BIDER Reader Moves to Canada!

I received some wonderful news from a long-time BIDER reader who took my suggestions to heart and was looking for an out from the law (and loans) in a foreign country. We exchanged emails for months, exploring options which included teaching in China. Little did I know that this BIDER reader is a U.S. and Canadian dual-citizen. I received an email soon after my post on the Globe and Mail's "Broken Europe" series that this BIDER reader is finally going to take advantage of his dual citizenship to move to Canada. Congratulations you lucky bastard!

Hi Hard Knocks:
Just a quick note. I have basically decided to abandon the China plan I once had. But, the reason I am likely going to do so is because - in reference to today's post on your site regarding Canada - I'm a U.S. and Canadian dual-citizen, as well as a graduate of a Canadian college, and it seems that in addition to a relatively humane health care system and much, much more responsible bank regulation, it still has a functioning economy. This, I did not know until recently, and I've decided that I am moving (likely on credit and couches) in about four weeks.
...
Canada's better in a lot of ways. I don't think that has always been true. But, at this point, I'm really very tired of the U.S. I was born here. I lived most of my life here. I've known for months that I was going to have to leave, but until the last few weeks, I didn't really want to. Obviously, I've got over that.

By the way, ever hear The Clash song, "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A."?

Good luck to this BIDER reader's job search in Canada. Be sure to update us on your new life there. I didn't think I needed to state the obvious, but for any BIDER readers out there who are unemployed dual U.S. and Canadian citizens, go to Canada. Their economy is doing much better than ours and you will have health care. It's a no-brainer. And don't forget your friend Hardknocks when you're watching the Titanic U.S. from your workplace or doctor's office in Canada.

The Globe and Mail Reports on "Broken Europe" and the Irish Exodus to Canada. What About "Broken" America?

Canada's Globe and Mail had an article last Friday about the Irish exodus to Canada as part of their series called "Broken Europe".

For biochemistry graduate Laura Cross, Tuesdays are special. She wakes early, wanders down to Arnotts department store on Henry Street, slips on her uniform and spends the day working in the underwear department.

One day a week fitting bras on plus-sized ladies is considered better-than-average work these days for an Irishwoman with an advanced degree and work experience; most of her fellow graduates can't even find that much.

The rest of the week, Ms. Cross, 23, waits for the dole cheque and reads up on the history and culture of British Columbia.

On Sept. 28, she will take the bus to the airport and fly to Vancouver, a work-study visa in hand and a number of job prospects in Canadian labs. Her boyfriend, a cabinetmaker who hasn't had work in two years, will join her in December.

Half a dozen of her friends and classmates are already there.

Sounds similar to the lives of most BIDER readers except better because she has a one day a week job and Ireland has a public health care system. I sympathize with Europeans who are experiencing high unemployment and no job prospects. But, being an American, I'm naturally most concerned with the plight of Americans including myself and my friends and family who are suffering because of the depression in the United States. The first thought that came into my head when I started reading this article was, how are thousands of Irish people able to go to Canada, yet, it is so difficult for Americans to live and work in Canada? I would like to know the number of Americans who have moved to Canada since the recession hit because if I could find a full time job in Canada or even temporary employment that would give me a work visa, I would accept without hesitation. Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City, Vancouver - I'd move to any one of those cities in a heartbeat. This article makes it seem like it's a piece of cake for anyone to abandon their home and move to Canada. I've been advocating leaving the country for months and even I know that it takes some time to work out the logistics, find a job abroad, and get a work visa.

On top of this, Ms. Cross is one of 2,500 young Irish people each year who are granted a work-travel visa; that number is capped but is "very heavily oversubscribed now," one official said. Before 2008, Irish visa applications fell below the quota.

A Canadian official said that the numbers for 2009 and the first half of 2010 are "much, much higher," though figures beyond 2008 are not yet available.

The new emigrants are either young and unemployed, like Ms. Cross, or they are older skilled workers with houses and established lives, who are abandoning it all in bankruptcy.

That describes electrician Gavin O'Brien, who left for Toronto this spring, abandoning his family house. In the peak of the boom, earning perhaps €150,000 a year in the overheated home-construction trade, he raised his mortgage payments to €3,000 a month in hopes of paying off the house within a few years: When the construction industry collapsed completely in 2008, the mortgage company refused to lower his payments. He offered to pay them €1,000 a month or to let them take the house, then got on a plane.

Canadians always laugh when I tell them that I need to find a Canadian man to marry so I can live in Canada. They often don't realize that I am dead serious. Five years ago when I was a naive college student who thought the world was my oyster, I would've told people that love conquers all. Now I tell people that Canadian citizenship conquers all. Ever since I was a little girl, I've been in love with Canada's natural beauty and multiculturalism. That they have national health care and is close to family and friends in the U.S. is are additional pluses. So, I'm not surprised that so many other people who are looking for better opportunities abroad are choosing to move to Canada.

I think Ms. Cross and any other young person who has the opportunity to immigrate to Canada is making the right decision to leave for greener pastures. Of course, her well-paid professors with secure jobs tried to dissuade her from leaving Ireland and to stay in school for as long as possible! That is probably the worst advice you can give to a young person. Take out more loans to stay in school and still end up unemployed and overqualified for the few entry-level jobs left out there. I really wish these professors would stop giving life advice as if they know anything about the job market outside of academia:

For young workers like Ms. Cross, the decision to migrate is less cataclysmic, but the choices are equally stark. "My professors were telling me that there was not going to be any work out there for a few years and we should just stay in school as long as we can," she said.

"But I decided to get out there and face the big bad world, and things are so bad that I just want to get up and get out, get away from all the difficulty. My sister's generation were probably the first one ever who could think of spending their whole life making a living in Ireland, but for the rest of us it's back to the old ways."

Have any of you considered finding work in Canada and what has been your experience thus far? I'm expecting that most of you will say it's nearly impossible to find a job in Canada right now. If any of you have found success in securing a visa to stay in Canada, please, do share.

The Third Depression

I'm not sure how many of your caught this fascinating article by Paul Krugman about the third depression, in light of the G20 meetings of this past weekend.  It's not looking good, he says, and I would have to agree.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

There's good reason for that.  The leadership of the world has become overly concerned with inflation when the true fear should be deflation.  Every time the Federal Reserve meets to set the interest rates, I pray that they will increase interest, which will cause more people to save.  Instead, they are slashing it to record lows.

In 2008 and 2009, it seemed as if we might have learned from history. Unlike their predecessors, who raised interest rates in the face of financial crisis, the current leaders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank slashed rates and moved to support credit markets. Unlike governments of the past, which tried to balance budgets in the face of a plunging economy, today’s governments allowed deficits to rise. And better policies helped the world avoid complete collapse: the recession brought on by the financial crisis arguably ended last summer. 

Once again, I call on King Clinton to save us from the our deficit.  Why do we learn about history only to shun its lessons when we need them?

Why the wrong turn in policy? The hard-liners often invoke the troubles facing Greece and other nations around the edges of Europe to justify their actions. And it’s true that bond investors have turned on governments with intractable deficits. But there is no evidence that short-run fiscal austerity in the face of a depressed economy reassures investors. On the contrary: Greece has agreed to harsh austerity, only to find its risk spreads growing ever wider; Ireland has imposed savage cuts in public spending, only to be treated by the markets as a worse risk than Spain, which has been far more reluctant to take the hard-liners’ medicine.

In short, yesterday's dip in the stock market--to below 10,000--will not likely be the last.  Nor will it be the lowest dip before this recession/depression is over.  And what does that mean to you?

And who will pay the price for this triumph of orthodoxy? The answer is, tens of millions of unemployed workers, many of whom will go jobless for years, and some of whom will never work again.

And this is true of everyone, not just lawyers.  So, put on your thinking cap and come up with a long term plan.  It seems that we will all be needing one.

 

Leaving the Country Is Not a Desperate Act

I wanted to thank Angry Future Expat for playing Ann Landers to a BIDER reader (we'll call this person B.R.) who needed some advice on their loans and job prospects overseas. I sent the reader a response of my own in a private email, but I thought Angry Future Expat would have a better answer (he did) in response to the worst case scenario for not paying off private loans. I recommend stopping by and reading B.R.'s letter and AFEP's response.

AFEP is absolutely correct in that leaving the country is not a desperate act, but a smart one and, as AFEP said, " a profound and powerful act of civil disobedience". It is more than okay to feel angry about your current situation whether you are an unemployed recent graduate, a person laid off after years of loyalty and hard work to your former employer, someone drowning in student loan debt because you thought an education would open doors to something better than a minimum wage job, or the millions of people who are currently unemployed or losing business because of a man-made disaster like the Gulf Oil Spill. You have every right to not follow the status quo, say enough is enough, and just leave the abuse that our current system has inflicted upon you.

If B.R. decides to stay, at least understand and accept that your situation will likely not improve within the next decade. It is not due to any fault of your own, but because we are only at the beginning of a very long great depression and no one in the upper echelons of power cares about you or me to change the system that made them incredibly wealthy. Holding out hope for non-existent jobs or any loan forgiveness or economic assistance from corporatist-runned higher education system and government would be foolish. By reading our blogs and writing to me and AFEP that you aren't going to sit by another year unemployed after working your butt off for your BA and JD, you are doing something courageous. Something that most people in your situation havn't even considered. You are taking charge of your life and taking it wherever in the world you can find a livable wage, a lower cost of living, possibly a national health care system, and an escape from your own self-destruction forced upon you by people and corporations that could give a damn what happens to your life as long as your continue to benefit its coffers.

I came across a magnificent and profound piece of writing by blogger Arthur Silber. His post, appropriately titled "Memo to the Victims: You Yourselves Will Pay for the Crimes of the Ruling Class", mainly addresses the Gulf Coast oil spill victims, but I think it applies to every single one of us. Especially for the scambloggers who have been met with some derision and scorn. As long as the ridicule and criticism comes from the powers that be and their apologists who make their six or seven-figure salary off the backs of millions of unsuspecting young people, we're doing something right. I've quoted much of Silber's post below, but I recommend reading the entire thing and forwarding it to anyone you know who has been affected by the Gulf oil spill, which is pretty much all of us. Ask yourself if this is the way you want to live and if not what are you going to do about it to break the goddamned rules, as Silber says. Only your life and happiness are at stake.

As more and more people are now acknowledging -- and I think they are entirely correct and, if anything, still underestimating what will be the ultimate costs of this calamity -- the damage caused by the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will most likely be felt for several decades at least. The economic costs forbid accurate projection at this point; that might not be an altogether regrettable result, for a fuller version of the truth might well be so horrifying that it would induce paralysis of both thought and action. The human costs -- the livelihoods destroyed, the families subjected to unendurable stress and most probably similarly destroyed in very large numbers, the hopes and dreams put on indefinite hold, only to be surrendered in their totality in time -- prohibit contemplation.

One aspect of the profoundly evil system that has been destroying us for over a hundred years -- and make no mistake, it is deeply evil in design, intent and effect, if by evil we designate those actions which destroy the very possibility of thriving life -- is especially awful. The authoritarian-corporatist-militarist system victimizes untold millions of individual human beings, as well as many other forms of life as we see again today, both here and abroad. That would be a momentous evil in itself, but this particular evil is unsatisfied with only this first form of destruction.

Thus, the victims are targeted a second time, and they are forced to become collaborators in their own destruction. It is crucial to understand that these two forms of destruction are not separate manifestations of separate evils. They are the consequences of the same evil, and the two forms of lingering torture and death (psychologically at a minimum, and frequently existentially as well) are part of one overall design. I've discussed certain cultural-psychological manifestations of this dynamic in a number of essays. For an introduction to this analytic approach, I would recommend one article in particular: "Let the Victims Speak." As I stated at the outset of that essay, the nature and operation of this dynamic are very complex; it took me a few decades to appreciate its character. If the subject interests you, I therefore suggest a reading of the earlier article in its entirety.
...

You may be grievously harmed and even permanently damaged by the actions of those who hold unanswerable power -- but you may only speak about this evil and its effects within the very narrow limits set by those who would destroy you. If you are killed, the identical prohibitions apply to those who still manage to survive and who would protest the unforgivable crime committed against you. In this manner, the complacency and comfort of those who possess immense power and wealth are underwritten by the silence forced upon their victims. The victims may speak and even protest, but only within severely circumscribed limits, and only so long as their rulers are not made to feel too uncomfortable, or too guilty. Anything which approaches too close to the truth is strictly forbidden.

This is the system of government carefully erected and fortified in the United States over the last century. In the last several decades, it has been made impregnable and unassailable. If you tell the full truth or even approach it, you are consigned to the void beyond the most distant borders of permissible debate.

I consider this only a start at the task of understanding this pattern and its operations; time and health permitting, I will address these complicated matters in more detail in the future. But I now want you to consider another aspect of this collaboration in their own destruction forced upon the victims.

The pattern is the same: the victims are forced to participate in their own destruction. If you participate in our authoritarian-corporatist-militarist system in any significant way, there is no way of escaping this dilemma. I repeat the point for emphasis: this is the way the system was designed. The events of the last decade in particular and the events of today -- the acceptance of torture as a "normal" method of state- and warcraft, endless criminal wars of aggression, genocide, the funneling of vast amounts of wealth from defenseless "ordinary" citizens to the already engorged ruling class, the destruction of the Gulf and a huge additional number of lives -- are not aberrations, the result of the system having gone awry. This is what the system is designed to do. Most people recoil from evil of this magnitude; they refuse to identify and accept the system for what it is. They still seek to "reform" or "save" it. In other words: they themselves seek rationalizations and justification for their continuing collaboration. The ruling class is many things: avaricious, consumed by lust for power and control, heedless and uncaring of the immense destruction they cause, provided the destruction never touches their lives. But the ruling class is emphatically not stupid. To state what would be painfully obvious, if only so many people were not so wedded to denial: they constitute the ruling class, and you do not. And they counted on your reluctance or outright refusal to identify their evil. They knew they could depend on your continued collaboration in your own drawn-out torture and death.
...

I'm forced to admit that, if one were to consider this system from the perspective of its greatest beneficiaries, it is a goddamned beautiful thing. It is elegant. The government takes gobs of money from taxpayers, it shovels huge amounts of that money to already enormously powerful companies, those companies then provide services essential to the government's unending campaigns of widespread destruction and death -- and in the necessary course of providing those services, the companies themselves commit numerous "egregious" and "willful" violations of health and safety requirements (all documented by Turse), and the companies thus inflict enormous suffering on some of the same taxpayers.

Then, in a display of our rulers' magnificently bountiful kindness and thoughtfulness, some of those injuries -- just some of them, for how can many of the victims ever be made close to whole again in any meaningful way? -- will be compensated, using a small portion of the huge wealth made possible by the taxpayers in the first instance.

As I say: elegant.

And this is merely one example, if an especially heinous one, from one industry. How many times in how many industries is this identical pattern repeated every single bloody and blood-filled day? Countless times, in countless industries.

This is what the system is designed to do. It does it with astonishing efficiency. Short of civil disobedience on a huge, unrelenting scale, that is, short of widespread, unceasing non-cooperation, the system will continue for the foreseeable future, probably in roughly its current form for the rest of your life. There is no sign that non-cooperation on the required scale will occur or is even being contemplated, except by a few outliers like me. And, possibly, like a few of you.

So what are you going to do? Scream at the injustice? Yell about the monstrous evil being committed every hour of every day? Write another blog post? I do not exempt myself from the all-encompassing irony which now consumes us, amidst the rising torrent of blood.

But: Withdraw your support, if you choose to. Disobey. Break the goddamned rules. Do not cooperate. If a sufficient number of people chose that course, change might begin.

Consider it. I suppose not all that much is at stake -- only your soul, and your happiness.

Must Read From Escape From America Magazine!

I can't believe I didn't know about Escape From America Magazine before last night! I've been trying to escape from America for about a year so I wish I had come across this online magazine sooner. Thank you once again to the Angry Future Expat and MedicineSux for alerting us to this magazine and the article called America-The Grim Truth!

The Angry Future Expat has already pasted the best excerpts from the article in his latest post, so go read that along with the article in its entirety on the Escape From America website. I just can't resist including a few more excerpts for you to read here. There are ways to escape from a life of massive student debt, slave labor and wages, unemployment, and expensive health insurance without the health care. Sallie Mae & Friends would rather have you indebted to them for life by staying right where you are now, but you do have options. You still have a chance at a comfortable, healthy, happy, and debt free life!

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

Consider this, you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once, your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

...

If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices. You can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.

You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.

In closing, I want to remind you of something – unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?

Read the entire article now!

Census Worker Horror Stories and the May Jobs Report

The May jobs report is being touted as good news by the government just like the "good news" that was reported in the April and March jobs report. Haven't found a job yet? Well, it's probably because 411,000 of the 431,000 jobs created in May were temporary Census jobs with little improvement in private-sector employment. So without the crappy Census jobs, only 20,000 jobs were created last month for the millions of unemployed and underemployed looking for a job. The decrease in the unemployment rate was because of a decline in the participation rate. This is not good.

And if you've found a Census job, there is still a chance that you will find yourself without a job within several weeks of being hired to inflate the job numbers. Yes, I know it is FOX News, but listen to one whistleblower claim the Census Bureau is using temporary layoffs to pump up employment numbers. “What they do is hire you, they train you like a few weeks — 35, 40 hours of training and give you six hours of productive work and lay you off.”



The New York Post also published other census worker horror stories that backed up Maria's claims:

* I was hired four times by the Census Bureau: spring 2009 for address canvassing; fall 2009 for general quarters verification; late winter 2010 as a quality assurance clerk; and, spring 2010 [as an] enumerator non-response follow-up. I've just been laid off. In each case I spent more time training and going to meetings than actually working. Please don't use my name, I still may be called back.

* I was hired four times, counting last year and this. There's lots of waste and poor management. I've wondered about the handheld computer (used by door-to-door workers.) I've no idea how many of these were purchased. They were only used last year in one effort and my understanding is there were a lot of problems.

* I'm in south Orange County in Southern California and I'm going door-to-door to people the Census says have not turned in their form. At least 60 percent of the people I speak to swear they've turned it in. We are supposed to visit a residence three times. (If we can't contact anyone) we are supposed to try up to three proxies (neighbors or other people) to get information on a particular resident. So basically your neighbor can report how many people live in your home.

* Everything you reported is absolutely true. I was fired three times and rehired. I earned more going to training classes than (working). Several classmates didn't get any work after completing training.

* I was hired by the Census on March 16 and my last day was April 19 at the bilingual question answering center in Rome, Ga. We had two days of training, of which one was just to get hired officially as a federal employee. I had a total of two people come by my location and ask a question -- costing taxpayers $250 per question.

* I am a Census worker. I, too, can confirm that they are checking and checking. I checked homes that have already been checked by the "enumerators." The next phase is to go and re-check the checks that we already did twice..

* It's not much better in Florida. Our first day of training was a total joke. The supposed crew leader knew nothing. She didn't even open the manual to prep herself. We spent four hours signing six pieces of paper, one of which we signed on the day of the initial test ing. The nightmare didn't end when we got to the field. No work was available so we would sit in a meeting waiting for work for hours, which went on our timesheet.

* I have personally experienced the very same thing (in Missouri)) and have said from the beginning that this is strictly political and for jobs numbers. It is a waste of our tax monies. Our area appears to be very disorganized. However, I believe that it is intentional. Just another way to increase outlays and jobs.

I'm not wasting another year of my life waiting for the employment situation to improve. My pessimism about the future seems to have rubbed off several of my friends who are unemployed or hate their slave wage jobs and they are looking into the few good opportunities abroad that are left. If you're thinking about it, do it fast before more unemployed graduates with student debt jump on the bandwagon and those jobs become nonexistent as well.

Angry Future Expat Explains Why You Should Run Away From Your Debt

Trolls who stop by our blog often blame students for taking out loans to get an education rather than the institutions and banks that allow 17-year-olds to take out hundreds of thousands in private loans without their parents' consent. I have already stated my opinion on this. Education should be low cost or free for academically gifted students. Citibank, Sallie Mae, Access Group, and the higher education scam are doing whatever they can to prevent this from ever happening. They use propaganda, cry foul, and play the blame game every time another tragic story surfaces to keep us from being united against fighting these companies. One of our readers said it perfectly:

Housing bubble crashes? Blame the poor folks who got scammed by the banks and are losing their homes.

Youth unemployment? Blame them for not having gone to college.

College grad underemployment and student indebtedness crisis? Blame them for
a) pursuing a major that you don't like,
b) going to a more expensive or higher-ranked school than the one you attended,
c) having the gall to believe they can achieve a higher material situation than their parents just by working hard and doing everything right (why do they feel so 'entitled' to be compensated for their efforts?).

Every time the mainstream media airs these very real problems, people jump to play the blame game.

For those of you who can no longer afford your loan payments or refuse to spend your entire life giving half of your salary to pay off your education expenses, The Angry Future Expat lays out a clear and compelling case against paying back your debt.

The simple fact is that, with the exception of a couple people who had their notes cancelled by the courts due to fraud, bad faith, a lack of standing, or other misconduct, no mortgage holder anywhere in the United States have ever received a government bailout. Period.

Rather, bailouts are all about protecting creditors, or the bondholders of creditors, by protecting their payment stream. For example, Fannie and Freddie’s exist to buy up so-called “conforming” mortgages, and then they securitize them and sell them to large institutional investors, such as pension funds, university endowments, etc. These investors are not, however, true investors because they are not adopting the risk of default. If a large group of mortgages in the securitization pool default, i.e. the people stop making the payment, the investors still get paid.

Now, the mortgage holder (homedebtor, “homeowner,” whatever you want to call them) still loses the house. Same with student loans, the securitized student loan is guaranteed by the government, so when the grad school grad can’t make the payments, it doesn’t matter to the “investor.” But the graduate still goes into default, has their wages garnished, gets hit with tens of thousands in fees and collection costs, and has to leave the county to have any chance of a normal life.

The bailouts are a one-way ratchet in favor of the creditors. They do not help the debtor at all – in fact because everything is guaranteed, it creates a perverse incentive for banks and finance companies to push ever-increasing levels of leverage (aka debt) onto those too stupid, too young, too desperate, or too optimistic to really understand what their getting themselves into.

Read the entire post here.

I Need A Freakin' Job

This is amusing.

"I need a freakin' job." That's the message President Obama saw as he arrived in Buffalo, N.Y., this afternoon for an event talking up the administration's success in creating new jobs. He also pitched Congress on approving a $30 billion credit for small-business growth.

Yet critics say Obama has been focusing his recovery efforts too narrowly and hasn't done enough to help people find work. After all, the latest job figures show 9.9 percent of the country still out of work. That inspired a group of unemployed Buffalo residents — who also have a website called INAFJ.org — to appeal to the president in the form of a billboard along the route his motorcade took into town.

Unfortunately for those who need a freakin' job immediately, neither of the major political parties think job creation is the number one issue for midterm elections. Why do we vote for these people again?

Yet jobs aren't a huge priority for either party heading into the midterm campaigns, as Politics Daily's Jill Lawrence notes. That might be because other issues have taken precedence. A new Gallup poll finds that for the first time in two months, the issue of "jobs" has fallen to No. 2 on the list of issues Americans are most concerned about. The new No. 1 issue: The economy in general. White House officials defend their efforts on jobs, saying the president has been focused as much on creating new jobs as on "saving" current positions.

Meanwhile, in the real world outside of lalaland DC where everyone gets paid by the health insurance industry and Sallie Mae, millions of people are suffering and the higher education scam continues. The New York Times interviewed a woman who took out a $17,000 student loan for an eight-month course to become a medical assistant after losing her adminsitrative assistant job two years ago. The program sounds like another for-profit college scam to me.

Ms. Norton, for her part, may be reluctant to acknowledge that many of her traditional administrative assistant skills are obsolete, but she has tried to retrain — or as she puts it, adapt her existing skills — to a new career in the expanding health care industry.

Even that has proved difficult.

She attended an eight-month course last year, on a $17,000 student loan, to obtain certification as a medical assistant. She was trained to do front-office work, like billing, as well as back-office work, like giving injections and drawing blood.


The school that trained her, though, neglected to inform her that local employers require at least a year’s worth of experience — generally done through volunteering at a clinic — before hiring someone for a paid job in the field.

She says she cannot afford to spend a year volunteering, especially with her student loan coming due soon. She has one prospect for part-time administrative work in Los Angeles — where she once had her own administrative support and secretarial services business, SilverKeys — but she does not have the money to relocate.

“If I had $3,000 in my pocket right now, I would pack up my S.U.V., grab my dog and go straight back,” she says. “That’s my only answer.”

With so few local job prospects and most of her possessions of value already liquidated she has considered selling her blood to help pay for the move. But she says she cannot find a market for that, either; blood collection agencies, she said, told her they do not buy her blood type.

“Sometimes I think I’d be better off in jail,” she says, only half joking. “I’d have three meals a day and structure in my life. I’d be able to go to school. I’d have more opportunities if I were an inmate than I do here trying to be a contributing member of society.”

My suggestion to flee the country might sound drastic to some of you, but when educated professionals who have done everything right are selling their blood to pay the bills or would rather commit suicide or be thrown in jail, that is when you have to consider other options. Oh, and as I mentioned last week, this won't be ending any time soon.

Millions of workers who have already been unemployed for months, if not years, will most likely remain that way even as the overall job market continues to improve, economists say. The occupations they worked in, and the skills they currently possess, are never coming back in style. And the demand for new types of skills moves a lot more quickly than workers — especially older and less mobile workers — are able to retrain and gain those skills.


There is no easy policy solution for helping the people left behind. The usual unemployment measures — like jobless benefits and food stamps — can serve as temporary palliatives, but they cannot make workers’ skills relevant again.


Ms. Norton has sent out hundreds of résumés without luck. Twice, the openings she interviewed for were eliminated by employers who decided, upon further reflection, that redistributing administrative tasks among existing employees made more sense than replacing the outgoing secretary.


One employer decided this shortly after Ms. Norton had already started showing up for work.

We're Still Screwed But It Was a "Good" News Day

Can we trade in Brian Williams for this guy?

I've been busy with work, plans to leave the country, and Mother's Day shopping so the little news I read from yesterday and today was enough for me to step away from the computer for a while before my head explodes. Don't you feel like you're living in an alternate universe more and more these days when you read or watch the mainstream media all optimistic about what is clearly horrible, horrible employment numbers?

This is why I supplement some of it with bloggers who don't live amongst the elite and have no incentive to lie and tell me that things are getting better when in reality the lives of nearly everyone I know has only gotten worse since 2008. But don't worry you grumpy, permanently unemployed masses. We had good news yesterday. Thanks to census jobs and crappy $8.75 an hour employment for the lowly college and law grads, 290,000 jobs were added in April and the unemployment rate is only 9.9 percent and will likely grow higher. Hooray!

The number of people out of work six months or longer reached 6.7 million in April, a new high. These people made up 45.9 percent of all unemployed, also a record high.

On the legal job front, the Jobless Juris Doctor reports that 2,200 legal jobs were lost in the last two months alone. Be sure to check out JJD's latest post on an Atlanta lawyer who used to make $250k a year now living on welfare and food stamps. The 0L lemmings who still think they can beat the odds are completely delusional.

And Subprime JD once again hits the nail on the head with his analysis that the new employment numbers are "bulllllshhittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt":

Non farm payroll data for the month of April states that the country gained 290,000 jobs. 66,000 census workers and over 180,000 were gains from the birth/death model.

From the BLS report:
"The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised from -14,000
to +39,000, and the change for March was revised from 162,000 to 230,000."

Also, U3 measure of unemployment rose to 9.9% while the U6 measure, which is a broader measure of unemployment rose to 17.1%.

Basically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is uses data that is just as cooked as the employment data that law schools use. Lies lies lies. Congratulations, the USA is following in the footsteps of Mao, Stalin, and other command economy nutjobs. Lets all just lie to oursleves so we can feel better about the present situation.

In reality I wouldnt be surprised if the economy added some jobs from the month prior but with so many high school and college grads entering the job force at the end of the month there just arent any places for these to enter. In addition, considering the trillions of dollars the fed and treasury have pumped into the economy, surely some stabilization would have occurred. However, within 6 months this "liquidity" will begin to dry up.

We are living in scam world people, whether it be government jobs data, inflation data, crime data, law school or MBA program data, its all a bunch of bulllllshhittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Our friend Ian Welsh (thanks for adding BIDER to your blogroll!) had this to say about the grim news both here and around the world. I prefer my journalists pessimistic as long as they are giving it to me straight:

There was an opportunity to break the power of these folks—to wipe them out, but it required calling their bluff, not caving to them. That opportunity has now passed. While the world economy remains very fragile and could go into a tailspin any time if anything goes wrong, best guess is we have another really lousy recovery and economic cycle to look forward to, if austerity measures don’t crash it out entirely. Over 80% of any gains will go to corporate profits, virtually nothing to ordinary citizens, and we’ll have another lost decade in which for virtually everyone the economy sucks.

And to end on an even more pessimistic note, I'll leave you with a quote from Felix Salmon at Reuters. H/T Correntewire.

Remember though that 6.7 million people have now been unemployed for more than six months — 46% of the total unemployment figure. We’ll literally never find jobs for all of them: many will never be employed again. Which is the real underlying tragedy of this recession, and of the jobless recovery.

Clearly all the hoopla over the April employment data was just more kabuki from the media to make really, really bad news sound kinda hopeful and optimistic. In short, those of us who are unemployed or underemployed are still screwed and will be for a long time. And with that I'll go back to selling books and music on Amazon (I'm not the only one!).

Fleeing the Country, Part II

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post because some of you wanted more info on resources that can assist in your search for job opportunities abroad. Yes, it is becoming more difficult to move to a foreign country, but the internet has made it easier for us to find those opportunities.

Some of the programs I've listed have become increasingly competitive when a few years ago it would've been a piece of cake to get in. I've done a lot of research on several of these programs and applications have doubled in the last year alone. Guess we're not the only ones planning to leave the country. That doesn't mean you shouldn't apply.

Most of the opportunities are to teach English. This is probably one of the easiest ways to get a work visa. As I've said, use the opportunity as a stepping stone to get yourself started in the country you want to live. Many of these programs allow you to renew your contract for a second, third, or fourth year. That gives you time to learn the language, network, meet people (to marry?), and interview for jobs in that country and in nearby countries. I don't know how you'd be able to use your law degree unless it was with an organization like CUSO-VSO which can match JDs and MBAs with NGOs in foreign countries. These jobs won't make you rich, but many offer health care and free housing. You may qualify for Income Based Repayment and loan forgiveness too.

Asia probably offers the most teaching opportunities for Americans. They are also some of the most lucrative after the Middle East. Apparently, Disney (yes, as in Mickey Mouse) has an English language institute in China. The best place to start your search is Dave's ESL Cafe. Tons of reputable recruiting companies post jobs there. The Daily Kimchi is a good blog to read if you are interested in teaching in South Korea. Footprints Recruiting places people in Chile, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

South Korea wages are from 1.8 million won to 2.5 million won/month (approximately $1600 to $2200), Japan - 230,000 to 250,000 JPY monthly (approx. $2400 to $2600), China - ranges from 3200 to 10000 RMB monthly (approx $468 to $1500). Take into consideration Japan has a high cost of living. Most teaching jobs in Asia include housing, health care, and reimbursed airfare. You only need a Bachelor's degree from an American university. You could get paid more if you have teaching experience, a Master's degree, or a TEFL certificate. Sorry, the JD won't get you an income bump.

In Europe, there is the Teaching Assistant Program in France and the North American Language & Culture Assistants in Spain. These programs pay less than teaching opportunities in Asia and you are responsible for airfare and finding your own housing. The French program pays around $1,013/month and the Spanish program pays around $985/month. You are qualified for health insurance. The 2010-2011 program is closed but you can read more at the French and Spanish Embassy website. Also check out the Guide for English Language Assistants in France.

The Work and Holiday visa in Australia is for people 18 to 30 years of age to work and travel for up to 12 months in Australia.
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday
http://www.visabureau.com/australia/working-holiday-visa.aspx

New Zealand Working Holiday Visa
http://www.visabureau.com/newzealand/working-holiday-visa.aspx

Several other countries offer Working Holiday Visas - not sure how many of these are available to U.S. citizens:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_holiday_visa

If you know of any other programs or jobs for Americans overseas, please add to the list in the comments.

Should You Flee the Country?

Anyone who has read this blog since I started writing here knows that I am an advocate of leaving the country, either to start a new debt-free life or just to find a decent paying job that will sustain you for a few years. This is what I wrote in February:

My suggestion is if you don't want to spend the next 10-20 years unemployed or temping, learn a foreign language and a skill that is transferable anywhere in the world, then consider leaving the country if you can. If you refuse or can't because of family or financial reasons, be prepared to suffer for the foreseeable future.

My opinion hasn't changed. I don't care what the nightly news says about signs of improvement. If you are unemployed or underemployed and reading this from your parents' basement, things haven't improved. Suprime JD wrote a post yesterday which listed good reasons for some recent grads to consider moving away for good. I recommend reading the entire post at his blog.

We have been caught in a trap. The injustice against us is severe. We owe all this fucking money with no reasonable means of paying it back anytime soon and having a decent standard of living. Student loan repayments coupled with rising energy prices, rising healthcare costs, low wages and high rents spells hardship for many JD's. The stronger the injustice, the stronger the response. Leaving the country is a reasonable solution for many. Just as other immigrants fled their native countries due to economic discrimination (because in the end all discrimination is in essence economic) so must we. This is one option that exists. If the system is so stacked against us, with banks, government, public sentiment not willing to help us, then we must help ourselves. Who is willing to make a move in order to better his life? Is moving to Germany, Brazil, Singapore, Italy, South Africa, Australia, wherever, worth it in the end? You start a fresh new life, meet new people, and have 0 debt at the expense of leaving loves ones behind. Many others have done the same thing. My parents left world war 2 wrecked greece behind for a better life here. They said goodbye to relatives, friends, and loved ones in order to have economic freedom. For many JD debt slaves in america, fleeing the debt burden is a most viable option. With interest, many will pay back $312,000 on a $150,000 student loan over a period of 25 years. Imagine being able to consume $312,000 over a 25 year period as opposed to paying back debt which did not further your life, but only burdened it. Many american JD's think it to be absurd that they should have to leave their country for a better lifestyle. Heres the reality: it is NOT absurd to leave, but it is absurd to STAY. This is what the lenders want, for us to stay and pay back the loan, with interest.

Millions of others have emigrated for a better lifestyle. The fact that JD's are leaving and other graduate school debt slaves are emigrating from America shows that the USA standard of living has fallen over the course of the past 2 decades. Millions around the world have also gotten professional degrees only to drive cabs and busses, but at least they are debt free as most schools are publicly financed. We JD's here are in a world of trouble and pain. But this can go away rather quickly. Get some type of employment, save your money, work under the table if you have to. Pick a country, get the visa, and split. Learn the language just as so many immigrants here learned our language.

The perception that we american lawyers are so special needs to change. According to the system we are NOT special, but just pawns to be exploited. We studied and gave up working for 3 years in order to pursue a law license to better our lives. We incurred +150k in debt to achieve this goal. For many it has been a fruitless endeavor. We must MAKE OURSELVES SPECIAL. Fleeing the nation is not for everyone. Some will be able to find nonlegal employment that will pay them well. Others have wealthy parents that will support them. But there are thousands of others that will not find alternative employment, do not have wealthy parents, and are working for $15 per hour while owing 150k in debt. Its time to make a move.

While I wholeheartedly agree with Subprime JD's thoughts on leaving the country, my opinion differs slightly that the education scam, whether you're talking about the college scam or the law school scam, is in the same category as the subprime mortgage crisis:

The fact of the matter is that the unemployed JD is a tiny, miniscule percentage of the population. There are over 10 million homeowners in default, whereas less than 200,000 JDs are getting crushed in debt, more or less. Our plight will most likely not be recognized by the majority of people. In addition, lawyers are universally hated by the general public. Ive posted about new lawyer woes on other financial blogs and people cheer our suffering. We will not get much support from the general public, nor from the gov, nor from the ABA. We are on our own.

The higher education scam will have much deeper consequences for our nation than the downfall of Lehman Brothers or the housing crisis. The issues the law scam blogs write about apply to a much larger population outside of the legal community. The higher education scam is a generational crisis affecting millions of people between the ages of 18 and 30, as well as their children and their aging parents. This is why Angel and I cover the college scams because more people need to realize that rising tuition costs and non-dischargeable student loans isn't just a problem affecting JDs. It will have serious affects on our nation's long-term economic stability and ability to remain competitive on the world stage.

A third of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are unemployed in this country. Young, able-minded adults who should be having families, working, saving up to buy a home or for their children's education are now moving back in with mom and dad to survive. I see daily advertisements for college educated graduates to work for $8.75 per hour as office assistants. No benefits. Who can survive on $8.75 per hour let alone pay off your student loans? You'd be better off on welfare and Medicaid. Guess where these employed college graduates are living? Yep, back home with mom and dad too. This problem is not going away and it will likely get worse. Subprime is right in that we are alone in this, not because our problems our minuscule, but because the law school scam blogs aren't enough to fight the student loan industry and their friends in Washington.

Secretarial jobs were once relegated to high school graduates. An older lady who worked as a secretary at my high school never attended college and she has health insurance, a nice 401k plan, and makes nearly as much as the attorneys doing document review in NYC. Oh, and she's debt free and owns her home. Internships used to be a thing kids did during the summertime or the summer before starting college. Now, college students and graduates are paying thousands for a chance at an unpaid internship. The high school educated secretary with a 401k is our past. The $8.75 per hour college educated personal assistant living in her parents' garage with $100k non-dischargeable student loan debt is our future.

You do have a choice and that is to leave the country. I am not saying this as someone desperate to leave the country because of my exorbitant student loan debt. I mentioned in a previous post that even with my interest accumulating over the last year, my private loan debt is manageable and can be paid off in less than five years. The question you have to ask yourself regardless of your debt is how do you want to live your life. Do you want to spend the best years of your life semi-homeless and leeching off of your parents' dwindling retirement plan with Aunt Sallie ringing your phone every hour? Other countries, Asian countries in particular, are experiencing rapid growth. Some of these countries will be more likely to appreciate your advanced degrees than employers in the United States who take us for granted. There are programs, as I noted in a post several days ago, that provide housing, health care, and salaries that range from a small stipend to more than enough to put into savings and pay off those loans. Some of these programs will also qualify you for Income Based Repayment for your federal loans and even loan forgiveness if you work for a non-profit abroad. Living abroad is not for everyone, but if you are single and childless it is something to consider. Isn't working with health care and a small savings with the incentive to travel better than being depressed, unemployed, and tied down to student loan debt for the rest of your life?