An American Christmas 2009

This is America this Christmas in many area's, way too many!! This was one of the 60min reports tonight.

Wilmington, Ohio's Long Recession

60 Minutes Revisits A Town Hit Hard By The Recession; Have Things Improved Nearly A Year Since Our First Report?



This week marks the third Christmas of the Great Recession. The decline that began in December 2007 has destroyed more than seven million jobs. But that's just the half of it: millions more have had their hours cut to part time or have just quit looking for work. Altogether, that comes to 17 percent of the workforce.

There are pockets of severe unemployment all across the country in places like Wilmington, Ohio. 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley first reported about Wilmington this time last year, when its major employer was closing....>>>>>

Where is All that Private Capital that sits at the top, promised to trickle down if only we'd let the powerful and best of the best Reap the Wealth of Our Labors?

Band of brothers: Homeless in Charlotte

Jobless, homeless, all this small band has is each other

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina – With no work, no home and few prospects, all Roy Hawkins, Mark Corbett and Drew Everhart have is each other.

“We’re pretty much what you’d call a brotherhood,” said Corbett, 48, sitting in the makeshift camp he set up in the woods about an hour’s walk from the center of Charlotte in January 2008 and which has been his home ever since. “We look out for each other and we share what we have.”

Hawkins, 44, has been with him on and off since then, since he received his prosthetic leg three months ago. He lost the lower half of his leg in an accident in April.

“When you lose your leg, you lose your livelihood,” Hawkins, an electrician, said.

Everhart moved into the camp about three months ago. He ended up in Charlotte around a year ago after an accident on a construction job. Corbett is also a construction worker, with few possibilities for full-time work because the U.S. housing crisis and the recession it spawned have wiped out many construction jobs.

“There’s nothing out there for us right now,” Corbett said. “But things will get better soon.”...>>>>>

"almost homeless"

Wearing 'almost homeless' sign, ex-executive seeks work

Paul Nawrocki says he's beyond the point where he cares about humiliation.

Paul Nowracki, jobless since February, stands on New York corners with a sign announcing his job search.

That's why he weekly takes a 90-minute train ride to New York, where he walks the streets wearing a sandwich board that advertises his plight: The former toy-industry executive needs a job.

"Almost homeless," reads the sign. "Looking for employment. Very experienced operations and administration manager."

Wearing a suit and tie under the sign, Nawrocki -- who was in the toy industry 36 years before being laid off in February -- stands on Manhattan corners for hours, hoping to pass resumes to interested passers-by.

"When you're out of work and you face having nothing -- I mean, having no income -- pride doesn't mean anything," Nawrocki said. "You need to find work. I have to take care of my family."

People look but don't often stop. A woman in the jewelry business paused as Nawrocki stood with his sign outside Grand Central Station recently.

"I feel sorry for him. I wish I could help him," she said. "I'll pray for him. I'll give him a prayer card."

U.S. nonfarm payrolls plunged by an astonishing 533,000 in November -- the worst job loss in 34 years -- the Labor Department reported Friday.

In addition to the 533,000 lost jobs, an additional 621,000 workers were pushed into part-time work and 422,000 simply dropped out of the labor force.
"This is almost indescribably terrible," wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. "The pace of job losses is accelerating alarmingly."
Over the past three months, 1.26 million jobs have been lost, a pace of job destruction exceeded only once since 1945.
"The threat of a widespread depression is now real and present," said Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland.

And once again the devastating proof of the incompetence of those We Pay!

The Forgotten Storm

This week, almost three months after Hurricane Ike battered Texas, it was clear that the rebuilding and repair is happening far slower than the rest of the country imagines it to be. David Stall, the Shoreacres city manager we spoke with had a poignant observation in our Evening News piece when he mentioned that it seems like when the lights came back on in Houston, people just began to think that everything was all better. The facts are that for his community, and several others along the Texas coast, life is far from normal.

Coastal Texans pitch tents near padlocked FEMA trailers

When Hurricane Ike swallowed their beachfront home and all of their belongings, Darlene and Mark Pagels tried to hold it together.

They borrowed underwear and shoes. They slept in one-hour shifts at a local hospital. They ate free meals in a tent outside their church. And they waited, through September, then October, for a mobile home from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

When a FEMA trailer finally landed on the Pagels' property last week, it came with a padlocked door – and orders that they not move in until inspectors gave them the OK.

As the Economy Tanks Rapidly, and we still have Soldiers being killed and maimed in two occupations, add to All the rest that has happened, and not happened from the countries elected leaders, what is on the mind of the one sitting in the Oval Office and on our dime, along with his most loyal supporters, same ole same ole, Nothing, except what is most important to them:

‘Bush Legacy Project’

There’s an ongoing Bush legacy project that’s been meeting in the White House, really, with senior advisers, Karl Rove, Karen Hughes has been involved, current senior Bush administration advisers and they are looking at how to sort of roll out the President’s legacy.

As the minions of spin and propaganda are given their marching orders and talking points from this meeting of the goper minds, making sure it's spread far and wide and stated over and over, embeding the re-visionist history into the minds of their 'brownshirts', and hoping the historians, nixon reducs, but much bigger task!

Where bush retires to, clearing phony brush is to taxing:

Where bush, and cronies, need to live for us to deter future crimes:

We Can't make It Here

Brother Can You Spare a Dime