So Chrysler is shutting down all of its’ plants for a month. Toyota halted construction work on a plant in Mississippi that was to make Priuses. This stuff is all interconnected, and the bad times are here when debt levels, corporate, government and personal, are at all time highs. You can’t live off of negative savings. It just doesn’t work. Honestly. Do the math.
So now we’ve got a few hundred thousand more unemployed, at least for now, because Congressional Republicans and the White House had no problem with three quarters of a trillion dollars for banks, but balked at a fifteen billion dollar loan to save jobs. Um, I don’t get it. Two percent of what the banks got (with no obvious benefit I can see to anyone) to save, or at least extend millions of jobs is a problem.
Except for a very few cases, like the workers sitting in at the factory in Chicago, there doesn’t seem to be much organized action by normal citizens yet. Yet.
We leave for Florida next Saturday, and it’s always interesting to read the local press as we pass through small town America. The last two years, the big change we noticed was the unbelievable number of check cashing/payday loan outlets. In one small town in Virginia, Great Bridge, I counted 22 of them just on the main drag.
The real estate sections of small town newspapers are interesting insights into the realities of the local markets. Unfortunately, while the newspapers are dying a death of a thousand cuts, they do a less than stellar job covering their two biggest sources of revenue, the auto industry and real estate. Try googling “time to buy is now” and see how many sad messages like this are out there. It’s sad, but nobody gets paid to bear bad news.
3 comments:
Jeff, surely you noticed that Great Bridge, VA, is on the outskirts of the Norfolk Naval Station?
The enlisted men and women of our military depend upon pay day loans and check cashing service to make ends meet.
mikel
Ironic especially just who they are taking advantage of.
I just heard an "expert" reporting that interest rates are low, and now is a good time to refinance!!!!!
Then the interviewer asked...but might they go lower?
Flustered...confused, then finally..."Yes, they probably will."
It seems like the "news" outlets have decided their civic duty is to lie and continue the obfuscation that got us here in the first place.
NOW for my real question to you, Jeff. You say it's all interconnected. But wouldn't it be better to let the massive dinosaurs finally die, and let Toyota or Kia even, for God's sake, take over their facilities and workers? That wopuld work in the very near future, and be a long term solution, rahter than pumping blood into a dead body, even if it is 2% blood, and not as absolutely stupid as the other bailout.
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