Despite the focus on the housing crisis, gasoline prices and the economy in general, the press has not done a good job capturing the intense economic anxiety ”” and even dread, in some cases ”” that has gripped tens of millions of working Americans, including many who consider themselves solidly middle class.
Working families are not just changing their travel plans and tightening up on purchases at the mall. There is real fear and a great deal of suffering out there.
A man who described himself as a conscientious worker who has always pinched his pennies wrote the following to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont:
“This winter, after keeping the heat just high enough to keep my pipes from bursting (the bedrooms are not heated and never got above 30 degrees) I began selling off my woodworking tools, snowblower, (pennies on the dollar) and furniture that had been handed down in my family from the early 1800s, just to keep the heat on.
“Today I am sad, broken, and very discouraged. I am thankful that the winter cold is behind us for a while, but now gas prices are rising yet again. I just can’t keep up.”
This forms an interesting contrast to the article from Mr. Easterbrook posted below. Read it all.
I was in Myrtle Beach, SC last week. Someone needs to tell those people the economy is bad. If I was in a bad economy I would move there. A lot of activity. A lot of people in a lot of cars going to a lot of activities.
The feeling here in New England is that something worse than an economic down turn is underway. It’s a recession in a composite way, or i should say a recession that is a depression in every psychological sense. It’s money to be sure, but it’s more than money, it’s EVERYTHING somehow. There is a spiritual malaise that is part of and greater than the economic bad news. Isn’t this so where you are?
The bad news cuts to the quick. Most people here have always managed to heat the house and buy the food, even if there is no medical insurance or other such niceties. No longer. And the future looks only worse.Evben if the gas prices drop, the sense of impending doom, of gathering darkness, of the night when no man can work, this won’t go away. Larry
I can understand the depths of feeling here. I was born and raised in upstate……WAY upstate……New York, and I know how severe a Northern winter can be, believe me! There were a good many times when my folks had trouble, even then, getting sufficient #2 fuel oil to heat our country home……so we boys cut and stacked a good many cords of firewood from our forty acres to heat our home……and this was in the ’50s!
Clean air standards are fine, for the most part. But if I were in that situation again, I’m afraid I’d have to ignore them in order to keep my family warm in the winter. As for jobs, that is A REAL SORE POINT FOR ME.
I moved from Silicon Valley in 2003 after the dot com bust. Thousands lost their jobs because their jobs were sent to places like Mumbai, India because their employers could pay lower wages to Indians……and they knew very well what this would do to American workers. They cared more about their profits and their competitiveness than they did their former American employees.
Things haven’t changed, have they?