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  • #61
    Re: Postcards on the Edge

    Loans Without Profit Help Relieve Economic Pain


    Rabbi Hirshy Minkowicz runs a gemach, a program of interest-free loans, in a prosperous stretch of suburbia near Atlanta.

    By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

    When Hirshy Minkowicz was growing up in a Hasidic enclave of Brooklyn 30 years ago, he often noticed visitors arriving after dinner to meet with his father. They would withdraw into the study, speak for a time, then part with some confidential agreement having been sealed.

    As he grew into his teens, Hirshy came to learn that his father operated a traditional Jewish free-loan program called a gemach. The visitors, many of them teachers in local religious schools, struggling to raise their families on small and irregular salaries, had been coming to borrow money at no interest and with no public exposure.

    Now 39 years old and serving as the rabbi of a Chabad center near Atlanta, Rabbi Minkowicz has done something he never expected: open a gemach that deals primarily with non-Orthodox Jews in a prosperous stretch of suburbia. The reason, quite simply, is the prolonged downturn in the American economy, which has driven up the number of Jews identified by one poverty expert as the “middle-class needy.”

    The same phenomenon has appeared in Jewish communities across the country, albeit most often in those with existing Orthodox populations already familiar with the gemach system. This institution, rooted in biblical and Talmudic teachings and whose name is a contraction of the Hebrew words for “bestowal of kindness” (“gemilut chasadim”), is now meeting needs created by such resolutely modern causes as subprime mortgages, outsourcing and credit default swaps.

    “I honestly never thought, in my realm here, to start a gemach,” Rabbi Minkowicz said in a recent interview. “I thought people wouldn’t understand it. It’d be a foreign concept. They hadn’t grown up that way. But definitely, definitely, definitely the economy now is the worst. The 13 years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen people go from a regular life to rags. I’ve seen that up-front and personal.”

    It is difficult to determine the exact dimensions of the economy’s impact on the Jewish population in general and on the surge in the use of gemachs specifically. The loan programs, often financed and run by families, operate on the basis of anonymity. Governmental statistics on poverty, unemployment, foreclosure and other such measures of the continuing malaise are not broken down by religion, as they are by race.

    Still, the evidence points to an economic toll on Jews — not severe enough in most cases to plunge them into homelessness and destitution, or to qualify them for food stamps and Medicaid, but deep enough to destabilize what had been securely middle-class lives. Since the stock market collapse in late 2008 pushed the nation into recession, the demand for food and clothes from Jewish social service agencies and charities has risen by roughly 40 percent, according to their administrators.

    “This area of the middle-class needy has just exploded,” said William E. Rapfogel, the chief executive of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, which covers the New York area. “We’ve seen people who were making $75,000, even $200,000, lose a substantial portion of income. When they lose a job, they get another, but it’s a job for less. They’re so over-leveraged in their homes, they can’t get out. If they sold, they wouldn’t take out a nickel.”

    On Staten Island, the borough of New York most akin to a suburb, Rabbi Moshe Meir Weiss of the Agudas Yisroel synagogue has seen that situation. In the past, Jews in his community used gemachs primarily to borrow items they needed for only a limited time: a wedding dress, rubber bins for moving furniture, a wig to cover hair lost to chemotherapy, even breast milk for a nursing child. Over the last several years, however, the gemachs have increasingly dispensed cash loans and groceries.

    “People have been so taken by shock,” Rabbi Weiss said. “Picture yourself, God forbid, having to take a can of tuna from someone. It’s almost like the soup lines of the Great Depression.”

    The gemach system, however, offers two tangible differences. First, as a matter of religious teaching and longstanding custom, a gemach makes no profit on its loans.

    Second, the tradition of confidentiality, rooted in Judaic commentaries about giving and receiving charity, allows a supplicant to save face.

    “When it’s within your own group, it’s less embarrassing,” Rabbi Weiss said. “You feel your compadre understands and is doing it out of love.”

    In suburban Atlanta, Rabbi Minkowicz had similar thoughts in mind last August, when a congregant approached him with an idealistic but unformed proposal. The man had seen the toll that corporate layoffs and the cratered housing market had taken on the local Jewish community. He and his wife, both professionals in public-sector jobs, had saved $5,000 to do something about it. Their question was what.

    At that point, Rabbi Minkowicz explained about gemach, a word the donor had never heard. What impressed the man immediately, in this era of celebrity charities and naming rights, was the quality of humility. A borrower would not be subjected to a credit check or required to put up collateral, only to have another member of the Jewish community co-sign. The donor could remain unknown.

    “I could help people without seeming like I’m showing off,” the man said. Indeed, he spoke for this column only on the promise that his identity not be revealed.

    By now, four months later, the resulting gemach has made two loans of about $1,000 apiece, with a third imminent. As those borrowers repay the gemach, at the rate of roughly $100 a month, Rabbi Minkowicz can in turn recycle the money to others who need it.

    All of which puts him in mind of those knocks on the door in Brooklyn decades ago, and of the decorous way his father answered. “I’ve tried to use the same model I saw,” Rabbi Minkowicz put it. “You help the people who are struggling. And you try to preserve their dignity.”


    "I've never seen people go from a regular life to rags," Rabbi Minkowicz said. "I've seen that up-front and personal."

    Comment


    • #62
      Re: Postcards on the Edge

      from A Marketplace of Ideas . . .

      The following is an email I received from a fellow engineer. It pretty much summarizes the times.

      My Florida nuclear power plant work ended sooner than promised, so I networked my contacts and in 6 working days landed 2 solid offers. Yep, it's moving time again.

      I'm flying to Vancouver CA to work for 3 weeks, then flying back to Florida to move my stuff to AZ. I'm driving my truck the southern route - New Orleans, San Antonio River Walk and Alamo, Austin City Limits, etc. Should be in Phoenix the last few days of 2011, which gives me just enough time for a round of golf and a hike up Squaw Peak. Then I'm going to Nevada for my next job building a new gold mine.

      Let's see, that makes 4 states, 3 companies, 2 countries, and 5 different job-sites for me in the past 11 months. Pack-and-move and pack-and-move and pack-and-move. My world is spinning faster and faster and I can barely hold on anymore. I've rented my house, sold all my furniture, dumped my camping gear, and given away my t-shirts, and now I live out of cardboard boxes.

      Anything I buy is too much trouble to drag around. I have simplified so much that all I own anymore is a cell phone, a laptop, and an email address. Travel light, move fast, and stay alive. There's no middle ground anymore.

      There are thousands of starving engineers, spun out into a ditch, unable to make that next move, meet that upcoming deadline, or attend tomorrow's meeting. So I travel light and move fast. Very fast. Always faster than the last time. Always faster than the next guy. Always jumping higher and farther and better than ever before. One day I'll just burn up, spin out, or perhaps just give up. But not just yet. Somehow, somehow still, I keep missing career death with that one well-placed contact. With that one quick jump, with that one flexible move, lucky me, I just survived another crash.

      And, extra lucky me this time — the nukies downsized me in November but paid me thru January, and by next week I'll be polishing gold nuggets in my hotel room in Vancouver. Double-dipping sweet!

      So tonight I'm heading to Wal-Mart to buy a trench coat with deep pockets, extra sunglasses, and a 10 gallon hat. While you are sitting in your cubicle smothered in paperclips and yellow stickies, I'll be surrounded with tons of gold! I'm sure they won't miss an ounce or two every now and then.

      And, so I spin, faster and faster, around the world. Where it stops nobody knows. It's either spin or spin out in this business anymore.

      Another job, another state, another company, another promise, another airplane flight, another hotel. What day of the week is it? Sorry, I don't have a clue.

      All I care about now is that this new job is good. I work 6 weeks on and get 2 weeks off. Free airplane, hotel, food, car, etc. They pay for everything. Even overtime. See you on Squaw Peak every day for 2 weeks about mid-February. Or perhaps Hawaii, Mexico, or wherever the plane lands next.

      It looks like I'll be living in hotels until the sky caves in, so if anyone needs any towels, shampoos, or soaps, just let me know.

      Hey, Freemon, you can certainly understand. What a fast unstable world! You can do anything you want with this letter, but please change everything that identifies me with it. Thousands of engineers like us are stuck in this spin, and the corporate spin of "America needs more engineers, blah blah blah"

      We have thousands of engineers too many. We need a stable economy!

      http://www.amarketplaceofideas.com/bobos-travels.htm

      Comment


      • #63
        Re: Postcards on the Edge

        Roughing it: Millennials are finding shelter amid financial fears


        Published: Monday, Nov. 14, 2011 10:46 p.m. MST
        By Joey Ferguson, Deseret News

        Eric Richardson and Tyson Lloyd's headlamps shine on the side of the canyon in Logan, Utah. After securing their Vietnam War-era tent, lacing up their hiking boots and loading their backpacks, the two make their way to the car below. They must arrive by 6 am or they will be late to Utah State University where they attend classes.



        Since May, the two college juniors have lived in a tent where the closest thing to an address is the numbers on nearby telephone poles.

        Richardson and Lloyd are part of a growing number of young adults who fear debt and spending. After maturing during one of the Nation's worst recessions, they are doing all they can to avoid any personal credit crisis.

        "I hate spending money," Richardson said. "It doesn't matter how much money I have in my bank account, I just won't spend it. I'm scared to death to take out student loans."

        The two men use on-campus showers, free lockers to store food and clothes and keep a schedule of events that serve free food on campus all in the name of debt aversion and saving a penny.

        An August study from New York-based Auriemma Consulting Group, said millennials, or the demographic following generation X and born between the 1980's and early 2000's, are the most averse toward credit cards. Only 26 percent say they frequently carry a balance, an 18 percent decrease from 2007, the study said.

        "Millennials have turned away from credit cards in droves since the recession began, and it's not clear to what extent they will come back when conditions improve", Patricia Sahm, managing director at Auriemma, said in a statement. "Many have been scarred by seeing friends or family struggle with unmanageable debt loads, and view credit as dangerous rather than helpful."

        How banks interact with customers also affects millennials' sentiment toward banking.

        "How you communicate must be a dialogue and not a monologue," Sahm said. "You can't say to this generation 'I know what's best for you.' They don't believe in mass advertising anymore because they can get what they want from friends."

        Richardson, a full-time psychology honors student holding down a 3.8 grade point average, works at the facilities building on campus. He stores Life cereal in a break-room pantry and keeps milk in one of the fridges.




        "That's one thing about this, you can't have any shame," Richards said as he applied his spray-on Axe deodorant while coworkers passed him in the hall outside the planning and design office.

        Richardson makes $9.50 an hour for about 12 hours a week as a "space auditor," or someone who measures the size of every room on campus. He worked full time over the summer, saving money while exploring and measuring every room on campus. That's how he stumbled onto all the freebees.

        He made more than $4,966 dollars. Most went to tuition, books and class fees, which makes it hard to save.

        Thirty eight percent of Millennials say they live paycheck to paycheck and that consistent saving is not an option, Boston-based MFS Investment Management said in an September survey.





        Without adequate savings, retirement becomes an added fear among millennials. The survey reports that 44 percent have lowered their expectations about the quality of their life in retirement.

        Ted Jenkin, co-chief executive officer and founder of oXYGen Financial Inc., a financial planning firm specializing in young adults, said that millennials have been abandoning the idea of saving for retirement.

        "In our client base that are between (ages) 22 and 35, they never use the word retirement," Jenkin said.

        Chris Brown, founder and principal owner of Sway Research LLC, a market research firm, said millennials who give up on retirement savings might find themselves without sufficient money when they are no longer able to work.





        Lloyd, who studies international business and Spanish, said that avoiding expenses was 60 percent of the reason why they moved to the mountains. They dodged about $1,875 in rent this year by opting out of an apartment.

        Most mornings, Lloyd's girlfriend, Jacqueline Stuart, a junior from Syracuse, Utah, brings him breakfast. She rides his bus-driving work route with him a few times, giggling about his living situation as he sneaks bites at stops.

        "I think it would be silly to go live in a tent to save money," Stuart said. "My parents think he's just being stubborn."

        Silly as it may seem, Lloyd doesn't have enough money to cover his next semester. With registration coming up, his living conditions may not be enough to get him into school and back into apartment living, which makes avoiding debt hard.

        The tent dwellers plan to stay in their mountain at least until the end of the year to avoid cost.

        Investment is out of the question for many millennials.

        According to MFS, more than a third of Generation Y said they will never feel comfortable investing in the stock market. Nearly a third said their primary investment objective was "not losing money."

        Most millenials also feel pressure from too many choices. About 54 percent of Generation Y investors feel overwhelmed by all the choices they have, MFS said.

        This is likely the cause of the 47 percent who are putting off investment decisions.
        Jenkins said a lack of education and hidden fees are the source of distrust towards banks among Generation Y.

        "The No. 1 thing is transparency," Jenkins said. "If you're going to buy an investment, it should be very transparent and obvious what fees are being charged."

        Banks are changing their tactics to attract college-aged customers. Zions Bank launched Cheapster, a reality TV-esque Web series that has contestants jockey to see who is the most frugal. Each installment is posted on Facebook.

        Richardson, the USU tent dweller, is one of the contestants ranging from 18 to 28 years old competing for a $10,000 cash prize.

        "Finances and banking are not at the top of the priority list for millenials," said Brad Herbert, vice president and emerging market manager at Zions Bank, "They have more things on their mind than they can think about. We know we're not at the top of their priority list, but we're here when they need us, and we want millenials to know that."

        For the penny pinchers in a tent near Logan, financial planning is simple.

        "I'm hoping to just find a sugar mama," Richardson said.

        Comment


        • #64
          Re: Postcards on the Edge

          you just knew there would be a pharmaceutical answer forthcoming . . .

          A consultant psychiatrist last night called on Government to add lithium salts to the public water supply in a bid to lower the suicide rate and depression among the general population.

          At a mental health forum on “Depression in Rural Ireland” in Ennistymon, Co Clare, Dr Moosajee Bhamjee said that “there is growing scientific evidence that adding trace amounts of the drug lithium to a water supply can lower rates of suicide and depression”.

          Lithium is used by doctors as a mood stabilizer in the treatment for depression.

          Dr Bhamjee said: “A recent article in the British Journal of Psychiatry found the beneficial uses of lithium when it was added to the water supply in parts of Texas.”

          He said the Government should consider a pilot project for a town in Ireland where lithium salts could be added to the water in very small doses and examine the results.”

          http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...z5AsEQ.twitter

          I'm thinking . . . Contest!

          Comment


          • #65
            Re: Postcards on the Edge

            Mother Shoots 2 at State Office, Then Kills Herself

            By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

            SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A woman who for months was unable to qualify for food stamps pulled a gun in a state welfare office on Monday and staged a seven-hour standoff with the police that ended with her shooting her two children before killing herself, officials said.

            The children, a 10-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter, were in critical condition Tuesday. The mother was identified as Rachelle Grimmer, 38. A police investigator, Joe Baeza, said Ms. Grimmer had recently moved from Zanesville, Ohio.
            Ms. Grimmer first applied for food stamps in July but was denied because she did not turn in enough information, said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.

            http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us...html?ref=texas


            Comment


            • #66
              Re: Postcards on the Edge

              Opening Bell Is a 2:30 A.M. Alarm


              Craig Gorman, a trader, up very early in his bedroom.

              As the European debt crisis roils the markets, American traders who once awoke at dawn are now rising in the dead of night to gain an edge when business begins in London, Paris and Frankfurt.



              Douglas A. Kass, a hedge fund manager, routinely sets his alarm for 2:30 a.m. so he can scan the headlines coming out of Europe.

              Gone are the days when traders showed up to work just before the New York Stock Exchange opened at 9:30 a.m. Now, Wall Street has an unofficial opening bell: the 2:30 a.m. alarm clock.

              “We have a new credo: carpe noctem — seize the night,” said Douglas A. Kass, a hedge fund manager.

              “Your nerves are twitching,” said Christian Stracke, Pimco’s global head of credit research.
              Michael Mayo, a longtime bank stock analyst, said he was working the lobster shift so often just to keep up with the latest International Monetary Fund rescue or Slovenian parliamentary vote that he might as well call himself a 24-hour-a-day research shop. “Who would have thought we would have to be looking at Italian sovereign debt yields to figure out what Morgan Stanley’s stock will do?” he said.

              For traders, there is too much to lose if they sleep.

              That’s why Craig Gorman, a partner at First New York Securities, routinely monitors his trading positions in the middle of the night. He turns on CNBC and fires up the Bloomberg terminal with six screens at the foot of his bed. “With the TV and all my monitors on, it gets a little bright in there,” he said. “My wife is not thrilled about it.”


              Craig Gorman, a partner at First New York Securities, has a Bloomberg terminal with six monitors at the foot of his bed.

              It is hard to fall back asleep once the adrenaline from trading starts pumping. Even so, Mr. Gorman said it was worth the price: “You can’t get the same feel for market psychology looking back at the charts in the morning as when you are up,” he added.

              Any whiff of trouble in Europe can send markets into a tailspin and easily overwhelm the hard-earned edge a trader might have gained by digging deep into the financials of an individual stock.

              “The degree to which asset prices are connected is off the charts,” said Dean Curnutt, the president of Macro Risk Advisors and another early riser.

              It is also why Al Moniz, a European bond fund manager at Fore Research and Management in New York, has been waking up at 2 a.m. at least several times a month, and expects even more bleary-eyed nights next year.

              “It is probably going to get worse,” he said. “I don’t think there is any end in sight.”

              http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/bu...ef=todayspaper


              Comment


              • #67
                Re: Postcards on the Edge

                So in addition to all the real trouble in our economies and markets, many of our big-league traders making multi-billion decisions are now also sleep-deprived.

                Comment


                • #68
                  Re: Postcards on the Edge

                  Originally posted by thriftyandboringinohio View Post
                  So in addition to all the real trouble in our economies and markets, many of our big-league traders making multi-billion decisions are now also sleep-deprived.
                  And their wives are not thrilled about it.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Re: Postcards on the Edge

                    Goodbye House, Hello Pot Plantation




                    By CATHERINE RAMPELL

                    A MAN’S home is his castle — except when it becomes someone else’s marijuana plantation, crack den, movie set, homeless shelter, farm or public park.

                    Such opportunities for conversion present themselves in the United States, which now has about 1.2 million more vacant homes than there would be in normal economic times. In fact, the depressed housing market has become a case study in how an economy adapts — if only in an early transitional phase — when one of its pillars suddenly collapses.

                    Foreclosures, home abandonments and devalued houses have helped to inspire creative thinkers, political protesters, opportunists and civic leaders who envision new uses for homes besides nesting.

                    Detroit, where nearly one in four homes is vacant, has been at the vanguard of all manner of manorial makeovers for some time now. Artists and political campaigners have adopted abandoned properties as their own nontraditional canvases, painting some empty houses bright orange or quite literally freezing them by dousing them from the roof down with hydrant water, to draw attention to the housing crisis. The Motor City’s epic housing wreckage has also inspired a couple of breathtaking photography projects.

                    Much of the rest of the country is following suit in adapting to the housing bust with ingenuity and audaciousness.

                    An Atlanta filmmaker dreamed up a post-apocalyptic indie drama set in deserted and dilapidated dwellings in and around the city. In Las Vegas, where 1 in every 171 homes has been served with a foreclosure notice, the authorities found a stretch of empty homes that had been turned into marijuana greenhouses. Some empty houses have become de facto dormitories in places like Merced, Calif., as college students opt to rent chandeliered chateaus instead of living in cramped rooms on campus.

                    Of course, political protesters were bound to find potent symbols in the forsaken dwellings of the downturn. And so the Occupy movement last week began an action called Occupy Our Homes in cities like Chicago and Atlanta to fight evictions and protest what the movement leaders say are unfair lending practices by banks. In Oakland, Calif., protesters seized foreclosed property and turned it into a headquarters.

                    Not all of the repurposing is serious. In Fresno, Calif., empty McMansion swimming pools have been covertly converted into makeshift skateboarding parks, turning someone’s dashed dreams into good, clean teenage fun.

                    Sometimes the unapproved abode adoptions are less wholesome, attracting criminal elements and feral animals, thereby unsettling neighbors and inspiring boomlets in security services and pest control. Wary of blight risks, many state and local governments are paying to fix up, tear down or rent out empty housing stock.

                    The governments of James City County, Va., and Perris, Calif., for example, are retrofitting foreclosed homes to make them more energy efficient, in the hope that weatherization will make the houses more attractive to buyers when the market does come back.

                    Across Ohio, Michigan and many other states, governments are simply bulldozing empty homes and replacing them with urban farms, public parks or other infrastructure. It’s little wonder houses sit unsold and empty when tighter credit requirements have most likely discouraged some 13 million households from buying homes, according to Capital Economics. As a result, rents are at record highs, prompting some homeowners to voluntarily vacate so they can rent out their homes at a tidy profit — the so-called leveraged move-out.

                    The Obama administration has expressed interest in increasing this shift from failed ownership to renting, and already federal programs are backing the process. Spacious homes in wealthier areas of Newport News, Va., and Antioch, Calif., have been converted to Section 8 housing, a program that subsidizes rent for low-income families by directly paying private landlords.

                    This is hardly the first time that overbuilding of luxury homes has meant hand-me-downs for low-income Americans, of course. Harlem was originally built up as a luxury community in the late 19th century, in anticipation of a new mass transit station’s coming to the neighborhood. Then overbuilding and subway construction delays (sound familiar?) led housing values to plummet. By the early 1900s, poor immigrants and blacks instead absorbed the excess housing and redefined the neighborhood.

                    Finding brand-new homeowners may also be today’s best hope for healing the depressed housing market. And as in Harlem in the early 20th century, some of those new homeowners could be immigrants. Two senators, Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, have proposed a bill that would offer three-year visas to foreigners who spent at least $500,000 to buy homes in the United States. But the idea has many opponents who fear expanding the nation’s oversupply of workers (a worry not shared by a fair number of economists). Still, the supply of homegrown homeowners may expand soon anyway.

                    Household formation has slowed dramatically since the recession, as cash-strapped families double up and unemployed recent college graduates are unable to leave behind their parents’ couches. To judge just from demographic statistics, more than a million households that should have been formed in the last few years weren’t, according to Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics.

                    The tally of missing households is approximately equal to the country’s current surplus of vacant homes. The implication is that once people start getting jobs again, doubled-up families will peel off and quickly sop up a lot of that excess housing inventory.

                    Think of such houses as castles once again, though hardly out of a fairy tale.

                    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/su...ce=patrick.net

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Re: Postcards on the Edge

                      senior center ends longtime kids' program

                      The Senior Scholars program - which pairs seniors with schoolkids for reading, arts and general companionship - has gone the way of countless other community programs in these dire economic times: cut for lack of funds and space.

                      "It's been wonderful, a great way for children to learn from their elders, something we're losing more and more in our culture," said Hanan Masri, a kindergarten teacher at Berkwood Hedge School in Berkeley. "This is a tremendous loss."

                      The program has been around for almost 30 years, funded through the Berkeley Adult School. Berkeley teacher Marge Essel was paid about $300 a week for supplies and to train the seniors, organize the children's visits and oversee the classes.

                      Two years ago the Adult School eliminated the funding due to heavy cuts in state education financing. Like adult schools everywhere, the Berkeley Adult School started shifting its resources to classes focusing on job training, technology and foreign languages - skills sorely needed in a down economy, said district spokesman Mark Coplan.

                      Since Senior Scholars was axed, Essel has been volunteering to run the class.Now the classroom has been reassigned for other another use.

                      Bill Lutkenhouse, 84, a retired Navy sailor, has been with the program about five years.

                      "My own four kids are grown. I like this because it helps me remember childhood," he said Friday, taking a break from the youngsters. "They're fun. They invent things. Something different every time."

                      Josie Adler, 68, a retired preschool teacher and program participant, said that teaching reading to kids gives seniors a sense of purpose, and more importantly, some fun.

                      "It brings some life here," she said. "These kids are a great antidote for depression and loneliness. They bring the holidays back to life."

                      Masri, the teacher, said the class goes well beyond "Hop on Pop." Students interview their "senior buddies" about their own childhoods, then write the stories in a book. They also make quilts together, do a "my favorite animal" project and celebrate holidays.

                      Over the years, kids often return for reunions with their senior mentors, she said.

                      "The kids remember these little gems from Senior Scholars," she said. "And these social connections - I think they go both ways."

                      Essel is looking for a new space to hold the program, and hopefully some grant money to cover the cost of supplies.

                      "I really think there's so much that older adults and kids can give each other," she said. "I really hope I can keep doing this."

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Re: Postcards on the Edge

                        Am I doing it right?

                        http://mondediplo.com/2011/12/03greece

                        Greece in chaos

                        Personally and collectively, the Greeks don’t understand and can’t cope with what’s happening now, let alone what will happen next. The welfare state is being swiftly and deliberately dismantled without any time to set up replacements
                        by Noëlle Burgi
                        “Who knows what tomorrow will bring?” people ask in Athens, Salonika and right across Greece. There’s a sense of collective imprisonment, individual uncertainty and impending catastrophe. Yet Greece has had a turbulent history, and the Greeks have always seen themselves as a gifted people, sturdy and accustomed to adversity. “There have always been difficult times, and we always made it through. But now, all hope has been taken from us,” said a small business owner.
                        While the austerity measures are piling up, an avalanche of laws, decrees and edicts is sweeping aside the social, economic and administrative frameworks. Yesterday’s reality is crumbling. As for tomorrow — who knows?
                        Greek citizens are subject to a Kafkaesque bureaucracy, with its incomprehensible, fluctuating regulations. Addressing colleagues, a civic employee in the Cyclades said: “People want to conform to the law, but we don’t know what to tell them, [the authorities] haven’t given us any details.” A man had to pay € 200 and present 13 papers and proofs of identity to renew his driving license. Salary cuts among public employees have disrupted the public sector. “When you call the police to alert them to a situation, they reply, ‘it’s your problem, you deal with it’,” said a retired engineer officer from the merchant navy. Tensions are rising. Reports show a big increase in domestic violence, theft and murder (1).
                        Salaries are falling (by 35-40% in some sectors) while new taxes are invented, some backdated to the beginning of the calendar year. Net incomes have fallen drastically, in many cases by 50% or more. Since the summer, a solidarity tax (1-2% of annual income) and an energy tax (calculated on the consumption of petrol and natural gas) have been levied. Further novelties include the lowering of the tax threshold from € 5,000 to € 2,000, and a property tax of € 0.5 to € 20 per square metre levied as part of electricity bills, payable in two or three instalments (failure to pay results in power cuts and penalties).
                        Since the start of November, pensioners and public and private employees cannot anticipate their monthly earnings. Many workers go without pay altogether. The state is reducing its workforce drastically as part of its restructuring programme. Between now and 2015, 120,000 public employees over the age of 53 have been earmarked for “semi-retirement”, the precursor to full mandatory retirement after 33 years of service, during which employees are obliged to stay at home, and only receive 60% of their basic salaries. Once fully retired, many public employees will be reduced to living on very little. A group of ex-railwaymen, aged 50 and above, said they used to earn between € 1,800 and € 2,000 a month, a relatively comfortable salary in Greece. They have now been posted to jobs as museum guards as part of a “voluntary transition” package (2) and their basic monthly income fluctuates between € 1,100 and € 1,300; semi-retirees are restricted to € 600. All are barred from taking on extra paid work to supplement their income — the penalty, immediate loss of revenue, is enforced.
                        ’Insurance payments have stopped’

                        The loss of income is tearing society apart. Bills are not paid, consumption is down, stores are closing and unemployment rising. In May the official unemployment rate was 16.6% (10 points higher than in 2008) and 40% among the young. The actual rate is likely to be much higher. The social, economic and political crisis has shaken the national health service. Hospital and public health care centre budgets have been cut by 40% on average. More patients are admitted to the emergency room, others go to Doctors of the World health centres, and many choose to do without medical care altogether. People report being denied access to crucial medicine. One journalist said her father suffers from Parkinson’s disease: “His medication costs € 500 a month. The pharmacy told us it will stop supplying him, because insurance payments have stopped.”
                        Physical ailments (notably heart conditions) and mental illnesses are increasing at a worrying rate. Recent epidemiological studies have shown that heightened stress, exacerbated by high debt and prolonged unemployment, is generating “major depressive disorders, disruptions and generalised anxiety” (3), which account for a dramatic rise in suicides. According to unofficial figures discussed in parliament, the suicide rate increased by 25% from 2009 to 2010, with a further rise of 40% in the first half of 2011, compared to last year, according to health ministry sources. Figures published in The Lancet (4) reveal an alarming increase in prostitution, as well as infection rates of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (5). There are unprecedented numbers of homeless people, and they are no longer limited to alcoholics, drug addicts or the mentally ill. A recent study demonstrates that the middle class, the young and the moderately poor are now more likely to end up on the street (6).
                        The Greeks struggle to see a way out of what a social worker described as a return to a “barbaric” way of life. They feel abandoned and unable to cope. Strong family ties are buckling under the pressure of diminished incomes and a collapsing welfare state. Those who can leave, do so. The options for those remaining are limited. Some turn to the Church, which arranges soup kitchens and other social services. In Salonika, Father Stefanos Tolios of the Orthodox church, is swamped by desperate people looking for work. Residents of several cities (Volos, Patras, Heraklion, Athens, Corfu, Salonika) have set up community-based informal economies, based on local exchange systems. Families are bringing their elderly back from retirement homes, to recover the monthly charge of € 300-400.
                        No country could withstand this. Greece is worse equipped to deal with the social consequences of the austerity measures imposed with a “scientific cruelty” (7) by the national and transnational elites. Post-1945 Greece, with a weak state and clientelism, had neither the time nor means to build a resilient system of social protection. The existing safety nets are now tearing. “Everything is falling apart,” said Sotiris Lainas, a psychologist and coordinator of the Self Help Promotion Programme at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Salonika).
                        Who’s to blame?

                        The previous government, under George Papandreou, scrambled to conform to the demands of the “troika” — the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank — for instance by cutting 210 budget lines in the health ministry. No thought was given as to how the budget cuts would undermine the ability of essential (and viable) services to function, such as the day care provided by the Panhellenic Federation of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders. Thus the transnational forces, which for nearly 30 years have worked to erode the welfare state, have passed on the task to national enforcers, themselves longtime beneficiaries of a nepotic, inefficient, corrupt system.
                        Responsibility for the crisis has been shamelessly dumped upon the Greeks. Accused, but not tried, they have been pronounced guilty because of their association with their inept leaders. Certain sections of the population are exposed to popular fury: seen as a privileged caste, public employees are stigmatised; doctors and shopkeepers are all suspected of untruthful tax filings. But the people know that the system and their leaders are at the root of the rot. Knowledge is not power, though, and the nation is left wondering what to do next.
                        Patronage and corruption have historical roots. Greece has never enjoyed a modern state with a relatively autonomous bureaucracy, free from private interests, with the capacity to shape economic and social development. Nor has it had a strong civic identity. Foreign powers have imposed their preferences since independence in 1830 (8), when Greece was forcefully integrated into the world capitalist economy in a peripheral position, kept servile and buffeted by various great powers. History has superimposed an artificial political model on a fragmented society traditionally centred on local loyalties, the extended family and community values. As a result, the Greek political system has always been authoritarian and centralised, denying the separation of powers, local autonomy or real democracy (9) — fertile soil for corruption and patronage, which serve the interests and entrench the domination of the elites. The Greeks have resigned themselves to all this.
                        They are not naive or ignorant of their and their country’s shortcomings. But they are destitute and disempowered. What hope is there for a nation that has proved “fundamentally incapable of forming a political community” (10)? Even if it wanted to return to the pre-crisis days, “when we were living a lie”, as Lainas put it, Greece would be unable to do so. It has been hit too hard, as the repeated calls for order and control make clear. Polls initially favourable to the new government formed by Lucas Papademos, the former governor of the Greek Central Bank replacing Papandreou as prime minister, point to the belief among some Greeks that a technocratic administration might be preferable to the disgraced political class. This does not imply an adherence to the austerity measures, but rather a willingness to set matters right. For some, a strong foreign authority, mentioned by Mario Monti before he became Italy’s prime minister (11), might guarantee an honest and competent government acting in the interests of the country.
                        But everything points against it. Having seen off their worthless leaders, Greeks may not know who the enemy is any more. “There is no enemy to fight,” said Lainas: “You can’t fight what you can’t see. Their strength lies in abstract governments. Such as the EFSF [European Financial Stability Fund]. The enemy may be abstract, but the tragedy is real. They are stealing our lives, depriving us of a future.”

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                        • #72
                          Re: Postcards on the Edge

                          That is a very depressing article. Hopefully, Europe will feed the Greeks so they do not go to war.

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                          • #73
                            Re: Postcards on the Edge

                            A primer on top-down austerity.

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                            • #74
                              Re: Postcards on the Edge

                              If the Federal government retrenches, at least no one will be able to blame local government for being the problem, since it may not exist anymore -


                              In Curry County, Oregon's financial dependence on federal forest policy brings ruin in sight

                              On any given day, there may be no place in Oregon prettier than Curry County. Broad flat beaches, many littered with agate and quartz. The Rogue, Elk, Illinois and Chetco rivers rushing from forest to sea. The Kalmiopsis Wilderness.

                              And on any given day, in winter, at least 10 degrees warmer than where you're at. The far southwest corner is Oregon's banana belt.

                              On this given day, however, in a chilly, unadorned room at the Curry County Fairgrounds, 24 people sit at bare tables shaped into a U. Powerpoint presentations flash up front. A pair of mediators bustle a cordless microphone here and there, because you have to take turns speaking.

                              It's the end of November. Curry County government may fold next summer. The federal faucet that poured $230 million a year into Oregon counties is shut off. The political stalemate in Washington stymies a restoration.

                              Curry's not alone, just the first. Coos, Josephine, Klamath and Lane counties -- all deeply dependent on federally owned natural resource land -- are bunched up to follow Curry off the cliff.

                              The 24 people meeting at the fairgrounds are supposed to figure out a solution.

                              The dissolution of an Oregon county hasn't happened before. It may not be legally possible. Questions outnumber answers.

                              If there's no county government, who runs the jail, issues marriage licenses, records deeds, adjusts lot lines, inspects restaurants, counsels juvenile delinquents and assesses property? Who sends out the tax bills? Where do you send the payments?


                              Curry knew this day was coming but didn't do anything. About 61 percent of its general fund and 65 percent of its road fund revenues came from federal payments.

                              Without timber payments, Curry's expenses will exceed general fund revenue by more than $350,000 in 2012-13. The deficit grows to more than $3 million the next year, the county projects.

                              "It's anybody's guess," Commissioner Dave Itzen says, "how long we last."...

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                              • #75
                                Re: Postcards on the Edge

                                winners and losers . . . as the beat goes on in a beaten down economy

                                It was with pure jubilation that Mr. Evans, who hides a businessman’s sensibility under a broad-brimmed cowboy hat and a stable of folksy aphorisms, watched one of the rumbling pump jacks on his property pulling up the oil that has made him a rich man. “It’s like music,” he said, raising his voice over the noise. “Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.”

                                Sure enough, money is flowing by the barrelful into Mountrail County, transforming a tiny community once proudly situated in the middle of nowhere into an unexpected oasis of prosperity at the heart of the nation’s biggest oil play.

                                No other county in the state has had a bigger jump in the number of households earning more than $100,000, which spiked to 21 percent from 6 percent during the last decade, according to an analysis of census data. But much like the crude below, the benefits have spread unevenly, often as a result of decisions made long ago.

                                As some residents find themselves cashing oil royalty checks worth tens of thousands of dollars a month or more, many of their neighbors are resigned to receiving almost nothing from the wells that pepper the landscape and even their own land — aside from the headaches that go with living in a boomtown.

                                Marlene Gunderson, who works alongside her husband and daughter at the county courthouse researching the ownership history of every acre of property for oil companies, stumbles across the names of neighbors who are receiving huge checks for mineral interests, though she has none herself.

                                “That’s just the way life goes,” she mused. “Some people get. Some don’t.”

                                As with any major boom — from real estate to tech stocks to natural resources — the sudden split between the winners and the witnesses has been painful. But this is happening in a small town, where proximity and familiarity make a sudden reordering all the more difficult.

                                “It’s not all good,” said Leslie Anderson, who is among the lucky locals who sometimes make more from a single month of oil payments than he used to earn in a year of farming. “There are lots of families fighting that got along before.”

                                After more than five years of oil-driven growth, Mountrail County, which a decade ago had shrunk to less than half its peak size before the Great Depression, registered an official population of 7,673 in the 2010 census, though local leaders believe there are thousands more.

                                With the unemployment rate at only 1.3 percent, local sons and daughters are no longer leaving to find work.

                                And as the rest of the nation watched incomes drop or stagnate, in Mountrail County median income rose more than 50 percent in the last decade, the fifth-highest gain in the nation. Residents earned on average an additional $20,000, adjusted for inflation, according to an analysis of census data by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College in New York.

                                At one of the local banks in Stanley, the county seat, deposits have increased to $135 million from $43 million before the boom. But the new wealth is not always easy to spot.

                                Residents say a culture of modest living means they don’t know for sure which of their neighbors are making money off oil, though they have suspicions.

                                “I’m seeing people that have never owned a new vehicle in their life driving a new car,” said Wade Enget, a local lawyer, who estimated that about half the residents are receiving oil money. “People who never took a day off are going on vacation.”

                                Living in a simple trailer home, Lenin Dibble reveals few signs that he has suddenly become a wealthy man. A retired farmer and rancher, Mr. Dibble receives royalty checks of as much as $80,000 a month for his small share of mineral rights. To explain his frugal lifestyle, he pulled out a letter from his father, yellowed from the passage of half a century.

                                “When you get a few dollars in your pocket never advertise it,” he read. “And hold a conference before spending any of it.”

                                And as he finished, Mr. Dibble insisted he does not need any of the oil money, which he has been saving for his adult children, because Social Security and payments for leasing out his farmland were enough. What he and others in town notice more than the newfound money are the problems: locking the door to his house, taking the keys out of his car and seeing a quiet community where everyone knew everyone overrun by the bustle of strangers.

                                “I wish it had never happened,” he said.

                                Because land and the rights to whatever lies beneath it can be sold separately in North Dakota, only about one in five royalty checks goes to the owner of the land where the oil is being extracted. Though some residents never acquired mineral rights when they bought property, the payday has been most distressing for those living on longtime family estates where the mineral rights were sold off, often for a tiny fraction of their current value.

                                “There are only two reasons people sold,” said Roger Cymbaluk, a prominent real estate broker in nearby Williston. “One, they didn’t know what they were worth; two, they were desperate.”

                                Some used mineral rights in lieu of cash to settle debts during hard times — trading some acres to banks to satisfy a mortgage. Others sold them to savvier industry veterans after oil was first discovered six decades ago, which is why an outsize portion of the royalty checks for North Dakota oil head each month to Texas.

                                Stanley Wright, who used to sell farm equipment in Stanley, described how he took a substantial loss — and suffered the wrath of his wife — when he allowed two farmers to pay him with mineral acres. Now that the gamble has paid off decades later, he wrestles with guilt over his windfall. His eyes well up and his hands start to shake as he insists he never took advantage of anyone. “Minerals in those days weren’t worth anything,” he said.

                                In recent decades, people have been more reluctant to sell, though offers keep coming. For those landowners who do not own the mineral rights, the usual compensation has been a few thousand dollars for the disruption of hosting an oil rig.

                                Even with the dust, noise and traffic, the most frustrating part is watching the wells on his property earning money for other people, said Mark Ellis, a farmer and rancher.

                                “It’s more interesting when you’re getting a piece of it,” he said.




                                http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/us...ef=global-home

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