Unemployment and socialism are delicare matters and must be dealt with sensitively. I am surprised by some of the harsh comments. 1. I think people have to take most of the blame for what is going on. You have to keep reserves for the rainy day. Not only do most people do not have anything for the rainy day, they were already behind payments even in the booming days. 2. Why is Unemployment such a dangerous word in the west. Its not such a dangerous word in the east. The reason is that especially in the US, there are 3 major costs that middle class families incur even before getting to the day to day expenses. These are mortgage, property taxes and health insurance. These alone cost at least 30K combined. Now add to that, the cost of food, transportation, clothing and utilities, and these essential costs can be covered for about 1000 a month. So, what we see is that we blow a huge chunk of money in health insurance and the housing. 3. Why do most people not save? The answer is simple. There are very few avenues of decent return even for those people who could have saved, so they just spent it away, thanks to the constant bombarding by the ads on TV about the needs we did not know we have. 4. We will get out of this. The best way I see is a huge deflation in 2 costs: property taxes and health insurance for starters. Next step would be for the families to budget and save.
that's also 360 million dollars that the government won't have to borrow and force future generations to pay for.
8% on medical care? I think that's low! I heard recently that Healthcare Ins will soon cost at least 20% of income. It's here now for me. I have to go on private market soon and I'm quoted $2,630 per month for family of four! The middle class is squeeeeeeezed.
1. Learn to live on less 2. The minimum wage is a problem, don't destroy the currency to lower it, just reduce or repeal it. 3. We are drowning in paper work 4. Dump medical insurance if you can, the return for all but the extraordinarily unfortunate is very low. Learn to take care of your self e.g. Doctoryourself.com LEF.org etc
See all that lawn? Let the middle class plant cabbage, tomatoes and carrots instead of lawn. _THEN_ I will take their whining about how tough times are seriously.
Thank you for providing the solution. We'll return to an agarian society. Maybe some will choose to become hunters/gathers again. Is there an ample supply of caves in the land - less housing maintenance.
Growing veggies is a perfect extended unemployment work program alternative. Donating vegitables from your home garden will earn you work hour credits that can be used to reduce the time required to scrub the sewer tunnel walls each week.