Thanks, everybody.

Part of me just wants to take a contract programming job, and if I don’t like it, work out the contract and go.  If I do, stay.  Yeah, I can do more exciting work, but can also stress myself to death.

I’ve been afraid to make this leap, but now I’ve been kicked out of the nest, so to speak, so I have no choice.  In the end, I may WELL treasure the freedom.

When the people in foreign countries who are working to make the things that we import stop taking US paper dollars from WalMart, Home Depot, NTB and etc. to pay for the foreign imports that we consume, maybe they will take a bunch of plastic credit cards.

ITW,

Sorry to hear about your job. I hope you find a position you really love. Any company would be fortunate to have someone as intelligent and well spoken as you on their staff.

If you don’t mind some unsolicited advice… don’t settle. This may actually be your opportunity to find the “perfect job”.

Best of luck in your search.

Trithoverlies, April 15 at 11:58 pm #

but the executives also committed suicide with poor management and excessive exuberant expensive waiste. Huge bonuses for incompatence, and mismanagment were given when none wre deserved, and increased saleries when none were deserving of them both in managment and labor. So as I said their is enough blame to go around and now its to late to save the company and aproximately 50,000 jobs at GMC alone then you will have huge layoffs in the industries that supplied the metels the parts, the Machines used on the assymbly line, the Tools used by the dealerships so we are looking at a conservative estimate of 150,000 more unemployed. We are assured of only two things in life Death and Taxes and the taxe protest on April 15th wasn’t about not paying what is owed but about passing the burdan onto our children and their children with bigger more controling Government with no common sinse. Like requiring a teen to to give up a part time job that he was working to save for trade school so he could in a few years pull his family off the Welfare Generational Curse, but “oh no son you can’t do that then who will we get so that we keep our government pay check comming who can we get so we can mess up thier life.” 
*********************************************

While I don’t have the negative view of Obama that you have, I do see that GM has spent literally 40 years sinking itself, taking the wrong turn every time, pushing the vehicle that’s hot today (like the Hummer) but never thinking about tomorrow.  While I think Chevies are a rolling waste of resources, I happen to LIKE Chevy dealerships—they realize with a lousy product they have to deliver extra-special service, and they do.

**************************************************
Inherit sorry to hear you lost your job I lost mine almost nine years ago due to surgical complication the problem is that I can’t get another job in that field now because of a permanent disability caused during the surgical proceedure. Hope you land on your feet I will pray for you even though you don’t believe I do believe that God can interceed on your behalf.
      Trithoverlies/Truthoverlies.
      John R. Bloxson Jr.
*******************************************

You are right that I don’t believe but I certainly do appreciate and thank you for the sentiment and good wishes your prayers engender.  It’s a kind thought. 

While it wasn’t unexpected—new owners, lots of capricious lay-offs, and I’ve been waiting for this for months—it’s still a shock that just hit yesterday. I’m pretty sure I p***ed off the C-levels.  They want everybody to be happy and wear a smilie face while they decide who to axe (35-40% of staff cut in less than 6 months).  I passed it up the chain of command that people were just the opposite: terrified into silence and…within days I was gone—but without the cowards admitting that was it.

Again, while I’m a bit shell-shocked, my brain is telling me they did me a favor, and now I can look for whatever I want—and in my field and region there seem to be alot.

So I’m doing the Monster/CareerBuilder/TheLadders thing and hoping it works out OK quickly.

We can’t spend our way out of this depression, that will only prolong and deepen it which is not what the Obamessiah team is telling us. We are about to lose one of our main industial Giants G.M.C. they are planning to close 1700 dealerships in the next two weeks. How many will this affect if each dealership has 21 employees 1700 dealership would mean a loss of atleast 35,000 more jobs and what of the automotive after market more jobs 5,000 to as many as 10,000 plus next which plants will go first and how many employees from the UAW will lose their jobs after the Union has promised they would not all because they ask for pay raises when the Auto Company couldn’t afford them. Don’t get me wrong there’s enough blame to be spread around you the consumer didn’t buy their attempts at fuel economy with the metro, and later the Aveo so you helped them by sticking the knife in deeper, but the executives also committed suicide with poor management and excessive exuberant expensive waiste. Huge bonuses for incompatence, and mismanagment were given when none wre deserved, and increased saleries when none were deserving of them both in managment and labor. So as I said their is enough blame to go around and now its to late to save the company and aproximately 50,000 jobs at GMC alone then you will have huge layoffs in the industries that supplied the metels the parts, the Machines used on the assymbly line, the Tools used by the dealerships so we are looking at a conservative estimate of 150,000 more unemployed. We are assured of only two things in life Death and Taxes and the taxe protest on April 15th wasn’t about not paying what is owed but about passing the burdan onto our children and their children with bigger more controling Government with no common sinse. Like requiring a teen to to give up a part time job that he was working to save for trade school so he could in a few years pull his family off the Welfare Generational Curse, but “oh no son you can’t do that then who will we get so that we keep our government pay check comming who can we get so we can mess up thier life.”  Inherit sorry to hear you lost your job I lost mine almost nine years ago due to surgical complication the problem is that I can’t get another job in that field now because of a permanent disability caused during the surgical proceedure. Hope you land on your feet I will pray for you even though you don’t believe I do believe that God can interceed on your behalf.
        Trithoverlies/Truthoverlies.
          John R. Bloxson Jr.
P.S. People don’t buy the snake oil that the Obamessiah initiates is selling it’s already turned to vineger and gone bad.

Here’s some links:

http://www.ianwelsh.net/bank-profits-and-the-the-choice-america-has-made/

http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/the-case-of-the-missing-month/

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/04/taxpayer-funded-gs-profits/

(Courtesy of Sean Paul Kelly at The Agonist)

Several longer stories short, the “recovery” is a nice way to say that the oligarchs have been robbing the treasury - and future treasuries - blind.  But the market’s been going up so everything’s great right?

Gerald4 seems to think that gold is the answer, but gold sitting in a vault certainly doesn’t help the manufacturing sector.  Gold (remove the “l” and get another myth) is a worthless commodity as well as a worthless currency.  Face it, currency now exists mainly on plastic and fiops.
A recent report shows that bank loans have actually declined in the last month.  Maybe they need more stimulus from Obama - haha.
One trillion dollars would generate 25 million jobs (for one year).  How about trickle up for a change.

ItW,

Condolences.  Hope that your transition time is short.

The economic recovery stopped working well for me today. I lost my job: “your position has been eliminated.” 

16 years flushed down the toilet by new owners who had only been in possession a few months.  Plus the new CEO just said two or three weeks ago that all the layoffs were finished, as he lied through his teeth.

But I’m in a field where there are a lot of jobs and I hope to be back on my feet in a couple of weeks and prove that living well IS the best revenge.

Luckily, we are contingency planners and have resources, so we’ll be OK.

psickmind fraud:
Interesting article. One is left to wonder if the “free up credit” necessity of robbing us is really intended for the Wall street players to continue their corrupt practices for self enrichment.
  How’s it going to look in retrospect when, rather than halting such practices, Obama enabled the final looting depleting the treasury for generations to enrich his appointed players.

The US Government essentially became bankrupt when the US stopped redeeming our currency for gold from our gold reserves at Fort Knox in 1972, and then declared that the dollar is backed by the “full faith and credit of the USA” instead of gold (aka Junk Bonds).  If we stopped this exchange of title to US property for foreign earned dollars, the buying value of the US dollar would diminish to the point that it would take a whole day’s wages to buy one loaf of bread.  Foreign entities will very soon own everything of value in the USA and then become the major (or only) source of employment for US citizens.  The USA population will then become employees; possibility indentured servants; or maybe even beg to become slaves owned by the foreign countries and/or foreign individuals that will own everything of value in the USA in the very near future.  Foreigners know that the US currencies that they earned by making the things that we consumed can not redeemed in gold, so they are purchasing title to all of our real estate, farms, agri-businesses, food supplies, dairies, forests, industries, breweries, hotels, factories, casinos, financial institutions, retail businesses, and most other assets located in the USA with their earned currency.  The US government calls this “Investing in America”.  We are racing to print money and then sell title to everything in the USA in order to keep from working.  This is sort-of like selling our body parts to keep from working! 

We have created a situation that US gold; US currency; and title to US assets are leaving the USA in amounts of value greater than they would be if US citizens were manufacturing the things that US citizens consumed.  We should also manufacture an excess of products that foreigners would want to buy from us with their foreign currency and gold to get ownership of these assets returned into the USA.  No matter what we do, we must change this situation or we could become a post WWI Germany economically, and maybe overnight.  We need to export more than we import by any means possible in order to reverse the flow of title to US property, US gold, US securities, and US currency to foreigners in other lands.  These products and services would have to be cheaper, technologically superior and/or of better quality than those products made in the foreign countries, or the foreigners would not buy them. 

What will be the buying power of the dollar when we have no remaining assets left that the foreigners want to exchange for the US dollars that they earned by manufacturing the things that US citizens imported and consumed plus the products and parts that our US companies purchased to incorporate into the consumer products manufactured in the USA with foreign manufactured parts?  We will very soon run out of assets that foreigners will want to purchase with the freshly printed US government securities.  We need to direct the funds derived from the sale of the few remaining US assets toward investing in activities (such as technical education and re-industrialization) that will get the Gold and the US dollars from these foreign countries back into the USA.  Wall Street and Banking Business bailouts will not accomplish this. 

The only thing that will save, preserve or restore the buying power of the dollar is reversing the trade deficit and then re-building our gold reserves.  Only a positive balance of trade will restore the value of the dollar, and we must accomplish this by any means possible, or accept third world poverty on a large-scale basis.  The only way to do this is to produce and export more (dollar value of) things than we import.  The only way that we can accomplish exporting US made products is to re-industrialize and make these products with US materials & Labor.  The only way that our products will be sold abroad is if these products are either technologically superior, or cheaper.

Economic value is created only when you grow something in the earth, mine something from the earth, or make (manufacture) something.  Transportation/distribution/warehousing/tax/sales costs are added to the value of the product that was initially created by these basic creative efforts.  If we are not creating new wealth for each child born, then we are creating a downward spiral in the standard of living for that child.  The continued loss of manufacturing capability in the US is making it impossible to reverse this trend.  Printing new money to stimulate the economy just makes the existing money have less value and less buying power. 

Free trade of products and commodities means that we must compete internationally based mainly upon price, and labor costs is normally the greatest cost component of most products and commodities.  The country with the lowest labor cost then gets the product sale, manufacturing jobs, and the foreign exchange currency to manufacture these products.  Free Trade benefits the US importers and US distributors of foreign made products for US average citizen’s consumption with less expensive products, but at the cost of losing jobs in the USA to make these products.  If we had innovative products that foreigners did not have, then we could get higher prices for those products, until foreigners copy our inventions.

The USA importing, transportation, distributing and retail sales companies such as WalMart, Home Depot, NTB and etc. pay companies and individuals in foreign countries with US dollars to manufacture the things that these US businesses import, distribute, and then sell to the US consumers.  Manufacturers such as GM, Ford, GE, Chrysler, GE, Westinghouse and etc. manufacture vehicles, appliances, and equipment made with imported parts that they paid the companies in the foreign countries with US currency to manufacture these parts for assembly of the finished product in the USA that is then sold to US consumers.  What is the dollar value percentage of USA assembled products that are made with imported foreign manufactured parts and/or sub-assemblies?

The US government needs US dollars to pay their government expenses including employee payrolls, government retirement, wars, courts, federal police, pork barrel projects, research contracts, welfare, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, negative balance of trade balances, military jets with active duty military USAF pilots for the personal use of specially privileged members of congress, failed business bailouts to postpone bankruptcy, cash bonuses to the Wall Street forgers of SEC documents, Las Vegas corporation junkets, house mortgages for big spenders with bad credit, new multi-million dollar French manufactured personal corporate jets for political contributor’s corporations, expensive corporate vacations, new infrastructure, wealth re-distribution, mental health, imported consumer goods and etc., and any other thing that congress and the president decides to use taxpayer money to acquire, build or just give to their political contributors and various other privileged individuals with US dollars.  If taxes are not sufficient to pay these expenses, then the government could print paper dollars or borrow US dollars from people who are holding US dollars in exchange for freshly printed T-Bills, Government Bonds, etc.

Look the best Governmental Regulators are in Social Security, and Social Services which are both gowing bankrupt so we don’t need a bigger Government that is the fools errind that our President and the far left are on now it didn’t work in Russia, it didn’t work in Cambodia, and it doesn,t work in Europe so why is it going to work here? The truth is socialism is a failed political system more flawed than Capitalism and the state or the Government can spend us into trouble but not spend us out of it. the Big lie is that the New Deal in the 1930’s saved this country the truth is the War in Europe and Asia saved this country. Don’t get me wrong in many way F.D.R. was a good man by the standards of man, but he wasn’t as brilliant as the social scientist want you to believe. The precentage of people under the poverty line in 1967 was 23%, in 2008 it was 37% that is a good indicator of how well the War on Poverty has gone the Government got a thousand times bigger and yet poverty increased by 14% precentage points Socialism doesn’t work but we keep trying to resurrect it you would think that in 40 plus years we would have learned this fact, but here we are agian going down the same old road that leads not to success, but ends in failure.
          Trithoverlies/Truthoverlies.
            John R. Bloxson Jr.

Absolutely right, Rdv.  Credit use, whether personal or corporate, should not be a matter of everyday life.  It adds to the price of everything we buy and distorts the economy. 

If you haven’t read the article to which Jackpine provides the link (thanks, Jackpine) I heartily recommend it.

Corporatism, oligarchy, financial elitism?  Until the paper pushers, bankers, “gnomes of Zurich (UBI)” are relegated to the trash heap or the guillotine, the masses will be pillage for the benefit of the few.

“Americans found they could take out loans that by traditional standards their incomes just could not support,” Obama said…

But the reason we have to bail out banks is to free up credit? I thought too much credit was the problem and people are over-levereged as it is with fee and rates going up on charge cards. Wasn’t it easy credit and people borrowing against the equity in their homes that provided credit to consume more since wages were stagnant? How can a stable economy be built on more easy credit? Based on what?

Right on, Marie Cocco!

Our economy is in the hands of our own Darth Vader—Larry Summers and his fellow fraudsters from Wall Street. Here’s their plan—makes the banks rich (again!) and their riches will trickle down to you and me. (From Summers’s lips to my pockets!)

Obama/Summers—they a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street—favor finances (the flipping of paper) over manufacturing (actually producing something).  A Wall Street run finance-centric economy has caused the past few bubbles and subsequent busts. We can expect more of the same from the current Banksters in power.

“we” are not fooled. Noam Chomsky, interview pt.2 on DemocracyNow this morning.  http://www.democracynow.org video, transcript.  I listen in the morning on http://www.wbai.org 99.5FM community radio.

I point out the places for DemocracyNow because the corporate media is spinning this stuff. Chomsky makes the same case (going beyond) Marie Cocco. (I’m a longtime reader of both.)  Pres. Obama has brought in the same folks who made the mess, to “fix it”.  Americans are not fooled, just not heard much.

“So how will we know things are getting better in the real world, instead of in the financial world, which remains so stubbornly divorced from reality? When average people start making purchases they might have postponed six months or a year ago.”

No, dammit.

A revival of consumerism is not what is needed.  If people need things they should be able to buy them but we don’t need people buying a TV for every room in their house (How many people do you know who have a TV in their bathroom.  I know several.), or more cars, McMansions or airline tickets.

This type of behavior just leads inevitably to war in a resource-limited world like ours.  Of course, wars would lead to what the author would no-doubt call an “economic recovery” for a time, at least.  I hope no one here is so depraved as to think that would be a good thing.

Thank-you, Marie Cocco.

Suggestion: maybe bartering can save us.

If there’s an economic collapse, and the “value” of all things falls to zero dollars, the relative value of actual things to each other remains another matter.

If I have a house that’s now officially worth zero dollars, and you have a car that’s now officially worth zero dollars, and both of us agree that one’s a good trade for the other, then we can swap, and it doesn’t matter that each item is supposedly “worthless”, according to the money gods.

Maybe the problem is the fact that all value is legally translated into money. This inevitably leads to the rise of a class of people who do great harm to our economy, by playing complex games with money, completely divorced from the production of actual goods or services.

Conservatives complain about the dang “guvmint “, which they supposedly want out of their lives, so they can keep their money and not pay taxes. They think government interferes with social Darwinist “natural law”. But money itself is as unnatural as anything else. The violent enforcement of the rule of money over our lives is the biggest “guvmint program” of all, and it’s for them. The government is overwhelmingly set up to enforce the power of money and those who have it.

Well sure, the market is humming because the handful of banks (only five account for the vast majority of CDOs and CDSs) that are at the center of this mess are now reporting profits.

You would too if the government bought all of your mistakes and then sold them back to you at a reduced price and paid 85% of the reduced price.

The disconnect between Wall Street and the real economy is strongest in D.C.  But for the Capitol Crusaders, Wall Street is the real economy because that’s where they get their funding.

A brilliantly lucid and understandable explanation of the underlying process that got us in this mess is available here:

http://agonist.org/numerian/20090412/eating_our_seed_corn_how_the_financial_industry_managed_to_extract_equity_from_just_about_everybody

she said:
Some people refer to this dangerous divergence between market psychology and the people who are supposed to make markets work as the “disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street.” It is a hackneyed phrase that has become overused—but it has become overused because it is so true.

the wall street players ought to be disconnected from their life support.