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Monday, September 22, 2008

Best. Economic. Death. Watch. Post. Ever.
Posted by Jill | 3:35 PM
From who else? Lower Manhattanite. Go. Read. Enjoy. If you can.

As I enter the last week of my surprisingly short periof of unemployment, I'm starting to marvel at my good fortune in landing something else so quickly. In fact, of the five people in my department who were laid off, only three were actively looking, and now all three of us have found jobs -- two of us in the same company and the same building. And all three of us are over 50.

But that shouldn't blind anyone to what is actually going on out there, as LM explains as only he can:
These were the soon-to-be refugees from the hours-from-defunct Lehman Brothers.

They toted odd talismans of a finance industry gone sour like milk left out for a summer's fortnight. One woman carried a big, inflatable Wall St. Bull. Another carried huge, foam core-backed blow-ups of pictures of partying fellow Wall Streeters from more flush times. A haggard-looking fellow struggled with three laptop bags and a small box of papers—probably a stack of just-printed resumés.

Schadenfreude naturally prompts one to feel little for these people. We tend to see them all as Gordon Gekko-ish,“big, swinging dicks”. But the fact of the matter is that while a few of the people trudging dejectedly out of 745 Seventh Avenue may have been the contrast-collared bastards who led us into this abyss (most of the bigwigs stayed away lest they be the butt of catcalls—or worse from pissed off underlings), many more were just cube rats. Not rich. Not poor either. Just that nebulous in-between that puts in its hours and cashes a check for it. A shit load of 'em leveraged heavily against student loans for degrees that won't mean squat now as the industry gets a forced, financial “gastric bypass”, where there won't be the space anymore for that many jobs. The big guns are gonna be alright to a degree—much moreso than the Schmoes and Sues I saw carrying the trinkets of a better time down a midtown street.

I don't know what that guy was gonna do with all those extra mugs he was toting. Maybe fill 'em all with coffee all at once so he doesn't have to get up for refills as he stays up late re-doing his C.V.? Who knows?

What I do know is that people are hurting out here. Big time.


I feel no smugness nor sense of relief that next Monday I get to leave the house at 8 AM to get to work. Because anything can happen. Conventional wisdom used to be that large companies were "safer" and "more secure." If anyone actually still believed that, the last week should have blown that notion to smithereens. If it wasn't clear before, during the past twenty-eight years of Reaganomics and Democrats unable or unwilling to take credit for the many good things liberalism brought to this country, it is now clear that so-called free markets aren't unfettered; they're rigged in favor of thems that's got.




It is also now clear that for those who have black holes where the rest of us have hearts and souls, there is no amount of money that is enough; no amount that fills that hole. The secretaries and computer operators and help desk guys and network techs and phone techs and other operations people who were regarded as "cost centers" by Lehman Brothers executives will get nothing, but $2.5 billion has been set aside for golden parachutes for the people responsible for the company's fall. Guess what, America...these guys are never going to let you into their club. John McCain said he wants everyone to be rich, but the policies he advocates are designed to continue the Thems That Got Shall Get Them That's Not Shall Lose Club in perpetuity. A rising tide doesn't lift all boats, and the trickling down you feel upon your head isn't the wealth affect finally reaching you, it's the Great Dane of a Wall Street executive being walked by someone who used to have a good job -- and the dog is peeing on your head.

They got rid of pensions and told you that 401(k)s were better because you would control your own money and you could invest it. I don't know about you, but after a late start because I made barely enough to live on until I was in my mid-thirties, I've been socking money away into these plans ever since -- and not just a pittance, a fairly sizable amount of my income. I don't even want to look at my account balances anymore. A passbook savings account paying 0.25% is looking mighty good to me right about now.

They wanted to privatize Social Security and invest it in the stock market "for better returns" -- or so they said. Now we know why they wanted to privatize Social Security: so it too could be a casualty of Wall Street greed. "Sorry...we can't afford your old age pension anymore."

Nope. The system has been rigged against us from the beginning. It's just that they can no longer hide it.




(musical accompaniment by Billie Holiday and Leonard Cohen)
2 comments
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2 Comments:
Blogger J said...
Congratulations on your new job. :)

I went to a girl scout function last weekend, where two families have recently found out that they were both laid off. From two incomes to zero incomes, quite quickly. Ugh.

I'm happy for everyone who has found work when it is needed.
9/22/08, 11:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
And they said that American companies couldn't plan beyond the next quarter.
Sounds like they've been planning this one for quite some time....
9/23/08, 8:55 AM  
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