How does the economy affect you ?

[Cadman2008]

Thanks, I'm an Operating Engineer and I operate an Excavator and a Blade and a Dozer and a Crane and just about every other piece of equipment out there, I am OSHA, MSHA, HAZMAT, OQ, Disaster Site Certified and can communicate with Homeland Security if it hits the fan..Be-careful who you insult, I might be called in under a Presidential Order along with 1st responders to save your life some day.

BTW..The last 3 years in the Chicago area has been slim to none unless you are one of the Union Business's Managers Pets.
My pay was cut by 60% then another 25% off that the next year and this year I have worked 19 days.
I think it will be 3-5 years before things get better.
Over the past 3 years I've sold several knifes and my favorite car, this year I sold my retirement property..I'm at the point where it just doesn't matter any more. I'll be OK.
Can they use any help in the North..feel free to give them my name. In the mean time I'll practice running my mouth being abusive and crude. I might have a problem with the Moron part as I don't like Stupid or Ignorant.

AND, I too put up with the biggest a-holes and drunks on oil Pipelines, violent people and horrific hours under extreme weather conditions that most people stay inside their nice warm houses for. I've worked in mud and water over my head in zero visibility and slid off rock ledges covered with ice that can get you killed in a heart beat.
And after that great life style of getting beat up, hurt and exposed for your whole career you can look for a long retirement...of 14 checks.
That's right, the average Operator draws 14 checks or 1 year and 2 months of living high on the hog before they die.

Was having a bad day that post, no insult intended. I do understand that making bitter generalizations is dangerous, because there is ALWAYS someone who rightly takes offense, but no-one said I wasn't a moron too. By all means, use the power of the internet and see if you can come get work in Australia. You'd be a rare import because you're not from the British Isles, and you speak English. Good luck.

 

[unwisefool]

I'm ok financialy and have a steady enough job, but I am buying a lot less in knives and firearms than I have in past years. I think it is a combination of really only buying what I will use/need (sorry Urgent Fury and Argonne Assault! ) and saving up in case my job situation does go south quickly. I will say this though: My company has had RECORD income and growth in the past 2 years and the board of directors gave themselves 15% raises, which is actually more than my annual salary. My raise last year was $800 It is actually the smallest raise I have EVER received, even when I was a bank teller in college! That was eaten up by the rising health care costs and the Metro rail fare increases, so now I am actually bringing less home than I did last year. Oh and they cut my end of year bonus as well. Just to give you an idea, I alone manage about 15-20% of the company's assets. Not a happy camper.

 

[Magnaminous_G]

How is the economy effecting me? Bank of America foreclosed on my house. We had it listed for almost two years without a single offer, not even a lowball. We did everything that we could, followed all the rules, escaped the auction block three or four times, but eventually they got us. ...

Bold and italics are mine. No good deed goes unpunished, eh? Sometimes, you just have to shake your head... or cry.

its all one big lie, i see people driving $500,000.00 cars parking in the garage under the building i work in and hear about all the bonuses these people are getting. one got a $15,000,000 bonus a few years ago, its all xxxxxxxx. trickle down never happened and never will happen. kinda sad but don't think there is a light at the end of the tunnel either. oh yeah how did it affect me? no raise for going on three years now and the benefits keep getting cut. could be worse i guess ...

Yeah, it's only an economic crisis for normal folks, right? The rich are living it up like it's 1999... There are now two Americas. The America of the rich, and the America of the rest. When these protests started, I didn't really understand what they were about. Now I know what they mean when they say "99%."

I drink a lot more than I used to, a lot more.

But I do think there's a lot of money out there to be made. I just gotta figure out how to make it. I think the key to making a lot of money is to find a career that few people can do well - and do it really well.

I'm still trying to figure out what career that is.

And, I'm always reminded of what Warren Buffet once said, "be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful."

Warren Buffet is talking about investments, which you have to have money to do. I think most folks have nothing to learn from Warren Buffet. Most folks are just looking for an honest day's pay for an honest day's work... which is rapidly becoming a thing of the past in the U.S. A very small handful of folks with high education and specialized skills are getting by comfortably, and more power to them. But most folks--the 99%--get the shaft... and have no use for Warren Buffet's investment advice.

 

[Last Visible Canary]

(if this is too political, I/mods can delete/edit it)

in a lot of ways, the idea that we're going to be back on track or that we're going to continue the trend of higher standard of living is unrealistic regardless of any politics anyone can produce. we had a 150 year rise in standard of living due to a lot of socio-economical-political factors that simply don't exist as they did.
-The use of computers replacing manual labor,
-The presence foreign competition for all fields but the lowest local labor or the highest education thats difficult to obtain,
-The presence of women in the work force doubling it and limiting number of jobs available for individuals (not a bad thing, but not the same as what it was)
-The presence of immigrant labor reducing the availability of the lowest jobs
-The limited nature of oil reserves guaranteeing the rise of oil/fuel costs regardless of temporary reserves (every single thin in our society needs it, it will run out fast even with a small ocean of it)
-Increased population causing previously tenable political and social structures to be strained resulting in lowered services for the poor
-credit card mentality of 'perpetual growth is necessary for stability' and 'buy now pay later, you don't need to pay it up front' resulting in massive debts for all players

none of these things are going to change. Not without an enormous population drop that won't happen for a while, and will be disastrous when it does, or a complete political failure that disrupts the current trends in political power and manipulation for the good of the few. The 1920's were very like today, so part of it might happen, but not all. The dreams of our fathers that we should have an increased standard of living than they had is pretty thoroughly shot to hell.

That said... it's possible to do alright, if your willing to look at 'alright' in the ways that people used to. I.E. I have enough food, I have basic shelter, and I have clothes on my back. Even that can be hard when you find your situation tenuous and the unpredictability causes such severe stress that your health fails because of it. But it's doable, with a great drop in expectations.

It's hard to not be incredibly bleak about it. I'm 28 now and I've never made more than 20,000$ a year. I think I might pull it off this year, but only because I'm working 50 hours a week paid and in reality 60-70 if you count unpaid and I don't have a car. When I try to think of things like others present them, as in "it's always darkest before the dawn" or "it'll get better", in a very small sense it might. But you step back and look at what caused it, and it becomes more unlikely. find a fix for it, step back again to see the structures restricting that change, and it becomes harder to believe again. Maybe it will, but I'm not going to give myself a heart attack hoping it will and then being heart broken when it doesn't. And I mean that in the most serious of ways, not as any kind of jest.