The Suicide Solution

A few days before Congress passed its Housing Bill, Carlene Balderrama of Taunton MA found her own solution to the housing crisis. Just a little over two hours in advance of the time her mortgage company, PHH Mortgage Corporation – may its name live in infamy – was to auction off her home, Balderrama killed herself with her husband’s rifle.

This is not the kind of response to hard times that James Grant had in mind when he wrote his July 19 Wall Street Journal essay entitled “Why No Outrage?” “One might infer from the lack of popular anger,” the famed Wall Street contrarian wrote, “that the credit crisis was God's fault rather than the doing of the bankers and the rating agencies and the government's snoozing watchdogs.” For contrast, he cites the spirited response to the depression of the 1890s, when lawyer/agitator Mary Lease stirred crowds with the message that “We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary…”

Grant could have found even more bracing examples of resistance in the 1930s, when farmers and tenants used mob power – and sometimes firearms – to fight foreclosures and evictions. For more on that, I consulted Frances Fox Piven, co-author of the classic text Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, who told me that in the early 30s, a number of cities were so shaken by the resistance that they declared moratoriums on further evictions. A 1931 riot by Chicago tenants who had fallen behind on their rent, for example, had left three dead and three police officers injured.

According to Piven, these actions were often spontaneous. A group of unemployed men would get word of a scheduled eviction and march through the streets, gathering crowds as they went. Arriving at the site of the eviction, they would move the furniture back into the apartment and stay around to protect the threatened tenants. In one instance in Detroit, it took 100 cops to evict a single family. Also in Detroit, Piven said, “two families protected their apartments by shooting their landlord and were acquitted by a sympathetic jury.”

What a difference 80 years makes. When the police and the auctioneers arrived at Balderrama’s house, the family gun had already been used – on the victim of foreclosure herself. I don’t know how “worthy” a debtor she was – the family had been through bankruptcies before, though probably not as a result of Caribbean vacations and closets full of designer clothes. It was an Adjustable Rate Mortgage that did them in, and Balderrama, who managed the family’s finances, had apparently been unwilling to tell her husband that their ever-rising monthly mortgage payments were eating up his earnings as a plumber.

Suicide is becoming an increasingly popular response to debt. James Scurlock’s brilliant documentary, Maxed Out, features the families of two college students who killed themselves after being overwhelmed by credit card debt. “All the people we talked to had considered suicide at least once,” Scurlock told a gathering of the National Assocition of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys in 2007. According to the Los Angeles Times, lawyers in the audience backed him up, “describing clients who showed up at their offices with cyanide, or threatened, ‘If you don’t help me, I’ve got a gun in my car.’”

India may be the trend-setter here, with an estimated 150,000 debt-ridden farmers succumbing to suicide since 1997. With guns in short supply in rural India, the desperate farmers have taken to drinking the pesticides meant for their crops.

Dry your eyes, already: Death is an effective remedy for debt, along with anything else that may be bothering you too. And try to think of it too from a lofty, corner-office, perspective: If you can’t pay your debts or afford to play your role as a consumer, and if, in addition – like an ever-rising number of Americans – you’re no longer needed at the workplace, then there’s no further point to your existence. I’m not saying that the creditors, the bankers and the mortgage companies actually want you dead, but in a culture where one’s credit rating is routinely held up as a three-digit measure of personal self-worth, the correct response to insoluble debt is in fact, “Just shoot me!”

The alternative is to value yourself more than any amount of money and turn the guns, metaphorically speaking, in the other direction. It wasn’t God, or some abstract economic climate change, that caused the credit crisis. Actual humans –often masked as financial institutions – did that, (and you can find a convenient list of names in Nomi Prins’s article in the current issue of Mother Jones.) Most of them, except for a tiny few facing trials, are still high rollers, fattening themselves on the blood and tears of ordinary debtors. I know it’s so 1930s, but may I suggest a march on Wall Street?

Comments

[foreclosurefish]

Good article. People who identify themselves with their credit scores and roles as consumers need to realize that their inability to pay their debt has been largely engineered by the banks. Giving up and taking such drastic measures, while somewhat understandable, is not the solution.

After all, large corporations go bankrupt every day -- you don't see any of their directors or CEOs bawling their eyes out and contemplating suicide. On the contrary, they just go to the government for handouts and treat the bankruptcy as a method of sticking the taxpayers with the bill.

Bankruptcy or foreclosure should be looked at as a business decision and a reaction to changing economic conditions. Not as a moral decision -- corporations certainly don't consider it a moral decision, and neither should homeowners.

[Rhea]

Organized political action? What a concept! I long to see people in the U.S. participate in this kind of thing. "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna...."

[shay]

Great post. Sadly though we have become a society that only values money and for many when there is no money or in this case debt, we stop seeing our value.

[mjk]

Your comments err a bit. 23 years age my husband opted for this solution for business/money woes. Even with mental health care he made the choice of suicide. However, his estate, i.e. wife and 3 children, inherited the debt with no life insurance payment. I paid everything along with years of legal proceedings and costs. I raised 3 sons hovering slightly above the poverty level and look forward to old age of real poverty. The financial plight of the surviving family isn't even on the radar of a subject no one wants to acknowledge.

[Jason Gooljar]

I'm all for a march on Wall Street. People have started to protest in front of health insurance corporations like GHI concerning health care costs too. Who want's to organize this? Or who's willing to help me organize it?

[Anarcissie]

Marching on Wall Street sounds like fun, but what are you going to do when you get there?

Let me suggest some possibilities.

(1) You can wave signs around, yell, and demand that the rich be nicer or else. This is called "working within the system." A big demonstration will cause politicians to emit wads of hot air; then things will go back to what they were before. But you will have had a nice march, anyway.

(2) You can employ the power of the state or violent revolution to replace the existing financial system with something else. In this case, you had better figure out what the replacement is beforehand, and get everyone to agree (or make them agree). You'll probably need a great leader, too. You may get more marching than you bargained for. Note: this sort of thing has not worked out too well in the past.

(3) You could forget about Wall Street and the various medical care and insurance rackets and build alternative institutions that serve _your_ interests and desires instead of rich people's. Oh, wait, that isn't marching anywhere. Cross it out.

[W.C. Varones]

We are tracking these cases in Greenspan's Body Count. Carlene Balderrama is number 36.

[Greg Farnum]

Beautiful column. I hope others with a public forum will gain the courage to speak as clearly as you have.

[le.gai.savant]

Barbara, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Of course there ought to be more outrage about the the greed & corruption amongst the financial elite and the venal idiots we've allowed to take over our government, but please, don't tell me people are killing themselves over having less money. Behind each of these stories you'll find some deeper cause of despair I'm sure. There are millions of people out there in financial distress and saying that this is something that actually causes suicide might even give someone the idea. Saying the people ought to pick up the gun and turn it on bankers or other crooks is at least as pernicious. What if someone, having read your article, did just that? While I believe in justice for thieves, the death penalty or being shot in the street is kind of harsh, isn't it? Maybe you're just displaying your brilliant wit here or something? I hope you don't encourage someone with your lovely writing turned to such a nasty end. Also, of course, there are things that really do need to be done about this crisis -- crooks prosecuted, even more important, relief for debtors in over their head and some sane economic policies, ending the war and so forth. You really don't think we'll get there by someone picking up a gun and shooting a few bankers, do you? If you do, go visit someplace where this has been tried.

[Anarcissie]

The problem isn't a few crooks. The problem is systemic.

[Barbara E]

le.gai.savant: Did you skip the word "metaphorically"? Of course I'm not suggesting shooting anyone.

Anarcissie: I think the function of a march would be to shame the finance industry and alert the politicians that we are angry.

[Anarcissie]

I don't think trying to shame the shameless is going to accomplish much.

If what you want is to replicate the social democracy and welfarism of the 1930's, you will have to wait for different conditions. In those days, the various ruling classes of the West were frightened by the success of Communist and fascist movements and figured they'd better buy off the workers, as well as get their own games under control. There is no threat like those of yesteryear even on the horizon today. Rightists have tried to create bogeymen out of Russia, China and Islam but they are unable to scare anyone, even themselves.

I do think things are going to get worse, though -- given the long-term abuse of the economy and especially the monetary system -- so maybe they'll get better, too, from someone's point of view. I myself favor movements toward autonomy, toward making the ruling class and the rich irrelevant. They control us only because we let them.

[Brian]

On the day Ted Stevens senior US Republican Senator with 30 years in congress was indighted, Barbara gets to the core of our economy which is "if you can't pay your debts or """play your role as a consumer"""you're no longer needed" Yaaahhh!! Our economy is cannabilistic, and the next time you hear some devil preach the wondertudes of 'free market capitalism' as if that is what we have going her, get out of the room! We don't have free market capitalism, we have a rigged market requiring huge amounts of capital if you want to make a mark in it. These pundits are toxic messengers of brainwashing, as "the system" wants people "programmed to recieve". Anyways, I think Barbara has unearthed to the core of the problem. The machine we live in eats us alive and then when we are no longer a profit center it spits us out, either into infirmatiy, old age, or prison or even worse homeless. I think we need a new type of analytic politique that transcends socialsim or marxism or hippism, but looks at an American as simply a consumer. Debt is modern slavery. Debt is never worth suicide as debt is just a loan that promises if you pay for a very long time, like a 30 year mortgage you get to own the property, yet the state can at a whim tax it away from you anytime. Its all an illusion. Whenever the state can take your property for unpaid taxes, it means you don't really own it. You are simply being put through layers of illusions. Thats not to say, it might be a practical thing to do to mortgage a house and pay taxes if the numbers work for you and still leaves you a measure of dignity and a cushion. But our brand of consumerism makes you push the buying envelop. "Pushing the consumers buying envelop".
1. American narcissism confused as patriotism.
2. great advertising and glad handing and unrequited promises.
3. addictions and drug and booze induced decision making.
4. relationship blackmail, threat of pulling away ones love if you don't get that "thing" or "dream holiday">
But let me add the greatest travesty of todays America and that is the huge amount of debt students and their families have to take on to get even a basic college education. Its insane and wrong. "Generation Debt" covers it well. One question--during the recent housing boom and double and tripling of prices, did anyone ever hear anyone from mortgage lender to the "innocent" sellar ever wonder if it was ethical to saddle people with these yet huger mortgages they would be paying off month after month for most of the rest of their lives working extra hours, overtime, two jobs, and separating marriages over the stress, but whether it was ethical to be part of this? I watch on the home channel how suburban dwellers drool when the realtor tells them their house has doubled in value in the past 10 years, but no one ever asks the question, how is the first time or even second time home buyer going to be able to afford it. A mortgage is a backbracker, a home wreaker. But its all about "me, me, me" and somehow these same people think going to church on sunday absolves them of their very deep sins. Outside of all the greed, I am appalled no-one has even started a national discussion on the ethics of greed. By that I mean the hurt and harm greed can do to others and is that ethical? But no discussion, just sign me up to the ponzy scheme. Yet we are the greatest nation the earth has ever seen. Something is not computing here.

[paperpusher666]

Brian, the banking industry did an excellent job of convincing people that they can no longer file for bankruptcy to have their debts discharged. You still can, but you have to earn the median or less for your family size. In Maryland, that is about $40K per year for a single person, and add about $3K per year or every additional family member.

People tend to focus on the monthly payment more than how long it will take to pay off a debt. For at least the last ten years, the focus in the lending industry has been on making payments affordable, either through car leases, reduction of minimum monthly payments on credit cards, or pay-option mortgages, or worse, the toxic 80/20s where you took out another loan for the down payment as well.

Deductibility of interest never seemed like a great deal to me. Suppose that my combined tax rate is 30% and I'm deducting $10K in mortgage interest. My taxes are lower, but I still have to pay that $7000 "left over" in mortgage interest. People confuse deductibility with a tax CREDIT.

One can argue that housing prices HAD to collapse when the average house price was 4-6 times people's income, and higher than that in some places. Few buyers compared the after-tax costs of ownership with the cost of renting. I get a hard time from family members because I didn't buy a house when I moved back east four years ago. It was cheaper to rent by about 30% for the amount of space that I had.

One of the books that you should read is "Balance Sheet Recession" by John Koo. It is about the Japanese, but there are lessons that apply to the U.S. The main one is that a recession is inevitable as people repair their personal balance sheets, either by paying down debt or filing for bankruptcy.

It is hard to start a discussion on the ethics of greed when we are taught that we have to get what we can, while we can, as we await the next downsizing. Your "greed" may be someone else's "survival".

I'd like to see credit card interest capped at 2-4 points above the fed funds rate and oenalty fees capped at $10, but that would cause 80% of the people to have their credit cards cancelled. It wouldn't be profitable enough. The most moneymaking customers for the banks are the highest risk customers, because they can get 24-30% plus however much in late fees.

[JMarra]

You could forget about Wall Street and the various medical care and insurance rackets and build alternative institutions that serve _your_ interests and desires instead of rich people's.
------

Everyone does that to some extent. I tell everyone I know to remember who among their friends and acquaintances (hint: it's helpful to have friends and acquaintances) is a doctor, lawyer, nurse, or other professional who will negotiate with you directly and bypass health insurance and its corporate agenda. Find those people, help them find others, start building local networks of support and help.

I was greatly helped this way. There are health care professionals who want to HELP more than they want to make money for the corporation. Developing respectful and mutually helpful relationships with actual doctors and nurses is a good starting place.

Sometimes you don't do it until you absolutely have to--maybe it's good to start compiling local knowledge now. It's worked for me on dentistry and foot surgery.

[JMarra]

They control us only because we let them.
----

The system gives property more recourse to legal physical violence than it gives to me.

I can storm the gates, and the police or privately hired security can give me a concussion. I may recover and file a lawsuit. I might win the lawsuit, some years down the road. A lawsuit will cost me money, and necessarily reduce the time I can spend protesting the original issue in the first place.

[Buena]

I don't think people are killing themselves because they "have less money." Losing your home is a lot more fundamental and devastating, and I could see how it could lead to suicide.

Are we at a tipping point here in the U.S.? How much longer before we get angry enough to do something, i.e. vote, march, protest, keep to the streets like we did in the Vietnam era?

[Anarcissie]

JMarra: '... The system gives property more recourse to legal physical violence than it gives to me. ...'

Yes, as an individual it's hard to beat the system, and especially hard not to get sucked into the system and become like it and part of it. Hence I go about preaching the gospel of collective autonomy. Doesn't seem to do much but maybe I'm planting a few seeds here and there. Your suggestion of establishing personal relationships is something like what I'm talking about.

Buena: '... How much longer before we get angry enough to do something, i.e. vote, march, protest... ?'

Voting, marching and protesting are basically asking the ruling class to be nicer. There are some problems with this approach. First, ruling-class people didn't get where they are or stay there by being nice. It is not really a behavior they understand well, although the more clever ones can simulate it on occasion. Second, the ruling class itself has to some extent lost control of the situation. They have allowed themselves to be seduced by easy money, stock and real estate bubbles, celebrity, and so on. Being a lord and master is a hard job and they've muffed it. Even if they wanted to (which they don't) it may well be impossible for them to rectify the damage they've done from the top.

It is probably going to be up to outsiders and lower-downs to rebuild our economy and restore our politics to some semblance of reason and virtue. In other words, the knight in shining armor, the man on a white horse, is you.

[Ron McAllister]

Just this Sunday I sat and watched with sadness as I listened to Fritz Hollings, the retired North Carolina Senator. Greed is the biggest problem in American political system, driven by K-Street lobbyists demanding more money and influence from "Joe Average American." $30,000 was the amount of money Hollings had to raise weekly! He stated sadly that pretty much all of his time was in the pursuit of cash. He admitted freely he was more concerned with that than creating policies to help average Americans. I hate to sound like the Ugly Canadian, but I have to tell the fine folks of still the Great U.S. of A not only are your bank accounts and governments deeply in debt but your entire democracy has a deep rot, troubling not just for you but for citizens around the world. It's time "Joe and Janey average America", to wake up and see, that a group of devious, dangerous, Neo-Cons have robbed you all blind! It's funny how American's lampooned the French for not joining in the Iraq debacle because they were called "soft" and "outdated" but try and take away the hard fought rights of French citizen's and you'll see the strong character of the French as they stand up proudly for those rights. It seems American's are the ones who have grown fat and soft. You have lost the ability to stand up for your own rights, because you've abdicated them to K-Street and in the process you have foolishly had your pockets picked. It's time to grow a backbone America, if not you will go down in the history pages as a country with seemingly unlimited potential, a potential lost by indolence and the greed to a political criminal class unheard of or unseen ever before in the planet's history. Now wake up and start fighting for your rights, there are those of us around the world that still look to the great American experiment with hope.

Sincerely,

Ron McAllister

[Mara]

Barbara writes: "Dry your eyes, already: Death is an effective remedy for debt, along with anything else that may be bothering you too."
Hmmm, not according to the Buddhists, though. For them, I think, anyone who dies this way will have to be reborn into a life of even greater suffering to really learn they can come up with a better solution to their woes than self-destruction. Well, maybe the Buddhists are wrong. Still, I don't think death offers any easy way out, although Atheists like to think so. As for the Religious, is listening to a heavenly choir singing for eternity truly an easy way out or the fast track to eternal tedium? Even pitchforks have to get old, after a while. Think about it.

[Mara]

In terms of the "deeper" reasons for suicide, sometimes it's a more impulsive act than we realize (the NYTimes had a great article about this). Have a gun lying around or live by a high bridge, and you (or a family member) just might one day decide to shoot or jump to a quick death. Motto: troubles come and go but death often takes a holiday anytime the means for a truly lethal end presents itself.

[roger]

i have all sympathy for the family. suicide is an exasperating and tragic event. the pressure and strain were authentic.

the family pursued, negotiated and agreed to a mortgage plan with an established financial institution.

" I had no clue," said John Balderrama explaining that his wife handled all the couple's finances. "I'm just lost. I tell you I'm beside myself."

" He said Carlene had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company and shredding them without his knowledge. He had no idea she hadn't paid the mortgage in 42 months. "

given the signed contract that the family entered into, and the apparent circumstance in which the contract was not met for 42 consecutive months; i must pose the question: what action, other than foreclosure did you expect from the finance company.

it is suitable to discuss the relative merits of working outside of a system which manipulates the populous; to wit:

" and especially hard not to get sucked into the system and become like it and part of it. Hence I go about preaching the gospel of collective autonomy. "

that said. i would find it difficult to conceive that the mortgage company is responsible for this death or that society may expect the mortgage company to do much more than notify the authorities when someone received the fax of the pending suicide.

again all of this reasoning is couched in terms of sympathy for the family at this tragic loss.

http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=1445599

http://www.mahalo.com/Carlene_Balderrama#guide_note-TOP-0

[Heather]

I agree that people do turn to suicide far too often than the public would like to think. Faced with an unfair lawsuit at the age of 19 (by an elderly couple in their 70s), I spent my remaining college years in therapy for PTSD, too close to suicidal thoughts for comfort. Sometimes you just want to get away, and you see no other choice. You feel yourself a burden to the world and everyone that loves you. As a college student, I was lucky enough to get easy help through a university program. Non-students aren't as lucky.

Three years later and the lawsuit went away. I'm three months out of college with no luck in the job search, slowly drowning in new debt without health insurance (thanks to a pre-existing condition). Not only does the economy need a serious overhaul of ethical and reasonable standards, but I must attest to the same for health care. Money and health are the two things a person can't live without, and unfortunately, the two things people will continuously use against each other in an attempt for overall power.

[Monica]

Provided that one can at least have the basics, such as food, and not necessarily at the unreasonably high level that many Americans find normal, debt is largely a state of mind. If it is really huge, it might as well be zero, because it will never be paid, and at least some of it will be discharged or written off. There are even laws saying that after a certain number of years, debt "expires". And one's efforts to at least pay something may just reset the clock.

Many people cannot afford home ownership in the first place. If the bank takes the house, people will end up living somewhere, probably as renters.

The real problem is the idea that if there is no money, debt must be paid, and this is a shame and a burden to others. No material goods are worth one's life.

And I don't know what happened in the case of the person who was only 19 when sued, but at that age, many people are judgment-proof. Speaking of judgment, the law may actually protect a certain amount of assets that simply cannot be taken. And at 19, life is full of opportunities (and not necessarily where those old folks live), whereas the old people may not even have many years of life left.

Be a burden or beg for food if you must, but by all means, people, protect your life first. In the current economic climate, it would not be surprising if the whole economic system collapsed and money lost nearly all its value. In some areas, houses are simply blown away by some flood or hurricane. Life is more important than material things and the ability to pay, which could disappear or become totally irrelevant.

[Anarcissie]

In the social order of contemporary liberal capitalism, where all respectable people are employed and work constantly, you are your money. It's not surprising that people introject -- mentally aborb and incorporate -- this kind of thinking, since they are surrounded by it and it has so much power over them. In this scheme of things, if you lose all your money, you're worthless and should die. But if you gain your sense of self-worth from the global work machine, however successfully, you're already sort of dead.

[Solo]

yes, I, too, am waiting for us to moblize and march. However, when we did in the 60s there was a sense of shared mission. One person's gain was everyone's gain. Not any more. Everyone seems to be in it for themselves.

How many people know their neighbors or care to? How often do people get together with non family members? Not often. While even on TV programs showing people house hunting almost all comment on wanting privacy fencing. Just what are we afraid of?

Until we as a people understand that we're all in this together, nothing will change.

[Heather]

In response to Monica, yes, I agree about youth judgment. I must clarify, the case was about an accident that occurred when I was 19, and was served papers at 21, just two months shy of the statute of limitations. The case went through my employer, and I was lucky to not have to appear in court. I was just ecstatic when it was over. Not long ago I read in the paper about a car accident in Maryland in which a mid-50s man was being sued by a mid-70s couple for the same reasons I was...a wife was denied "companionship" from her husband, severe emotional trauma, etc.

I was sad, learning of such a similar situation. So when an adult with real financial status is set to lose, I could see how stress has the possibility to result in drastic measures. What seems simple and black and white to others would seem tremendously urgent to you, therefore perpetrating the notion that you're "crazy." And that really doesn't help a mentally unstable person in need of help.

I wholeheartedly agree with Barbara's notion of "metaphorically" turning the weapon in the other direction. Not that even metaphorical violence is the answer, but that as people, we have to learn to value ourselves and our self-worth before counting our life's savings.

[Brian]

Solo the reason we were together in the 60's was in part demographic, the post world war 11 baby boom, highly suburbanized, from families that were living in posperity, the advent of the tv generation, rock and roll, and various communal enhancing relaxants. Now look, the suburban kids are no longer the majority, the families are under finanical and social presssure, nobody is happy, and worse the government has criminalized all communal enhancing relaxatnts to the point of deomonizing anyone who would go near them, there are also more dangerous agents around that feul violence, and the corportations have co-opted the music to serve their own commercial interests. All the good stuff has been hijacked and turned around, so that is why nobody feels communal about anything anymore. Plus the work environment has sped up and gained control over all our free time and stolen our lives. During the Carter years the 35 hour work week was in and so were 4 week vacations for college level professionals. You didn't have to worry about being fired if you took your vacation either. And there were personal days and occasional 3 and 4 day weekends, the kind of time you need to have a life. Now they have even lay employees working longer hours as if they were first year law firm associates. They have everyone tethered to cell phones and beepers and various electronic monitoring 24-7 so you are always on the clock. They drug screen all employees, even for the Gap. The message is totally negative on workers period. You are just a cost center on a balance sheet and they have taken your free time, your life, your dignity, your family, and your chance to be you so they can generate more on their profit line. No wonder the conservatives so demonize the carter years. And people are brainwashed to believe them even though it goes against their own interests.

[Anarcissie]

I don't want to be too cynical, but I think the alleged togetherness of the Sixties was largely the product of latter-day marketeering in pursuit of sales in media, clothing, cars, and other markers of artificial hippitude.

The Sixties were actually very complicated (like every other era), had major dark sides (like every other era) and witnessed the beginnings of the present fragmentation and total commercialization of popular culture.

[lc2]

This essay couldn't be more timely and I fear the situations Barbara discusses are only the tip of the iceberg. We're in for some very rocky times, esp. since so many of the people who will lose their homes, are driven by appearances they really couldn't afford to keep up in the first place. When those appearances are threatened, they will become undone. For many of these people, having to move to a smaller/less new house (or god forbid, gasp! rent an apartment!) would be the end of the world.

I have no idea how the people I am surrounded by "afford" the lifestyles they display so ostentatiously because I know they make barely more money than we do. There is something seriously amiss and I feel bad about the angst overextended people must feel -- I feel it about my own day to day expenses. On the other hand, I do not support a homeowner bailout unless the homeowners in question are forced to downscale in ways that truly humble us as a society. I do not support giving people even more rope to hang themselves. It's time we all figured out that 2 incomes does not entitle us to Disney vacations every other year, a new minivan as soon as the old one isn't shiny, totally unnecessary cell phones, home pools, etc. Maybe this is my own brand of selfish entitlement, but I have been living simply for more than a decade now and I think it's time many of my peers (mid-30s) get w/the frugal program too.

[Monica]

A homeowner bailout is, in fact, a way to give economic power to individual citizens, although, unfortunately, the poorest citizens are not included. Or, more exactly, a way to ensure they are not deprived of the economic power they got. Evicted homeowners will end up living somewhere. It's just that if they keep their home, those homes are owned by ordinary citizens instead of being owned by some corporation or by rich individuals. And rich landlords don't make money from them, because they have no need to rent. Because they will still end up paying for housing, even if it seems expensive. They can't live on the street. At least, by paying, they are empowering themselves and not the landlord.

Many people have to overextend themselves just because necessities like rent are expensive but needed. But those who just buy luxuries will either end up affording them at the limit, or losing them. But if they lose them, at least they have enjoyed them while they could. It depends on one's point of view. To some, a frugal lifestyle is the way to go. To others, temporary affluence is still affluence while it actually lasts, and worth having. If someone offered you to be a millionaire for 5 years, how many of you would prefer to maintain a frugal lifestyle and never experience that at least once in a lifetime?

And don't forget the power of positive thinking, and of making more money by faking 'till you make it. It's not the very poor who are faking affluence, although some may fake a modest middle-class existence. To fake it, one must be a notch or two below, and the hope is that in time, it may become true, and that by being surrounded by money, one eventually becomes a money magnet. If not, being a little rich for a while is almost like stealing from the rich. But the psychological effect is important, although the success it creates is not automatic.

My boss has noticed a change in my behaviour since I have started my online businesses. I did not tell him that, but this is due to the fact that I would like to put myself in a position not to need jobs and bosses anymore and sometimes seem to act as if that was already the case. Sometimes, I almost felt life lauging in the boss's face. It's the same kind of idea as with faking affluence. Feel like the boss and you may end up being the boss. Pretend you have money and you may end up rich. It does not create success, but it motivates.

[Barbara]

Recently read Nickeled and Dimed. Yesterday had to preach on the scripture in Matthew about the feeding of the 5000. This was not just about Jesus performing a miracle. It was about the compassion he had for the physical needs of each individual in that multitude. I always talk to the taxi drivers, hotel maids, waitresses etc that I come in contact with on my travels. Bless you for your work.

[Anarcissie]

The key to the story of the feeding of the 5000 is that Jesus first collected what food people had and were willing to give. As a miracle worker, he could have created the food out of thin air; in fact, as God, he could have created a world where people weren't hungry in the first place. Instead, he showed people that they could feed themselves, but they would have to take the first step, put together what they had and share it, instead of waiting for a handout from the authorities.

The story is usually reinterpreted to emphasize Jesus's skill as a magician, obscuring its political and moral content. Jesus the communist and autonomist isn't too popular with the authorities and their fans.

[Busted]

Another perspective...

6 Reasons Why Americans Aren’t Angry About the Current Economic Crisis

http://webebroke.com/?p=207

[Melanie N. Lee]

Today's Metro New York featured a letter from Margaret Pelleriti, mother of a teenaged suicide victim Michael, 16. She railed against your saying that "Death is an effective remedy for debt". Metro's website has links to pdf's of today's edition. There are other letters about the mortgage crisis and marching against debt.

I found her website in memory of her son, and wrote this reply into her guestbook:

Dear Mrs. Pelleriti: I saw your letter in today's Metro New York. (Maybe you get Metro Philadelphia?) My condolences on the loss of your teenage son. However, you misunderstood Barbara Ehrenreich's intention. In the paragraph you quoted, she was being satiric, like Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal", where he suggests that the starving poor eat their own children. Look again at another line from her column: "The alternative is to value yourself more than any amount of money and turn the guns, metaphorically speaking, in the other direction." Her true target was not suicide victims, but heartless institutions that drive them to suicide, run by "high rollers, fattening themselves on the blood and tears of ordinary debtors." Ehrenreich, railing against the suicide of Carlene Balderrama of Taunton MA, the woman losing her home to a failed mortgage, would agree with what you said in your letter: "That person has WORTH!"

I'm sending a shortened version of this guestbook entry as a letter to Metro New York. I'll also tell Ms. Ehrenreich about your letter, and hope she will find the time to write to you herself. You can find a longer version of her column here: [I list your blog's column's URL.]

Blessings,

Melanie N. Lee
Corona, Queens, NY

So, Ms. Ehrenreich, if you want to seek her out, you can enter "Margaret Pelleriti" into a search engine and find her tribute to her son, and its guestbook.

Here's the shortened letter I sent to Metro:

Dear Mrs. Pelleriti: My condolences on the loss of your teenage son. However, Barbara Ehrenreich was being satiric, like Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal", when she said “Death is an effective remedy for debt.” She also said, “The alternative is to value yourself more than any amount of money and turn the guns, metaphorically speaking, in the other direction." Her true target was heartless institutions that drive people to suicide. Ehrenreich would agree with you about the debtor and the suicide victim: "That person has WORTH!" I found her column life-affirming!

[roger]

" but heartless institutions that drive them to suicide, run by "high rollers, fattening themselves on the blood and tears of ordinary debtors "

is this actually a predator who/which fattens itself on blood and tears of innocent victims or is this a financial contract which was contravened for 42 consecutive months by the party who signed for and pursued the mortgage.
the histrionics are simply not applicable.

[Melanie Lee]

Hmm...like the person who sets a trap with cheese for a starving mouse, catches the mouse, and then blames the mouse for being greedy.

Or think Hansel and Gretel.

[roger]

your mouse and hansel and gretel were each ensnared by deception.

i dont read in the article that the mortgage company deceived the family. the forclosure was a result of the monthly mortgage not being paid.

[Melanie Lee]

But, you see, I think those particular mortgages were deceptive, or at least predatory.

Now I don't understand fully how the subprime mortgage and other such mortages work, but think: you give a loan to someone whom you know, or suspect, can't pay it back, at least not in a timely way, giving you an opportunity to seize the property and keep whatever money they did give you--perhaps to sell the same property to someone else?

Can you say "loan shark"?

Also think: many, if not most, of the subprime mortgages were marketed to African-Americans. Even those Afr-Ams who could afford the regular mortgage deal were steered toward the subprime. I suppose the predatory market thinks dark meat tastes especially delicious. (Yes, I'm Afr-Am, too!) The market is often glad to sell our kind the inferior brand.

[roger]

" Now I don't understand fully how the subprime mortgage and other such mortages work, but think: you give a loan to someone whom you know, or suspect, can't pay it back, at least not in a timely way, giving you an opportunity to seize the property and keep whatever money they did give you--perhaps to sell the same property to someone else? "

why would a mortgage company want the mortgage to fail in the first place.

" Can you say "loan shark"? "

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BED8040C5-326B-4F88-A84A-F99FDC3754E9%7D&siteid=mktw

loan sharks dont sell their businesses for $7 billion.

" I suppose the predatory market thinks dark meat tastes especially delicious. "

without qualification the most ridiculous thing i have read today.

[Melanie Lee]

You say loan sharks don't sell their businesses for $7 billion. That's like saying that huge corporations don't rob people because they don't mug people in the streets. Aren't big credit companies acting like loan sharks these days, only breaking your finances and your reputation instead of your knees?

Sorry you found my "dark meat" statement ridiculous. I'm a poet, not a financier. I'm sure many readers will know and appreciate exactly what I mean, even if you don't. In case you didn't understand, I'm saying that in a racist society, those looking for easy, powerless, "out of the loop" victims to prey upon and to scam might choose black people as their victims--like the Tuskegee experiments that used unwitting, and unwilling, black people to see how syphillis affects human beings. The experimenters didn't infect their victims, but let the syphillis affect the sick ones without treatment. I doubt they would have been so ready to do the same to white people.

Yes, I know that today's financial institutions prey upon white people, too. But, if they were thinking racistly, they would be all the more eager to prey upon black people.

[Anarcissie]

I don't think economic predation started with subprime mortgages. It's pretty fundamental to capitalism itself. This isn't nice, but it was better than the physical predation which preceded it under feudalism and slavery. At least most people seem to think so.

The subprime event started because, in a sense, the Federal government has been printing money. Actually, what they do is not literally print it, but lower interest rates abnormally and then create money which banks can borrow. Money is created through credit. Because it's credit-based, it is mostly available only to rich people and corporations. Soon, the rich were awash with funny money, driving up the cost of the things rich people buy, stocks, real estate, collectibles, to absurd levels. What to do with all the money?

One scheme was to lend mortgage money to not-rich people. As long as the money bloat was on, real estate prices would rise no matter what, so the banks were more than willing to loan to relatively poor people, even obvious bad risks, figuring if the poor didn't make the payments, they'd just take the real estate back and sell it at a higher price to someone else.

But there was a bad side effect: the flow of money into the lower classes started to cause inflation in the price of labor and manufactured goods -- the "real economy". In order to head off the inflation, which was unacceptable politically and financially, the Fed raised interest rates. This move reset adjustable-rate mortgages driving many borderline borrowers over the brink. Even if they weren't bankrupted or foreclosed, they cut back on their expenditures and the economy sank.

Thus the subprime scheme, and a good many other schemes, began to curl up and die, with dire economic consequences for large numbers of people including those subprime borrowers. And here we are. In the last year, the American dollar has lost about a third of its value on currency markets. We import a lot, and our government and rich folks are addicted to cheap money, so the inflation will go on, regardless of whether we produce anything or have much money to spend. It is not just the poor who are in serious trouble.

[Geddy Gibson]

The historical days of social unrest that BE describes ironically sound wonderful compared to what we face today. The situation is quite different for those out in the working world. This switch from taking up arms to putting them in your mouth is sadly what I would expect now.

People feel isolated and even antagonistic toward people around them. There is a sense that you would be completely on your own if you tried to fight the banks and the cops who came to kick you out and/or stop your march. Neighbors would be standing around glad it wasn't them in a choke hold or getting tased. And if you started shooting back (if you even HAD a gun in the first place) the media would be primed to paint you as a lone psychopath and put the story to bed.

For working people, large scale protests seem out of the question. Who can get time off for work? Where I work, it is hard to recruit people to do something as simple and non-threatening as monitoring the polls. All the adults in the family work full time, and there is no social network, so they no one to pick up the slack while they go off to do their political thing.

Besides, most people around us only absorb the mainstream media, so they have NO IDEA about the real political stories that are shaping their lives. For example, people think I am lying when I tell them about things like voter caging (Google Greg Palast).

I don't think the situation is hopeless yet, but I try desperately to figure out what can be done.

[Brian]

The middle class is the lower class of today. Those below it are the underclass, totally unrepresented and free to line our degredant poverty pockets like billiard balls at the floor of a toppled pool table.

[Richard]

Well, I have to say, I was rather perturbed by this one. As a 100% Republican I have no regard for the poor whatsoever and believe they exist on earth only to make money for the more affluent among us. I laughed all the way through your excellent book Nickel and Dimed and look forward to reading your other books. But SUICIDE? How is she going to pay her debts if she is dead? Moreover, how is she going to work to make the rest of us any more money?

That doesn't mean the poor should have medical care, though. Bob Dole, bless his soul, would have done away with that and re-directed the funds paid into it to corporations the way McCain wants to do with Social Security. If the poor die due to lack of medical care, then what of it? But suicide is not OK, especially when they owe money to their betters.

And, yes, I am kidding. I am far more irate about all this than you. Your books will not change anything, but I appreciate them anyway.

[dana b]

My sympathy for those who lose their homes is tempered by the thought that most of these folks gambled on a mortgage they couldn't afford.

Yes, we need to regulate the lending industry much, much more. And yes, the scope of the crisis makes each person's foreclosed home a contributor to his or her neighborhood's decay.

But, no, I don'think we should bail out every person from his or her poor financial decisions. And no, I don't think the banks/lenders alone are to blame. Individuals have to take responsibility for their own financial decisions.

[Anarcissie]

dana b: '... most of these folks gambled on a mortgage they couldn't afford. ...'

But, you see, they _could_ afford the mortgage as long as the government kept the funny money coming, flowing into and inflating the housing market.

So could the "predatory lenders". As long as Bubbles Greenspan kept the pipe full, all that a default meant was, you got to sell the house again at a higher price.

What you're looking at here is not some bad guys here and there conning the rubes -- we always have that -- but people at the top conning the whole country, maybe the whole world.

[roger]

i bought my home in 2001 right in the middle of this rush. of all of the options presented i avoided the variable rate/balloon payment/interest only loans like the plague. i dont want any assistance from the gov't for my mortgage and i will not receive any because i made a smart choice. i might add that there are many, many people who are waiting to buy because they did not bite on the variable interest mortgages who will not receive a dime or assistance with their rent in the period in which the mortgage bailout comes.

if you pursue and sign important papers which obligate you to a debt of $350,000 and mortgage payment of $2300 for the next 30 years dont blame our lords and masters that you now cannot afford to pay what you agreed to pay. the individual mortgage holder is responsible

[cribcat]

Suicide is too easy and it only hurts people you love. You want to play the game... then learn the rules. Life has rules and instead of pushing against the oposition you pull... use the force to your advantage. You know who you are.

[Chip]

Obama is the ONE , He Can Save Us , He Will STOP WAR
He Will Stop World Warming , he Will Stop Hunger and Poverty. The WHOLE World wants OBAMA for its Leader . People who don't must be dealth with Severely , they are the Rich and Powerful they MUST BE ELIMINATED . So You Must pledge YOUR LIFE in the CAUSE For OBAMA , If You Do You Will be Rewared if Not You Will be Pushed aside . Left to DIE in a NON Obama area. Join Us Now in the OBAMA Revolution !!

[Zachary saylor]

Another elderly woman of 90 shot herself twice in the shoulder last week in akron, oh because she was being evicted from the home she has lived in since 1970. In response Fannie Mae gifted the home to her free of charge.

[Ken Johnson]

Wonderful post. I find you have put into words ideas that were in my head already but in too imprecise a form for me to speak or write down.

If you want to know what is wrong with British society, look at the suicide rate. In the 1950s it was homosexual men who took their own lives; in the 1970s, the unemployed; in the 1990s, those accused of paedophilia and child abuse; now, it is the victims of the banks and credit card companies.

You are right: capitalists have traded poor wages for easy credit. We run up debt because we have to feed, clothe and shelter our children.

Nobody should be allowed to do this to us, and if it means force of numbers and barricades on the streets, then so may it be.

[Ken]

Shooting people is not an answer unless you're willing to give up your own life. Far more effective would be for a truly unknown (to me) someone to infiltrate the computer systems (and their redundancies) of banks, credit card issuers, the credit rating agencies, the mortgage companies, the IRS, and some of the major box stores. If you can eliminate or doctor information you can free people from the horror of a debtor society that many if not most did not create on their own. This would require a level of skill and daring that is probably unattainable, but I love the thought!

[Robin Leslie]

Writing from the United Kingdom, where repossessions (foreclosures) have grown at a consistent rate, the British government has issued advice to the Courts to repossess only as a last resort! It is too early yet to say whether this action has blunted the edge of such
orders, but they are still continuing. Furthermore the situation here in the Uk is different from the USA insofar as there is already a greater groundswell of anger and
exposure of the political class, technocrats and the
financial sector.
The UK has a more limited land mass, a dense urban population and news is almost instantaneous to and from anywhere on the island (the Uk is an island). For this reason
it is easier to agitate and
change governments. I may add, however, that a generation has grown up on
the narcissistic arrogance of Anglo-American neo-liberalism, and it is largely that generation that needs a History lesso(and a few other reminders too)
I think we will need an ecology-based economy and spiritual practicality which has its roots in
Christian communality to overcome this ideological crisis. Socialism and Communism are not sustainable any more! We need a more modest and simpler way of life and conviviality! Everybody can start living differently from today. Don't drive, take public transport, eat homegrown food, recycle your clothes, repair clothes that wear out. Try to develop local energy supplies. Befriend those around you and regard your natural environment as alive and radiating symbolic meaning.Shades of Ivan Illich.
In the meantime, as long as repossessions go on, people should switch their bank accounts to local Credit Unions, and besiege
their national parliaments.

[Robin Leslie]

A crisis like this reminds us, if nothing else does, that we MUST change! Our values, our practices, our relationships, with our natural and human environments, must now go through a complete transformation, and they must be SELFLESS, COURAGEOUS and ENDURING! In a word we can now LIVE VIRTUOUSLY, without fear of being alone in this respect. TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR THE PLANET AND OURSELVES!

[Eric]

this video can help save your life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2GnDwh5Y_c

[Elyssa Durant]

This is not so surprising. Others have suggested that I am worth more dead than I am alive. That sure felt good to hear... thanks for the 411.

Certainly Insurance Companies calculate the death loss ratio, and figure all sorts of quality of life factors into medical decisions, they take into consideration the liklihood that a spouse or dependents might sue. Someone with dependents and/or a spouse is more likely to have better grounds for a law suit. They have more at stake to and canm file claims for loss of income; wages and benefits, etc.

But a single person or a shut-in will be less likely to have someone close enough to file a claim on their behalf.

When I was a small child my father told me to invest that you always invest in life insurance because they know that ultimately they will have to pay the claim. Unlike health insurance or disability, malpractice, or negligence, death is always the end if the line... the may factor in the how much it will cost to keep someone alive.

Now if I were to die tomorrow, that would be really bad advice; since I owe so much more than I could ever be expected to earn in my lifetime.

I received a rather recently calculating my life (or would it be death?) benefit. I think my dependent(s) would receive something liken $423- for my entire life? Thanks. You can have it!

Unfortunately insurance policies don't pay out for suicide. One attempting suicide is a crime, but completing it is not. Maybe we should make it a capital offense?

I know my beneficiaries will inherit nothing but debt, so I make the choice not to leave any behind (children- not debt.)

The point is, the very fact that I know the calculated risk of my life or death benefits gives a very strong feeling that it would be the "responsible" thing to just go ahead and die already. Since clearly my life cost too much to way to sustain.

But seriously folks... it is a sad state of affairs that it has been determined that I am a bad investment. what does that say about the younger set who is deciding whether or not to invest in a future.

I am too angery and bitter to let them get off that cheap.

Thanks, but no thanks. I think I might live.

But you can trust that when I do go, I will take nothing more than what I needed to barely survive. We should all be so gracious and donate our organs. At least that way they might get a chance at an "actuarially sound" life!

Why take it with you when you go? It is a sad state of affairs when I learned my own death benefit while before my 23rd birthday. Nice. Thanks for that notice... I never felt so alive! Is it still too late to get a do-over?

[Joanne Forman]

I read NICKEL AND DIMED; the thing that most horrified me (My prejudice: I'm a composer) was that there was NO TIME & NO MONEY for ANY cultural life. That mythical being, the average person, has never been to a museum or art gallery, seen a play, been to a concert, or read a book since dropping out of HS. I was much struck by a recent movie FROZEN RIVER, where the only "cultural" life is the TV, which turns the mind into glue.

[Mim]

I've thought about suicide as an alternative but, sadly, I haven't been able to bring myself to do it.

The reality is that in this society if you don't have any money no one wants to be a friend. Quite literally, no one loves you when you are poor. And while I don't consider myself to be a materialistic, money hungry person, some money and material things are necessary for a good quality of life.

For example, I have literally forgotten what my favorite music, films, foods, etc. were and have had to remind myself of what I love in this world because I have had to do without the things I love for so long that I forget that they even exist and what they are. I can't even afford to go for a long walk in the woods right now because I need a car to drive over to where the woods are located and I can't afford a car. I wouldn't dare ask anyone to give me a ride--not with the selfish Americans I'm surrounded with. And I'm always in pain due to a chronic, preexisting condition I cannot afford to have treated. It's hard for me to make friends too as I cannot afford to go out and socialize with others and people see me as a "moocher" if I dare ask them to drive me or share anything with me so I just hide my poverty by not participating in things.

The fact is, most Americans think that if you need help, if you're poor, if you're struggling you are a loser and there is obviously something wrong with you. I've had people accuse me of being an alcoholic or drug addict or of having a mental illness because I've been struggling financially for so long and can't find a decent job so there must be something wrong with me, right? Most Americans can't comprehend that intelligent, nice, hardworking people can't find jobs because the skills and abilities we have just aren't wanted anymore or employers just don't want to pay us a decent wage for the work we're good at. Americans can't grasp that because Americans have been brainwashed into believing that anyone can make a lot of money in the USA--the land of opportunity.

But this isn't the land of opportunity. In fact, Canada and Western Europe offer more social mobility than the US.

I have found that no matter how much talent, experience, education, or work ethic I have I just can't succeed financially in this society. As a woman, I am only hired for low paying office jobs and my employers are typically threatened by my education, experience and overall intelligence, so I am not rewarded for my good work but rather punished as I seem to intimidate my employers. I have also found that because I wasn't born with connections and have no wealthy or prominent people in my family that I just can't seem to move up in the world.

In short, I am stuck. I can't go back to school and further my education because I have student loans I'm unable to pay back so I don't qualify for anymore financial aid. I can't find a decent job and I don't qualify for public assistance because I'm not an addict or mentally ill so I'm considered to be able-bodied and capable of working. Making matters worse, I have no family who can help me so I have no resources there either. My health has been failing and I have a chronic, pre-existing condition I can't get treated because in the US no insurance companies cover that--not that I have health insurance mind you, but if I did have health insurance it wouldn't cover my ailment anyway.

[Mim]

I was homeless for two months and no one helped me. No one. I managed to escape homelessness, got a temp job, and have been working at temp jobs here and there ever since, so I am no longer homeless but I continue to live in poverty. I'm not counted in the government's statistics when they announce the percentage of Americans who are unemployed because technically I've been employed here and there and now and then and I haven't been collecting government assistance (I don't qualify remember?) so people like me literally don't exist per the government's calculations.

Right now, I live in a tiny room I'm renting in someone's house. I saw Oprah on TV interviewing a kid in Africa who lived in a little shack. Well guess what, Oprah, my tiny abode is actually smaller and less accommodating than that third world kids was AND I have a college degree from a reputable college too! Sorry, Oprah, but I'm not a fan of yours. Just keep sending your millions to the starving Africans while you refuse to see your fellow Americans who don't live in Beverly Hills and who aren't on the news. There are a few of us who don't apply for public assistance. We do without the big TV, the DVDs, iPhones, the computers (I'm using a friend's computer), iPods, etc. We do without and yet we're still struggling.

I've met anarchists who are collecting government assistance, so there's a lot of hypocrisy in that movement too. The solution isn't in ideology. It's in us as a people.

Americans aren't talking to each other anymore because we've become dependent on the system. That's our choice. We can turn off that TV set and sit on our front porches again. We can talk to our neighbors. We can show compassion to our fellow human beings instead of passing judgment. There, but for the grace of God, go I, we can say.

I have met anarchists, communists, socialists, democrats, republicans and capitalists and all are prone to corruption no matter what they say. A group of anarchists I currently work with are the most racist, sexist bunch of hypocrites I know. Sorry, but it's the truth. We as humans are a flawed race prone to self-centeredness. We have egos and every one of us wants to believe we are right, that we know all the answers, so here I am spewing forth my own self-righteous defense...

The point is, change comes from within. Instead of committing suicide, let's all get together and channel our anger in the right direction. If you're worried about losing your house, why not invite a homeless person to come in and live with you? Stop and offer a ride to someone you see waiting for a bus on a cold and rainy day? Invite a homeless person in to sit down and have dinner with you and your family?

What, you say? Do you want me to put myself and my family in danger? I'm not going to invite a stranger into my home or my car!

And that, my friend, is exactly what is wrong with our society.

Fear is at the core of our disconnectedness. And we've created that reality. Our fear of crime and of each other has created the disconnectness and division between us that then creates the crime--the very thing we were afraid of in the first place.

People, turn off that TV set, let go of that fear and sit on that front porch again. Talk to a stranger passing by. Say hello. Offer them a sandwich. If you just found out your neighbor lost their job, knock on their door and invite them over for dinner. Plant a garden in your back yard and give all the vegetables you grow to families you know who are struggling. If you're a landlord and have good tenants who take excellent care of your building why not lower their rent by $50 per month just to be nice!

Why not? Because random acts of kindness are something we as a society aren't practicing. Because we attack the neo-cons, the bankers, the CEOs, etc., but we engage in the same form of greed and selfishness ourselves.

Okay, I'm done writing...And I'm probably just preaching to the choir.

Right now, I have a place to live. Tomorrow I may very well be homeless again or dead, as I still think of suicide as an alternative for myself.

But I write these little blogs and I surf the web and I try to inform others of how we can work together to make changes in hopes that in the future, after I am (thankfully) dead and not having to deal with this horrible world anymore, that maybe things will be better for future generations. Maybe our children's children will not have to suffer the way we have. Maybe.

[poorandpositiveyeahbaby]

Why is it we see so many more family murder/suicides these days when you hardly ever heard of stuff like that happening in the 1930s during the Great Depression? Have we become a nation of weaklings?

[Chantal Hachem]

Having been a debtor's attorney for many years and having spoken to literally thousands of people in financial crisis - I cannot tell you how many people had considered suicide as an option, how many people felt ashamed - and NO Monica people dont want to be a "burden" on others - people speak logically - I had to talk down many people about how widespread the problem was, that they weren't alone in their financial woes but logic doesnt always work and if you compound lack of money, lack of work and lack of health and lack of access to health care you're looking at a disaster - that is what America has come to for many many people - we are living in a Darwinian society and it is not based on humanity it is and it needs to change speaking as one of the "unlucky" ones - oh be careful if you fall from on high... do you have a net to catch you???