As of the late, I have been blogging about the rough economy and its consequences of a tough housing market, rising food prices and of course the effect on the populace of the nation. At first in my last community service post, it seemed like the housing market would dip a little more over the next year but rise again in the following years to come. Now the new predictions are predisposing the nation to continue falling through 2011. Though California is not doing well to say in the least, Florida is having an even rougher time.
The worst performing market will be Miami, Fla. Moody's projects prices there to drop a heart-stopping 29.2% by Sept. 30. That follows a 47.7% decline the metro area recorded in the past three years. Grand total: 64% drop.
This is a terrible devastation for the nation to hear, not only will we not be rising out of this economic disaster relatively quickly but the nation as a whole is predicted to fall even more after the three year span where the home rates fell over 27%. It seems like this ordeal is endless and impossible to overcome. There are people out on the streets now, but will a time come where more people are homeless than there are living in homes?
Sometimes it feels like this is the way people really feel. It's exhausting and seemingly impossible to try to keep everyone happy. At some point we are stepping on someone's toes.
Once one's house is bank owned, life is looking tough and nearing uncontrollable. We count on our country to provide us with a little help when we seem to be trapped. The people of America are counting on the government to take care of them when times get tough (how much tougher will they get?). Once the home is lost after the income stops, people are forced out onto the streets. Once on the streets many start to beg near freeways, sleep under overhangs in the dead of winter and many take refuge in shelters. Those shelters seem to be the silver lining in the grim situation. But after 1.6 million are homeless, the shelters are running out of room. In fact, they are now having to turn away people. What do you do when the proposed safe place will not take you in? Nothing makes me feel like this situation is tainted by prejudice except when Latinos are singled out in an article about turning away the homeless.
An idea that could possibly help this dark situation might be to use some of the empty homes, (not all of course, some might sell), and make more shelters. A problem that people my rebut this proposition with might be the funding. But it seems possible to scrounge up money to help the people of America have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs if we can continue to pay people such as professional athletes, actors, CEOs, and bank workers who mysteriously seem to get extravagant bonuses.
Apparently, after all these job losses (over 8 million) and Geithner says that the unemployment rate will still rise and more will suffer. An action currently being adjusted to help the unemployed is an extension in unemployment benefits. However, some still hold out on these unemployment benefits and some are toeing the line, "[unemployment benefits] is something that the administration and Congress are going to look at very carefully at as we get closer to the end of this year". (Geithner) At least the public can take a little comfort in knowing that the government is pondering this problem. While Geithner says that the highest unemployment rates are yet to come, at least, "collapse, I think, is now off the table". I personally take no comfort in what he saying, at least not until I get hard proof that our empire is not falling. I also have a personal interest with the unemployment issue, and although the benefits are being reviewed, I have yet to see the benefit part of the "benefit". It's understood that the government pays for people to live for a year (possibly two in the upcoming years) with a small sum of money to allow the unemployed citizen to job hunt. I have no problem with this, the problem I see is the hiring rates are lower than ever, and all a person has is one year to find a job in this dried up economy.
However, not to worry, some of us, at least the movie stars, are still living like queens. Recently Eva Longoria Parker recently just bought a dress for just over 3,000 dollars. At least while the rest of us are suffering these hard times, we can look at Eva in her paid-for beauty and have something to hope for.
This is not surprising over the last months; America is in a deep recession. One that is competing with the scars of the Great Depression. The consequences of this recession are just as harsh as they were the last time we had this large of a deficit. Over 8.4 million jobs have been lost, over 20 million homes remain empty and there are more people out on the streets than ever before. Right now, most people, especially middle class, are being frugal with their money, but since the last time we were in a recession the key was to spend spend spend, why will that not work now? Are we too far in over our heads, is there any way our country will fully recover from this devastating blow? One of my greatest questions is asking, "What is the government doing about this?", but my second question, equal in importance, is "What can the people of America do about this?". Is it possible that we can take on the role of the leader and start to save our country group by group? If we feel like the government is not doing enough, nevertheless how much they are actually doing, can we, the people, take control of our country and fix our own mistakes? Ads are always asking about what you can do to save the planet and how we can help to save energy, help haiti etc. But what if we had more ads that pushed saving our economy, and by extension, saving lives?
The myth about the trash pile the size of Texas floating in the middle of the ocean is no longer just a myth. It is fact. And this is a fact that should become common knowledge; knowledge which should be understood and acted on. When I first imagined this trash pile, I literally thought a clump of trash was somehow bound together and just made up it's own little county, or something of those sorts. In reality, the "Trash Island" is actually less of a land mass and more of a soup. Instead of the clear, light water we are all used to, the water in the area of the "Trash Island" is actually denser, murkier, and contains bits of plastic in every gallon. From an airplane view, the water must just look a little darker, but when right up close, perhaps on a boat, the water is a whole different texture. Some might even describe it as stickier. What a thought that is; we are so lucky to live so close to fresh ocean water, imagine what it might be like to live one day near an untouchable, ocean. Not only are we sacrificing our planet's land, we are now also sacrificing our oceans. Our beautiful, natural oceans are becoming unclean and that thought terrifies me. Where will we go once we have piled up our trash on every square inch of the planet?
In "USA Today", there was an article depicting the severity of the recession in the United States economy. In this article it was announced that over 18 million houses are bank owned and 9.4 million are still trying to be sold. That is over 27 million homes that remain empty throughout the Unites States. Another problem the United States currently houses is the number of homeless people; many have been cast out buried in debts, others have not been able to make the payments they previously could before. In all of this destruction, the economy has not only taken jobs, its also consequently taken homes. Just one year ago, right in the middle of the recession there was an average of 672,000 people homeless every night. That is 22 in every 10,000. It may not seem like an extravagant number, but in this last year times have worsened and more people have been forced out of their homes. Since more people are losing their homes than there are buying homes, it would be the country's duty to act, to if not fix, at least alleviate the problem. One way I see fit to handle this issue is to use some of these bank-owned homes to house the homeless people. We have more than one house for every homeless person so why not put these people in homes? America needs to solve the problems of the economy, homelessness, food shortages and more; but America should tackle one problem at a time so as not to divert our energy. If we could just make a way in order to get people off the streets and into houses, we could potentially move on to the many other problems.
When I was younger and would bring in cans and top ramen packages to donate to the needy I never suspected that one day the needy would be down the street. The failing economy has affected many people I know and love; the father of a friend, a fellow church goer, even a family member. Right now all they have lost are their jobs, but in a few months will food become a problem too?
It is especially hard to drive though Walnut Creek, an affluent area rich in many ways, and see homeless people, on my left, begging for money; and on my right a stream of Lexus's, Cadillac's and other gas-guzzling luxury cars rumbling past me. Its a hard picture to witness, that my friends and family are struggling while some people are still toting the latest in-style.
A new law in Uganda has banned homosexuality from its borders. In fact if one is found to have had same-sex relations they are not only thrown in jail, but sentenced to death. How can people in this nation be supportive of a minority governed by different laws? On the other hand, maybe people in this state wouldn't even care given that they voted down marriage equality. It's hard to imagine how America could possibly help in this situation; an even scarier thought is that the new laws in Uganda might be a prophesy of what's to come in America. It's already bad enough that people find relationships that have nothing to do with them important, what happens if some go as far to make laws against being gay and then even to the death penalty. It's an interesting thought to imagine the death row in a high security prison lined up with murderers, rapists, serial killers and then your overflow of gay people. Those homosexuals, dangerous in all their capacity they are. What is Uganda thinking, it has larger issues then homosexuality to deal with, such as famine, disease and probably a failing economy. As I elaborate more on Uganda, it is beginning to sound more and more like California.
