Alphabet Soup

Spitting fire today! If one more person uses the word recession to me, I will scream from the rooftops! We are not in a recession. We are in a depression -- yes, we can use the D word now. It may not be the perfectly defined D word with all the required criteria, but it is a depression. This is becoming more profound than the Great Depression because many people today have no idea of how to survive or the wherewithal to do it. We are lucky. As long as my husband and I can keep our jobs (not in peril as yet), we have a home and 7 acres upon which we can raise food (we actually do that for ourselves and the local farmer's market), but most people have no clue of how to survive or property to do it on. Remember, we have a lot of people who have been busy taking vacations, buying cars, hiring their yard work done and finding doggie-daycare and trying really hard to pretend not to see the problems we have (sarcasm). But, we mostly have those who have simply worked so very hard and expected the dream that their parents told them about, so that their survival knowledge base is just as lacking as Mr. and Mrs. McMansion's. I have two daughters out of work. One has already exhausted her unemployment and has a 3 day a week job. Luckily, she is getting food stamps and medicaid for her and our granddaughter. Also, luckily, my husband and I can tighten our belts and help her with her mortgage, but think of the number of people who aren't that lucky! My middle daughter's last day at her employment is Christmas day. The large pharmaceutical company that she works for sold out to another company and she and 23 others who had 3 year contracts have been let go. Of course, the company will take back their share of the 401K and allow the employees to keep what they put in. I find their generosity touching. She will begin collecting her unemployment. I asked the other day if she could get food stamps and medicaid and she told me that the rule is that 'if you are drawing unemployment so that you can possibly keep your home, (no food to eat in it), you can't get food stamps. When you get to the end of your unemployment and can get food stamps, you will have food (no home to eat it in, though). And someone said to me the other day that they could see no problem with Capitalism (the C word)! And we have a President that if I were a religious person I would pray for daily. This man is brilliant with the best of intentions and he has inherited a 2 front war and an economy on the skids like never before. Former President Bush and the puppet masters left our nation little hope, but left their cronies and themselves with lots of money. The President's own party is so afraid of the word 'socialism' (the S word) that they are willing to let pass the opportunity for us to join the rest of the industrialized world who has long known that it is imperative that people must have affordable (even free!) health care. Yes, dare I say, even a gov't ran program. This chance may never come again. The insurance companies will not run out of money to fight this because they are the richest entities in the country (that in itself should tell us something). Not a very uplifting posting today............Happy Holidays!