There's an old Lee Hays song that goes like this:
Time's a gettin' hard, boys, money's gettin' scarce
If times don't get no better, boys, gonna leave this place
Take my true love by the hand, lead her through the town
Sayin' good-bye to everyone, good-bye to everyone
This past weekend I ran into a friend whom I hadn't seen in a while. (The school year makes hermits of all of us.) We have kids the same age and we've socialized over the years. We exchanged pleasantries, "how are yous?" and so forth, and then she told me that their family is moving to another state at the end of the summer. I said something inane like, "Wow. That's big." She went on to tell me that her husband has been unable to find work for over a year, that they have not been able to keep up with bills, that if they stay here they will have to sell their [very modest] house ... her husband got a job in another state and so they feel they have no choice but to go.
This is a family that was pretty settled here, not upwardly mobile or transient the way many younger professionals seem to be. Their kids have grown up here. They've put down roots.
That could very well be us, if not for the fact that I have so many years invested in my school system. My husband was laid off from his job for a good quarter of the last year. He works for a high end custom remodeling company, and clients were simply not signing their contracts, deciding to postpone projects. What does it mean when people who are comfortably well off get cold feet over spending money?
This is what I see when I begin to look around my immediate circle: Two of my siblings either unemployed or under-employed. Significant teacher lay-offs in my district (that's a first in my 20 years with this district). My neighbor unable to find a job.
Granted, this is viewing the world through a very small lens, but I think it implies a much greater problem than anyone seems to be talking about. What is keeping us afloat right now, aside from the "everything's fine" mentality? Is it the flood of cheap crap from Asia? Living on credit?
The jobs are going out the window, as is so articulately described in this article.
Nearly 80 years after the Great Depression, there seems to be a tendency to almost romanticize it, and certainly a lack of awareness as to how bad it really was. I see the signs, and I am frightened and saddened for my children's future.
5 comments:
I think it's outsourcing and globalization. It really only gives permission for greedy corporations to go to underdeveloped countries and exploit the labor there. Of course, that ends up affecting everything else.
The insecurity that is rampant now will end up either creating a country of defeated drones or eventual revolution.
Peace,
~Chani
I agree with thailandchani. I am remembering how our family of five could "make it" on my dad's factory job salary in the 60's, then in the 70's my mom had to work part time, then full time.
We have struggled financially for the entire 20 years of our marriage. I used to blame myself, thinking we just weren't managing our finances very well. A few years ago I saw some statistics about what it takes for a family of 4 to get by in our area; we're always 2 steps behind! Our combined salaries do not keep up with the cost of living, there is no way for us to "catch up". And I at least have a decent union job (although we just settled on a pretty poor contract for the next 2 years.)I don't know how others do it. Well, obviously they don't, do they?
And I just saw an article about a TV station somewhere that outsourced the LOCAL news reporting to India! They said that, with the Internet, it was not necessary for that to be done locally anymore. How absurd can things become?
This country has become a corporatocracy. It makes me suspicious of what might happen in the future as the security of more people becomes tied to them.
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