"Imagine if you had never been homeless before and you'd just lost your job and you lost your home. What would you do? Would you immediately go begging or knocking on a door? No, you would downsize, move into cheaper accommodations, if that did not work you'd move in with friends or relatives and then you'd move into a cheap motel and then ... where would you want to go before winding up at a shelter door? You would much prefer to live at a park with your family and your dog." ... "In just about every major city, there are tent cities. Unfortunately, we're in a growth industry and the numbers are going to continue." -- Michael Stoop, a community organizer for the
National Coalition for the Homeless, explaining that the
surge in American tent city shantytowns, first highlighted on MeFi in 2008/09:
1,
2,
3, has not slowed.
The Great Recession: Life in Tent City, Lakewood NJ /
Photo Gallery /
Video.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 10, 2011 -
40 comments
BBC News asks independent trader Alessio Rastani "
what would keep investors happy, make them feel more confident?" and gets a surprisingly honest answer:
"Personally, it doesn't matter. See, I'm a trader. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. If I see an opportunity to make money, I go with that. So, for most traders, we don't really care that much about how they're going to fix the economy, about how they're going to fix the whole situation; our job is to make money from it. And, personally, I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession which is I go to bed every night and dream of another recession, I dream of another moment like this." [SLYT]
posted by finite
on Sep 26, 2011 -
235 comments
It sounds like a George Lopez joke. “Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home Depot the other day.” Except it’s true.
posted by Joe Beese
on Nov 11, 2009 -
31 comments
"Civilization is Just a Thin Veneer. In the absence of law and order, men quickly revert to savagery. As was illustrated by the rioting and looting that accompanied disasters in the past three decades, the transition from tranquility to absolute barbarism can occur overnight. People expect tomorrow to be just like today, and they act accordingly. But then comes a unpredictable disaster that catches the vast majority unprepared. The average American family has four days worth of food on hand. When that food is gone,
we'll soon see the thin veneer stripped away."
[more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Jan 28, 2009 -
179 comments
TARP, SSFIP, EESA, CPP, TALF, MMIFF... Are you feeling overwhelmed by all the new acronyms coming out of the US Treasury Department lately? Here's
a handy PDF reference guide to untangling the US government efforts to rescue banks, financial corporations, and other companies.
posted by Asparagirl
on Dec 29, 2008 -
10 comments
