Pinched

Driving home from my parents’ place this evening, where I had dinner with my folks, I was listening to the NPR show On Point, and the focus was the economy, specifically the jobs situation, the poor jobs situation. They’re talking about how the country, in the wake of this recession, is becoming divided into the affluent, the wealthy, and everyone else, i.e. the middle class is disappearing, which has been said to be the engine of our economy.

The guest “expert” is Don Peck,the author of  “Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It.” And I got to tell you that guy does not sound very optimistic.

I heard quoted that the average time of unemployment time span is 9 months. Nine freaking months! I can’t imagine still being unemployed come next may. And yet I’ve heard of people being out of work for up to three years. What do you do with yourself when you’re unemployed for three years.

Something else they’re talking about is how there are certain segment of American society that are not touched by the recession, people who don’t see the jobs problem. Now, I’ve only been unemployed for a week but I’ve been job-searching for months, ever since I learned that jobs would be cut at the library where I worked, because I strongly suspected that I might be one of the unfortunates to get the ax, and I can tell you that it is not good out there, jobs-wise. I don’t care what anyone says. I reviewed perhaps 100 j0bs and found only three to apply for. I mean, unless I want to work for $8.50 and hour, which would be a step down from unemployment. But who knows? I may be begging for a job lock that in a few months.

And yet there are people who believe things are not that bad, that they are improving. Someone said to me that they felt things are getting better because their company was looking to hire 7 people or something like that and couldn’t find people to fill those positions. That may well be, but it is not representative of what is going in the greater economy. The situation is not good, and I seriously doubt that it’s going to get much better anytime soon. It is going to be years and years before we recover, it we ever really recover entirely.

Of course, statistically I am supposed to be in a good position, since I have an education, an advanced degree even. But consider that my degrees are in English, creative writing. I’m not sure that these seem very practical or impressive to employers, if they even look at my resume amongst the hundreds, if not thousands, that are submitted for any given position.

Finally, they say that people get more conservative financially in times like these, and I agree. I question and pain over every nickle that I spend. I cut wherever I can. I go without. I just don’t buy stuff. And I’m not about to until things start improving.

Example: my lease is up at the end of September. I have to give thirty days notice to the rental office if I’m going to stay or move out. So that basically gives me two weeks to nab a job that will allow me to stay in my apartment. But I doubt that is going to happen, so my plan is to move back in with my parents. Now, I could probably afford to stay in my apartment while on unemployment. I could probably scrape by. But I’d probably run through what meager savings I have in addition to burning up the unemployment, which is substantially less than I was making at  my job, which was not that much. It may not be ideal, moving back in with my parents, but my goal is to not go into debt, and perhaps even preserve some money, what little I have.

I’m sorry, I’m just not very optimistic. Others may be, but I’m not. It’s a new reality, and it’s not good.

Gen X catches shit for for Realestate bust — Nice!

I’ve made clear my disinterest, if not utter disdain, for business and makreting etc as it pertains to Generation X, mostly because of the crap out there that exist for no other purpose than to try make money off of GenX, or any other generation for that matter. I find this sort of endeavor essentially soulless, and have, until now, mostly opted to simply not engage with it, except to vent my annoyance and contempt.

Having said that, personal finances are a fact of life. And being a parent, I want to pass on good fiscal habits to my daughter, as much I am capable of doing so.

The following article suggests that Generation X  is somehow to blame for the current Real Estate bust is precisely the kind of horse shit that puts me off the subject of business and finance and  all related subject matter. So of course I was fully prepared to dismiss this blog out of hand, but then I began reading the comments to this post and was heartened to see plenty of people taking this dude to task, which was perhaps his intent. So I took a little closer look at the blog and found it to have some interesting as well as potentially useful information on it.

Check out the article:

http://genxfinance.com/2008/03/25/is-generation-x-responsible-for-the-real-estate-and-mortgage-problems/

Perhaps it is better to engage this kind of bullshit than to ignore it.

For example, the notion that Generation X somehow graduated from college into a rosey economy is ridiculous. It does not apply to me, that’s for sure. Sure, in the mid- to late-90s the Tech Boom was in full force, but that is only a narrow window of time. I am GenX and I graduate from undergrad in 1991. I can still remember the commencement keynote speaker lamenting the poor job market and economy. I found work in a bookstore that summer, but then I didn’t look for much more since I was off to grad. school after a year off. So maybe I missed something. Granted after grad school and severl years adjunct teaching, which earned me very little (but hey that was my fault for wanting to teach college kids how to write and sharpen their critical thinking skills; I should have just chucked all that cash in the big bucks or whatever), I landed a very lucrative job in the infomration publishing industry, scoring a whopping 20k/year salary– woo hoo! That was in 1999, and not 4 years later that that company was laying people en masse. I know people who are still bouncing around looking for jobs. I suppose some people got stinking rich off the tech boom but I don’t know any.

And I don’t know any Gen Xers how own fucking McMansions either. My wife and I own a ranch with no basement.

Also, this article ignores the fact that many GenXers did not go to college and thus entered the work force in the mid-80s, which I’m pretty sure sucked ass! Thanks a lot Ronnie Regan, may you rest in self-deluded peace.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pretty disdainfull and suspicious of marketing and business proponents who seek to exploit Generation X to fill thier pockets, but I’m willing to take a closer look. I’ve got my eye on you Generation X Finance. I’m watching. Always watching. Well, probably not always. But I’ll put you on my blog roll. Aren’t you elated!