[perdition79]

It's unfortunate that people are killing themselves over this financial mess; they are incapable of trying a way of life different than that of the (former) status quo: Worship the money god.

How long will it take before rational people have rational responses to this crisis, and simply quit everything? Walk away from debt, file bankruptcy, become squatters, close bank accounts, drop financed cars off at the bank or dealership, move in with relatives, etc.?

[ReverseEngineer]

How long will it take before rational people have rational responses to this crisis, and simply quit everything? Walk away from debt, file bankruptcy, become squatters, close bank accounts, drop financed cars off at the bank or dealership, move in with relatives, etc.?

Filing bankruptcy is harder than it used to be, and negotiating it without a lawyer is difficult. Drop off your car at the bank, have no money, how do you get to your job if you still have one? How do you get to the job interviews if you don't? Unless you happen to live in acity with good public transport, you are SOL. Lots of folks don't have such great realtionships with their relatives they can take them in, of their relatives are in the same boat they are.

"Walking away" as you put it means throwing yourself on the Welfare system, and many of these folks were Republicans who DESPISE Welfare.

The choice here is being a Homeless Person or a Dead Person. They aren't all that different.

Reverse Engineer

[ColossalContrarian]

Where I live they just squat in the woods.

If I were homeless where it's cold I would move into a furniture showroom. Grab a blanket and pillow and go to sleep. And if they arrested me for that, I'd bed down in jail until they released me. Then I'd find a furniture showroom.

Suicide is for the unimaginative.

You know a lot of bums commit petty crimes just to get a warm place to sleep in county jail and three square meals a day.

[perdition79]

How long will it take before rational people have rational responses to this crisis, and simply quit everything? Walk away from debt, file bankruptcy, become squatters, close bank accounts, drop financed cars off at the bank or dealership, move in with relatives, etc.?

Filing bankruptcy is harder than it used to be, and negotiating it without a lawyer is difficult. Drop off your car at the bank, have no money, how do you get to your job if you still have one? How do you get to the job interviews if you don't? Unless you happen to live in acity with good public transport, you are SOL. Lots of folks don't have such great realtionships with their relatives they can take them in, of their relatives are in the same boat they are.

"Walking away" as you put it means throwing yourself on the Welfare system, and many of these folks were Republicans who DESPISE Welfare.

The choice here is being a Homeless Person or a Dead Person. They aren't all that different.

Is this the part where I'm supposed to take the bait and explain how easy it is for a resourceful man to make hundreds of thousands of dollars without the use of debt?

[Sixstrings]

ReverseEngineer wrote:

Filing bankruptcy is harder than it used to be, and negotiating it without a lawyer is difficult. Drop off your car at the bank, have no money, how do you get to your job if you still have one? How do you get to the job interviews if you don't? Unless you happen to live in acity with good public transport, you are SOL. Lots of folks don't have such great realtionships with their relatives they can take them in, of their relatives are in the same boat they are.

You're right on target there, Reverse. The cold hard fact is that is DOWNRIGHT AWFUL to be poor in this country. This ain't France, my friends. We have no real safety net here.

It is every bit as jolting for a modern middle class person to find himself suddenly in the underclass as it would have been for a 19th century plantation owner to suddenly find himself a slave.

Depressing, to say the least.

[ReverseEngineer]

You know a lot of bums commit petty crimes just to get a warm place to sleep in county jail and three square meals a day.

Dems was da good old days.

As discussed in prior threads, about the LAST place you would want to find yourself when TS REALLY HTF is in a Prison of any sort.

As the society spins down, Jails become too expensive to maintain. Paperwork will get lost as record keepers are let go. Nobody will know if you are in Prison for sleeping on a Park Bench or being a Serial Killer. Heck this sort of stuff happens NOW. When they run out of money to keep guardin the prison, prisoners will be either shot on the spot or released. Not a whole lot of difference there either, your bed in the prison is gone, that is WHY you got yourself sent to prison in the first place, for a bed and 3 square meals a day.

It would be a very bad idea IMHO to get yourself arrested for any reason just to get in a prison for a bed and food. VERY short term survival potential in that scenario. Rather, your Numero Uno objective is to stay OUT of prison now, and in fact stay out of the social welfare network also. Because one day soon here there will be a Job Call for Prisoners and Unemployed to Build new Windmills in San Antonio. Free Transport in Amtrak Trains. Very comfortable. Except when you get there, there won't BE any Windmills. There will be a Human Waste Reprocessing Facility run by Halliburton. You are the Human Waste.

Reverse Engineer

Reverse Engineer

[hope_full]

All this talk about living in the woods sounds awful. And this talk of "national safety nets" doesn't strike a chord with me, either.

When your life goes to hell in a handbasket, this is where family is supposed to come in, when a mom or dad or sister or brother or auntie is supposed to step up to the plate and offer a place to live and a few meals to eat until things get better.

If you study the Great Depression, you'll find that families migrated to the family member with the biggest house and they all hunkered down and figured out the challenging dynamics of living together until the financial storms had passed.

That's a far better alternative than murdering your wife and dear children.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

All this talk about living in the woods sounds awful. And this talk of "national safety nets" doesn't strike a chord with me, either.

When your life goes to hell in a handbasket, this is where family is supposed to come in, when a mom or dad or sister or brother or auntie is supposed to step up to the plate and offer a place to live and a few meals to eat until things get better.

If you study the Great Depression, you'll find that families migrated to the family member with the biggest house and they all hunkered down and figured out the challenging dynamics of living together until the financial storms had passed.

That's a far better alternative than murdering your wife and dear children.

As stated above, lots of people don't have families who are any better off, are just hanging in, or are totally intolerable.

Living in the woods really isn't that bad. Well... some of us don't have a problem with it. I'd rather have an igloo but hey, beggars can't be choosers. I can't believe things are so bad down there. I can't believe they are not reporting all of this stuff. I can't believe something more isn't being done.

I think ego does have a lot to do with it. I might not have gone and lived in the woods ever since I had kids, but I could again if I had too, but take my kids lives? I know my kids would follow me blindly. My son won't go survival camping in the winter unless I'm with his troop. No matter waht I do with mine, I have no right to take their lives. That is just sick when people start taking others lives because of their shame. Sick and sad!

[vision-master]

Imagine being thrown out on the street with all the other lepers. Ever had your car break down and try find a helping hand. Imagine living in shelters where your thrown out every morning. Begging at the stop lights, living in your car. Fack....................

[Heineken]

It's an enduring myth that beggars, tramps, and the homeless in general are that way because they prefer it.

Orwell addressed this myth, and punctured it as only Orwell could, in "Down and Out in Paris and London" and "The Road to Wigan Pier."

Homelessness is generally a miserable state to be in, and leads to illness, premature aging, and premature death.

[Ludi]

People in general aren't good at adapting to sudden change. It's horribly stressful. And our society has such a low tolerance for change, which is often seen as failure, it's not surprising people become despondent. I agree these people are suffering from a lack of imagination, but it's almost impossible to be imaginative once you've become depressed. I'm hoping everyone is now starting to think about what kind of changes might come upon them in their life situations, and what "proactive" changes they can make. I think, however, most people just go along in their daily lives assuming nothing will change (certainly not for the worse) and so they never even contemplate, let alone take steps, about ways they can direct that change themselves.

[vision-master]

Then the depression manifests itself into depression & anxiety simultaneously. Huh? How can one be depressed and anxious at the same time. Wait,,,,,,,, untill those panic attacks start taking over! They will bring the strongest to their knees in no time. The time when one awakes in shear terror..........

The time when one wishes to crawl up into the crawl fetal position in agony.

Oh yes, it can happen to the strongest........

Glad I've gone though this stage already.

[shakespear1]

Code: Select all

Filing bankruptcy is harder than it used to be,

When these changes were being made was a sure sign that it was known that problems were coming of formidable size. This was not a "Financial Surprise" as Bush Jr. was telling everyone.

[vision-master]

coming to take me away

Man who fly upside down, have crack'up.

[vision-master]

Well being that my wife and I are both unemployed, we are in a not-too-bad situation if it goes from bad-to-worse. My parents are 100 miles away and doing fine with room-to-spare. Her parents are 6 miles away and doing fine with paid off house and room. Her Grandmother is about 15 miles away with paid off house and 3 extra rooms since she lives alone. In the coming days, I am sure she will enjoy the company, especially when crime becomes rampant.
The job search for the month I have been off is going horribly. Lots of resumes sent, applications filled out, only one call so far. My wife has been off for 4 months, and still no luck. Its pretty darn bad out there, even for a state like Oklahoma with a unemployment rate still shown as below 5%.

Now if'n you belonged to a Union............

[timmatoil]

This is just sad, I hope the American economy picks up, because it just seems like everyday the stories keep getting worse.

[DomusAlbion]

Here's a newspaper illustration from the 1873 Depression:



Human nature doesn't change. We are where we are because of our own greed, envy and lust. A new generation will have to learn the virtues that lead to wealth and stability and then their grandchildren will tear it all down. AGAIN.