety, of not knowing what it feels like when the rug is pulled out from under your feet.  I will never again be carefree, or think of money as “only money.”  Not that the opposite will hold: a grasping, greedy capitalist I will never become.  But somewhere between that and the naive, carefree, optimistic me of the past is likely where I’ll eventually land.

If you want to really start worrying, read www.dailyreckoning.com.  Sift through its archives — the worst of our economic woes is yet to arrive, and it’s going to be very ugly.  That, coupled with the promise of peak oil, promises to forever change life as we have always known it.

Welcome to the Brave New World,  brought to you by Republicans, for the wealthy and built on the backs of the broken middle class.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Moving

Packing up to move all alone is a daunting task. We’ve given away Snowy and Echo (fortunately to the same household, so they can remain together) and Bunny.  We now have to place Marlon – whom shelters say is unadoptable and should be put down. I can’t do that. It looks like Marlon will have a happy ending with a friend of mine from the Intertubes as of this weekend. I pray.

So, the Republican neighbor has put a bid on my house  – lowball, capitalization on someone else’s misery, dontcha know – but it could be worse. It could still go to foreclosure, if the lender doesn’t allow the short sale.  At this point, I’m rather beyond caring. I’ve lost over $20,000 in real equity in the house, and perhaps another $10-15 thousand it would have sold for in the artificially inflated market of 2005. And all because I listened to my dad, rather than my instincts.  That’s a lesson learned.

So many people have lost their jobs and houses. It’s so sad to have seen this coming and be able to  do nothing about it, this economy built on tons of paper that’s all coming crashing down around us.  Nothing but illusion – no manufacturing base.  What happens to a consumer-driven economy when people can no longer afford to consume? When their two biggest assets – house and 401K – aren’t worth what they paid into them?

We’re all finding out, and we’re nowhere near the bottom, yet. I wonder if in six months my neighbor will still be able to afford his house, let alone mine. I hear people say Obama is the answer, and to that I say – he is just a man, not a miracle worker.  With the gutting of the economy, the robbery of the treasury by the Bush administration, the offshoring of jobs. . .it will take a miracle to right the ship that is America.  This is not your grandparents’ Depression. It’s going to be far worse, due to globalization.  May God (or whatever you believe in) protect us all.

So, where to from here, you might wonder?  I’m not certain. Just know that I’m on my way to a new and different life after a decade of false security.  And whether you know it or not, so are you.

Take care on your path.