Today, Costco announced they will now accept food stamps. This is significant since their marker has always been the price conscious upscale customer.

US Airways is laying off 1000 people (200 pilots), planning to focus on 2 hub cities and one high profit back business route.

What have you heard?

One of the excellent vendors I've worked with for a long time at my law firm just called me today to let me know that his company was closing both their NY and Chicago offices. They're keeping him and allowing him to work remotely, which is great news for him since he and his wife have a new baby. But everyone else in those offices is getting laid off.

I fear it's a long long way down for this country and there will be many more of these stories.

I don't know if this is the status quo but the struggling Detroit newspapers charge $100 to publish an obituary.

detroit couldn't auction off most of their seized homes... and those that did get sold, people trying to find a place to live in an actual habitable home generally got outbid y investors...

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE59O17F20091025

detroit is scary.

i have a friend whose state is seven weeks behind on paying his wife's unemployment benefits.

record numbers of people are going back to school (if you can't find a job, might as well do something useful with your time?)

The provincial government cut the self-employment program out of the programs available for people who are laid off. The second career education now has more stringent requirements.

I was going to enroll in the self-employment program but the news was delivered to me. There are way too many laid off workers right now that even the government cannot support these workers with programs that can help them pull through. 

I've been laid off for 15 months.

We've had no income for over a year, my oldest is out of work, and we're putting our house on the market.  Thank God we have our health, that's all I can say.

(((PinkMinxx)))  (((kiriecat)))

(((kiriecat))) (((PinkMinxx)))

I had no idea the situations are that bad :( 

Thanks guys!  We're trying to be as positive as we can...

The situation IS that bad, and not just for us.  We're in our 50's, and I can think of at least 5 close friends who do not have jobs at the moment, at least 10 more as well.  Imagine trying to find a new job when you're in your 50's in a GOOD economic market.  A lot of them who switched jobs back before all this crap hit the fan have lost those new jobs.  Most of these folks are successful professionals, have had solid jobs all their lives.  No lazy bums in this group.  Companies are cutting back -- or closing their doors entirely.  If you have a job, don't quit!!!!!!  And if you do, pray you won't get let go.....

PinkMinxx - that is good advice and here's some more:

Stop voting for people who kill and curtail healthy business that provides jobs while spending our money bailing out businesses that ought to go down so that new productive business can come up in it's place. Er... Pluto in Capricorn anyone?  Can we please stop pumping resources into corpses?

How about we apply logic, quit throwing good money after bad and pave the way for the business that will start up if we provide the conditions where this is possible. IE quit changing the rules every fuckin' minute so a person can PLAN. 

Do we really want to revolutionize (Uranus) business (Saturn) so that it is no longer profitable?  ::laughs::

I worked for a fortune 500 company and set myself for a good number of years. Thank God they were profitable.... this is how they were able to offer me a job with a good salary, benefits and stock options. Win, win, win, win, win!!!!

Now people are being driven out of business and guess what, the jobs go with. It's a pretty simple equation. Let those of us who want to work hard, work hard and be rewarded for it.

For example I work hard on this blog. If the government comes and gives half of whatever benefits I get to people who don't work at all do you really think I am going to continue to work hard?

Well I am, but not here. I'll go work where the government can't see me, duh. I was a waitress and I tended to make considerably more tips then the other servers. If I have to pool my tips and split them, I'd have quit.

Same with sales. I busted my ass and was the number one salesperson in my state and I worked on commission so was the highest paid. If I was made to give my commission to the guy who barely worked at all do you think I'd have continued to work hard? If you think, yes, you're dreamin'.

This shit doesn't work. You have to let the hard working people work and be rewarded. 20 percent do 80% of the work, remember?  Best not mess with that.

As far as I can see, neither of the two parties who dominate current politics are interested in rewarding regular commerce. Republicans have done nothing but funnel money upward to the point that we are practically a third world country. Their new businesses are in India and Mexico, unless they can import cheap labor and do it here. They want socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us. They want us to earn third world wages then have to pay first world prices for everything. Fuck them. I refuse to glorify a bunch of greedy cheats. We can thank Bush for the first bailout (with no oversight), Obama for the ridiculous cash for clunkers mess. And both parties for a host of no-bid contracts and back room deals.

Fact of the matter is, America can't engage in the kind of protectionism it would take to foster new business that would actually benefit the working class in this country. Because we're already mortgaged to the hilt to China et al. It's an economic coup, rather than a military one.

healthcare plan will obliterate small businesses

http://is.gd/4LhGe

The cost of providing healthcare is already obliterating small businesses. Sure, they can choose not to provide it, but any workers who are at all marketable will go to the companies that do provide it, as a general rule.

Small businesses haven't been healthy for many, many years. Due in part to health care, but also in part to the fact that they don't have lobbyists like the big stores do, they can't afford to offshore and they don't get the sweet deals from gov't that the big players do. Republicans pretend to be the friend of business, but as my struggling small business owning Republican friend can attest to, they're really only the friend of big business.

This is not to say that Dems don't have their problems. I'm an independent, just to self disclose. I don't think turning us into Argentina is any more of a solution than turning us into Sweden is.

Half of US kids will get food stamps, study says

Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.

I sure hope we decide to go back to being prosperous.  

I have realigned my priorities.  I went to a very liberal college and was taught by the professors there to feel guilty for any sort of monetary accomplishment, or to have disdain for those who worked for a living.  I spent a good number of years working hard for low pay.  Now I think, what's the point of that?  If I'm going to work, I better be compensated.  Money is a huge way of being rewarded for offering something that people need or want. 

These days I'm winging it in the sense that I'm going trial and error to figure out what the best path for myself and my family is during this recession.  And I definitely plan on coming out ahead.  I'm in a low position right now, but I feel up up up and I'm using my votes for those who support this kind of effort. 

I have been unemployed since March '09', I am thankful for the little unemployment and food stamps I have. I was hoping to get about $2,000.00 from a class action lawsuit from the Orange County Register I use to work at, but they filed for Bankruptcy a month ago!!!

I was told the unemployment rate went up to 12% in CA, it was 10%. I hope all works out PinkMinxx

 Im debating whether I should start pan-handling again or sell jewlery on the street.

hmmm...If anyone is looking for a job I know GreenPeace needs canvessars in southern CA. They give paid training and the pay is pretty good. If you love your planet they will hire you. Look in your area to see if you have a GreenPeace office that does canvessing. I'm burnt out on the canvessing and got fired because I missed my quota 2 weeks in a row.

Pinkminxx they hire ANY age.

Thanks Bretagne!

when is this country going to get past age discrimination? 

I think you are going to see more discrimination (of all kinds) then we ever have in my lifetime. I am already seeing it AND cop to being part of it.

 Sorry but I am part of this collective... deeply in tune with it and I do tend to catch these trends early, sometimes very early.

In whatever case, bigotry of all kinds is on the rise and I think the rise is going to be meteoric. 

Elsa, I am Vietnamese and this is disheartening.

Toni, it's not like you'll be singled out... whole groups will discriminate against whole groups and the groups will discriminate right back as you already see all over the place. 

I see.

Elsa-

"whole groups will discriminate against whole groups and the groups will discriminate right back as you already see all over the place"

and

" I am already seeing it AND cop to being part of it."

It's so hard. Because you can easily say this heritage or race, this set of people who makes X amount of dollars, this institution...so do you accept that discrimination will always be there?

 There's this guy, Tim Wise, who talks about racism/racialism being BUILT within our structures...he wrote "White Like Me". I agree that it's built within our structures, but...I don't know if I agree with his advice, which seems to say to accept that you had to give up your nationality/heritage when you entered this country

I'm all for not martyring/victimising yourself because you're a minority. 

Toni -

I'm half a minority.
 

Lets hold hands! 

hrae, so you're mixed?

Sits and thinks nervously about question:.

And what do you mean you wouldn't stand a chance in many institutions?

I just edited that because I realized it was a hypocritical thing for me to say that minorities shouldn't victimize themselves and then say I wouldn't stand a chance! hahahaha

It's something I'm struggling with, with Saturn in my 1st, and Pluto in my 4th right now.

This is why I love being self employed. My business is too small to be subject to normal regulations of larger business (even of so called "small businesses") so I feel like I can fly under the radar so to speak, as can others like me who work for themselves and don't employ others. On the downside, there are only so many hours in a day that I can bill for so my income cap/scalability is limited in that regard, but I have written three ebooks that are starting to sell. Hopefully I can scale the business up with the ebooks, rather than hiring other people in order to take on more clients. The tax breaks are ENORMOUS for people in my position.

My best advice is to work for yourself. But it does take WORK to get it off the ground. You not only have to be good at the thing you are selling (like for me bookkeeping), but you also have to wear other hats like marketing and also be a decent time manager.