Ahhh, the recession is almost over. (right?)

I begin this remark with an understanding that not everyone shares my point of view and really I am OK with that. Many times I don't have my opinion fully formed as I write these blog entries, and like many people I may not know all the facts or my opinion may be colored by my personal circumstances. If this describes you and you don't want to read this , well I understand. I would however like to know one thing though,

How the hell is everybody else doing it? How is everyone else surviving? I just am stupid I guess, because I don't get it.

You see , ever since the economy turned south in about early 2006 I've been trying to figure out what in the hell I am doing wrong.

We'll be driving down the interstate and get passed by a big old decked out motor home or a huge pickup truck pulling a boat and I think "Where in the hell do these people get the money?" Friends of mine go on vacations every 6 months or at least once a year. I haven't been able to take a vacation in about 7 or 8 years. Haven't been able to find the money or a job for that matter to get a new car since 2003. We came about 7 days from having my house repossessed. I lost my position in 2007 and have been basically underemployed ever since. I am extremely grateful for the job I have and thankful my Boss saw some value in keeping me around, but I have to know "What the Hell am I doing wrong?".

On top of that, health issues get in the way of doing physical things. My brain works just fine, my back sucks, so I can't even cut lawns for money. Couple that with the price of EVERYTHING going up and I wonder how we are supposed to hold out and how much longer until and before we just collapse in upon ourselves and start forming the soup lines. Gas is 4 times as expensive as it was in 1999, Milk and Bread are both double or so what they used to be. All my utility Bills are higher than they were 3 years ago. We basically do not have any savings anymore. Its been wiped out slowly but surely , one drip at a time until all that's left is the memory of money. I've combed through expenses over and over again eliminating , reducing, doing away with and cancelling everything we don't absolutely have to have to live and It feels like I am just about out of options. 

Jokingly I told my wife that we needed to buy a new refrigerator, just in case, so we would have a spare house, if worse comes to worse.

Now , its not that bad, but its dumb enough to piss me off, you know what I mean. ?

Then talking heads on TV, newspaper columnists and Internet reporting are all saying "Well its bad, but not that bad." , "Its getting better", "The end of the recession is in sight" and so forth and so on. I wonder in amazement where these guys are looking? I mean if you mean that the recession is almost over for the BANKERS and for the POLITICIANS , then I would have to agree.

The only thing I see at the end of this tunnel is an oncoming train.

Hell you can't use an ATM to check your balance without a fee being charged and just getting your own money out of one can be like getting charged 30 % interest to use your own money. Say you want to make a 30 $ ATM withdrawal. Your bank charges a fee if you use a "Foreign ATM", the "Foriegn ATM" charges a fee for not being a customer of their bank, and you have just paid $6 or more to get to your own money. When you say to your bank, "Why don't you guys have an ATM on my side of the county", they say the business isn't there to support it. Then I look at their balance sheets and see they made 38 MILLION dollars last year on fees and administrative services. Looks like they are doing just fine what with all that hard work they are doing printing receipts and cashiers checks and counting access charges and the like. Oh and don't get me started on "NSF charges". Lord knows it is real expensive to accidentally overpay 12 bucks. It has to be at least three times the value of the charge to make it worth 35 bucks a pop right ?

Personally I don't see how most of those greedy bastards sleep at night. I really don't. They are bleeding us dry like the mafia would and what they do is "legal". It shouldn't be, but heck, there isn't a Washington DC Politician, Attorney, Lobbyist, or Banker alive who understands what it is like to try and live on less than a quarter million dollars a year. They don't have a clue. It pisses me off that we are in such bad shape and they still don't get it. What has to happen to make them understand that we are dying out here, while they keep getting re-elected and keep collecting 30,000 dollars a speech?

There is over 10 % unemployment by the way Washington DC  and the states measure it. That is millions of folks out of work, and barely getting by. What they do not tell you is that this statistic is designed to be misleading. It really only represents those folks who are currently drawing an unemployment check or have filed for it. It doesn't include anyone who is underemployed, unemployed but not filed for unemployment, self employed business owners who lost work or businesses, people that used to work two jobs to make ends meet that cannot find a suitable second job and it doesn't include students who don't work or anyone who has exhausted their unemployment benefits and still can't find a job. It also does not include anyone discharged from the military medically even if they have no other income, every retired person and every homeless person in America even if they don't have any other income and anyone scratching to survive in the underground economy like illegal aliens, the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped etc.

If I had to guess I would say we are actually closer to 20 % unemployed and its not getting any better.  There could potentially be 60 Million people without income and under the gun tonight in America. Does this sound like it is getting any better to you ?

Will someone please tell me how the news coming out of Washington DC about our debt limit and John Boehner and Mitch McConnell fighting with President Obama is helping us right now? If I don't have a gallon of milk, a job, a loaf or bread, or money for gas to get any of it how does what these morons are doing help me? And then , if it doesn't help me , somebody please tell me how it takes care of Senior Citizens, the disabled or injured or disabled military veterans ? In the past 3 to 5 years, what benefit have we gotten by having higher prices for gasoline, food, natural gas, health care, credit, and everything else. What good have we gotten from  a policy of billions of dollars spent on waging war overseas? What good have we gotten from sending hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries just to see our jobs and bonds and raw materials go there with them. What good has come of removing any of the price supports for farm products when the end result has been nothing more than higher prices?

So please, feel free, tell me, unload on me, make me feel stupid. "What the Hell are we doing wrong ?"