I've started this blog as an open forum to discuss current topics in the news in a "Point - Counter Point" manner. By using this method of debate, I seek to encourage all to lend their voices and opinions by weighing in on the current days topics up for discussion. Welcome to POINT - COUNTER POINT.
Double-dip recession (10 percent likelihood). The commercial real estate market craters, carrying with it hundreds of regional banks and exposing how much junk is still on the books of major Wall Street banks. This triggers a long-awaited "correction" in the Dow and pushes the nation into another recession. Job losses rise. By November, the unemployment rate is back over 10 percent.
Stalled recovery (20 percent). Fearing inflation and overly confident of the strength of the recovery, the Fed stops buying up debt instruments and starts raising rates. These acts choke off the recovery. Unemployment remains at 10 percent.
Jobless recovery (40 percent). The stimulus remains in full force, the Fed keeps interest rates low, firms replace inventories and expand production. But with the average workweek hovering around 33 hours, employers don't add new jobs; they just have current workers put in more hours. Result: No drop in unemployment.
Solid recovery (20 percent). Demand surges, employers decide to expand capacity. But they don't add American jobs. Now that foreign workers have access to much of the same equipment and can be linked up to the U.S. so cheaply through the Internet, employers outsource abroad. Result: No drop in unemployment.
Strong recovery (10 percent). The recovery is strong enough for employers to start hiring American workers. Many jobless Americans who have been too discouraged to look for work to begin looking again. But because the BLS household survey (on which the official level of unemployment is based) depends on how many Americans are looking for work, the paradoxical result is for unemployment to remain in double digits.
In other words, I think the chances of unemployment being 10 percent next November are overwhelmingly high. But although voters are acutely sensitive to the rate of unemployment, they're also influenced by the direction employment is heading. If it looks like jobs are coming back, they may forgive a high absolute level of unemployment -- even one as high as 10 percent. But if it looks like jobs aren't coming back, that we may be stuck with a high level of joblessness for years, voters will take out even more of their anxieties on Democrats next November.
The irony, of course, is that Republicans want to cut spending and reduce the deficit. If they had their way, we'd have double-digit unemployment as far as the eye can see.
It has been a season of loss for daytime broadcast TV.
Not only has the viewing audience continued its gradual decline, but daytime’s biggest star, Oprah Winfrey, will be ending her show in 2011, and another talk host,Tyra Banks, announced last week that she would be leaving after one more season.
The soap opera world is taking a hit, too, as one of the most enduring soaps, As the World Turns, will stop telling stories after 54 years in September, joining the canceledGuiding Light.
“Viewership in daytime is down, and it’s also unfortunately happening at a time of economic downturn. So the combination of the two makes it pretty difficult in the daytime arena,” says Bill Carroll, vice president of Katz Television Group. USA Today
Casey Johnson (above, left), who was said to be engaged to reality star Tila Tequila, was found dead at the age of 30 on Monday morning in Los Angeles, TMZ is reporting. A spokesman for her father, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, confirmed the family was in mourning in a statement. Information on when or how Johnson died has not been released.
A law enforcement source has told TMZ that Johnson may have died days ago.
Tequila all but confirmed the news earlier in the evening with a post on Twitter, saying "R.I.P. my Angel ... we will Marry when I see U in Heaven." Johnson became a familiar name thanks to her relationship with Tequila.
At first, Tequila responded to the swirling news reports of Johnson's death by saying "I just got news that my fiance is not dead but currently in a coma!!!"
Johnson had reportedly battled with substance abuse for years.
In November, Johnson was arrested for grand theft after she allegedly stole a handful of items -- including lingerie, jewelry and electronics -- from a former girlfriend. She was also in a protracted battle with her mother, Sale Johnson, for custody of an adopted daughter.
PopEater's Rob Shuter, who knew Johnson, says he last saw her eight months ago, and that "she was a lost little girl who just wanted to be loved. Unlike Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, who have found happiness, Casey always seemed a troubled soul."
Shuter says that Johnson "had a difficult relationship with her family's huge wealth -- loving the life it gave her but making everything she did feel worthless. She had the 'why bother' attitude. Nothing she ever did could live up to what her family had done. She once described her family money as the 'golden handcuffs,' which made me really sad. She was the ultimate little lost rich girl."
Hopefully Kathy Griffin's New Year's resolution was to be on CNN less, because the foul-mouthed comedienne has lost her visitor's pass after dropping the f-bomb on this year's show. Sorry Kathy, but we don't think Fox News will be knocking down your door now that you're available!
Following her very controversial F-bomb-dropping New Year's Eve hosting gig, CNN executives have decided Kathy Griffin will NOT be getting a 2011 invite. "She was a total embarrassment to the network that calls themselves 'The Most Trusted Name in News.' Even Anderson (Cooper, her co-host) thinks it's time to say goodbye to Kathy," a CNN insider tells me.
Not only did the potty-mouthed redhead drop the F bomb on live TV, she also made not-so-funny jokes about needing a "bump" of cocaine and asked Cooper if he pleasured himself while looking in the mirror. As sexy as the Silver Fox is ... that's just too much, Kathy.
Even worse than the comedienne's desperate need to shock was the fact that the show was a ratings bomb, as it fell far behind the family-friendly 'Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve' on ABC.
Still, CNN publicist Shimrit Sheetrit tells me: "No decisions have been made yet regarding next year's show."
CNN, I find it hard to believe that you have not yet made a decision regarding someone who drops the F bombs live on your network!!!
Either way, it's nice to see Dick Clark on top like the classy fella he is.
Earlier this year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that 1.5 million people would be made homeless over the next two years as a result of the recession. In this series of profiles, DailyFinance speaks with some of the people who have fallen victim to layoffs, foreclosure, unforgiving creditors and plain old bad financial luck. Here are their stories.
Jennifer Paul and her nine-year-old daughter Alyssa are trying
to make the most of things this holiday season. Since October, the two have been living in the Anna Sample House, the biggest shelter for families in Camden, N.J. -- one of America's most downtrodden cities.
Paul, a proud 33-year-old woman who sports tattoos of a butterfly and her daughter's initials on her hands, has managed to scrape together enough money to buy her daughter a few small presents. The shelter has a nice artificial Christmas tree and Paul figures there will be some sort of celebration, but she's not sure what it will entail. Creating a festive mood in any homeless shelter is difficult, particularly when many of the residents don't feel like celebrating.
A Painful Journey to Camden
The mother and daughter's road to homelessness has been fraught with heartache and bad luck. About two years ago, Paul's husband Christopher died suddenly. At the time, Paul was still mourning the loss of her mother who had died less than a year earlier. Her father died years ago.
In hopes of starting anew and escaping some of the painful memories in New Jersey, Paul and her daughter moved to Fort Myers, Fla. where she secured a job doing data entry work. Just a few months later, however, disaster struck. Suffering under the weight of the Great Recession, her employer abruptly shut its doors.
Devastated, the mother and daughter slinked back up Interstate-95 to New Jersey. "Home" for them was crashing on the couches and in the spare rooms of friends and relatives. In March, things were looking a little brighter. Paul landed a job working for food service provider, Aramark, at Camden's Adventure Aquarium, one of the Philadelphia area's major tourist attractions. With the money she earned, she and her daughter moved into a seedy motel. But the two soon had to pack their bags after the state Division of Youth and Family Services deemed the place unsuitable for Alyssa. By October, they had moved into the Anna Sample House.
As if things weren't bad enough, Paul recently lost her job at the aquarium. Aramark told her that the stresses of being homeless were hurting her job performance. The Philadelphia-based company promised to rehire her once her life had become less chaotic. Paul isn't bitter. She even says she understands the company's position. An Aramark spokesman said the company won't comment about specific employees.
Getting by on Food Stamps and Unemployment Checks
These days, Paul doesn't get much sleep at night. She collects unemployment and has managed to save about $200 of the $825 she needs to put down a deposit for an apartment. The shelter provides them with most of their food. Anything beyond that, though, Paul buys using Food Stamps. She says she used to be embarrassed about using Food Stamps but "not any more. I got over that."
Paul is irked by the constant solicitations she gets for drugs in her neighborhood. She doesn't do drugs, but quips that it would probably benefit her financially if she did. Non-drug addict homeless people get less state aid " because you are not completely down and out," she says.
Not surprisingly, Paul hasn't been able to afford to pay her cell phone bill and her service was disconnected, making it that much harder for her to find a new job. Undaunted, she presses on.
Alyssa, one of thousands of children that now call a shelter home, is the one ray of light in Paul's life. She knows this life is hard on her daughter. In her nine years, Alyssa has attended five different schools. Nevertheless, the third-grader has maintained her spunk. She likes to draw on loose leaf paper that she carries around in a red binder and dreams of becoming a police offer so she can "save the world."
Right now, the only person Paul is concerned about saving is her daughter. "No one is going to do anything about our situation," she says. It's up to her to turn things around. To help the homeless in the Camden/Philadelphia area, you can make a donation to the Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, a nonprofit human services organization. Donation information is available at www.voadv.org.Or, for more information call 856-963-0430.
Earlier this year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that 1.5 million people would be made homeless over the next two years as a result of the recession. In this series of profiles, DailyFinance speaks with some of the people who have fallen victim to layoffs, foreclosure, unforgiving creditors and plain old bad financial luck. Here are their stories.
One day four months ago, Shawn Martin of Orlando, Fla., showed up for work at the restaurant where he was a cook -- and learned the business would close two days later. He never got his last paycheck. And with the economic downturn, he has yet to find another job.
Cooking wasn't Martin's first career. Before he worked in restaurants, he made a good living in property management and construction. But Florida's housing market has been one of the worst hit by the real estate collapse. And fewer tourists visiting Orlando has crippled the local service industry -- including restaurants like the one where Martin worked.
$2 a Day for Food and Shelter
Without a paycheck, Martin couldn't pay the rent or make his car payments. His car was repossessed, and living with his mother didn't work out. Finally, Martin decided to seek help from the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida for himself and his three girls, ages 9, 7 and 5. The Coalition charges $2 a day for Martin's food and shelter, and after he finds work, he'll pay $20 a week for room and board until his life is stable enough for him to move out.
The Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida assists about 4,000 homeless people per year through five programs: the Center for Women and Families, Women's Residential and Counseling Center, the Men's Pavilion, the First Steps Substance Abuse Recovery Program and Transitional and Scattered Site Housing. More than 70% of its budget is raised through cash and in-kind donations from the community.
A major myth of the homeless that must be dispelled, says Brent Trotter, the Coalition's president and CEO, is that the homeless are lazy. Every day, he says, he hears at least one resident say, "I never thought it would happen to me."
Depression, Then Recovery
In his early days of living at the Coalition, Martin was very depressed. He says his wife left the shelterafter their first night there,and he has no idea where she is. (He says his wife left out of refusal to comply with the Coalition's policy against drinking alcohol.)
But knowing he and his girls have shelter and food is helping him concentrate on rebuilding his life, he says. Each morning, Martin walks his girls to the school-bus stop, then attends classes with Goodwill Industries, a Coalition partner, to learn how to build a resume and improve his interview and job-search skills. Martin is also getting one-on-one counseling for developing a budget, so he can pay bills and build a savings account.
The girls attend an after-school program every day at Boys and Girls Clubs of America (another Coalition partner), where they get help with their homework and attend activities until 6 p.m. -- precious hours when Martin doesn't worry about their safety.
"A Series of Unfortunate Events"
Martin has finished the Goodwill course and is starting to look for work. Goodwill will help him find a job as well. Martin says he'll take anything just to make some money and build a savings account, buy a car and move out of the family room at the Coalition into an apartment. (After he moves his family to the Scattered Housing Program, his girls will still be able to use the Boys and Girls Club's after-school facilities.) The Coalition works with partners to find apartments with low rents as part of its Scattered Housing Program -- but before a family can move out, it must have a budget and sufficient savings.
Orange County Public Schools' LifeStrides program, another Coalition partner, offers free education to the homeless in about 200 careers and provides testing to determine what level of education each applicant needs. Martin plans, after he finds work, to go back to school to train as a nurse, but he will probably start with training to be a nurse's assistant or licensed practical nurse.
Martin's tuition will be fully paid through his first two years at a local community college. He will then seek other federal grant money to finish his degree.
The Coalition residents, Martin says, are "good people who just had a series of unfortunate events." Martin says his father wasn't in his life when he grew up, which made him determined that "when I grew up and had kids, I'm going to be there for them," he says. "It's no longer about me anymore. It's about my girls."
To find out how you can help the Coalition help central Florida's least fortunate, please visit its website .
Earlier this year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that 1.5 million people would be made homeless over the next two years as a result of the recession. In this series of profiles, DailyFinance speaks with some of the people who have fallen victim to layoffs, foreclosure, unforgiving creditors and plain old bad financial luck. Here are their stories:
Candido Gonzalez worked for the City of New York for almost 19 years before he was laid off in October 2007. After six months without a steady paycheck, he could no longer afford to pay his rent and found himself in a situation he had never dreamed possible: he had no savings and no place to live.
Gonzalez, a 48-year-old divorced father of two, represents the often unseen human toll of the Great Recession. He was laid off during the first wave of New York City budget cuts -- making him one of the more than 100,000 municipal workers nationwide that have lost their jobs during the recession, according to a recent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Today, Gonzalez lives and works at The Bowery Mission, one of the nation's oldest rescue missions, which houses 82 men and serves 1,000 meals per day to the homeless. Bright, articulate and hard-working, Gonzalez was given a job at the front desk (hence the bluetooth headset glued to his head during his shift). Since arriving at the Mission in September, he has been cheerfully greeting the homeless men who come there each day. Yet, despite his positive disposition, Gonzalez has had little to smile about over the past couple of years.
"It's been a hurdle both emotionally and psychologically," Gonzalez says. "My family, my pastor, my children – all of that has been a key factor in pushing me forward. And of course my faith in God has been a key factor in me making it."
A Life Turned Upside Down
In his previous life, Gonzalez served as a community coordinator at the Department of Sanitation's recycling bureau. Yet, despite 19 years of service, he was still only a "provisional" city employee, not a titled civil service worker, meaning he was among the most vulnerable when the city started cutting its budget. "When the recession and the budget cuts kicked in, it didn't matter how many years you had in the service, if you didn't have a title and were a provisional worker like myself, you were the first one to be let go," says Gonzalez.
When Gonzalez had to abandon his a studio apartment in the Bronx, he turned to his family for help. "I had no other choice but to depend on my family to back me up," he says. "I started staying with friends and family members, a week or two here, a week or two there. Thank God I have five siblings. But then it became a little bit of a burden on them – you know, they had their own issues, their own expenses, and you don't want to be an extra burden on your own family."
After about one year of relying on his family for a place to sleep, Gonzalez felt he could no longer burden them. (His two children -- ages 12 and 19 -- live in Queens with their mother.) With nowhere else to turn, Gonzalez went to his pastor, Al Camacho, at the Church of New Beginnings in the Bronx. "Pastor Camacho knew that I was going through some rough and tough times," Gonzalez said. "He said to me, 'Candido, you will not be left alone. You've got people who love you. You are not alone.'"
Finding Refuge
Camacho offered to take Gonzalez in at the Bowery Mission, where the pastor also works as Intake Coordinator.In September,Gonzalez arrived as a "visitor," meaning he's not formally a participant in the Bowery Mission's Discipleship program, but rather works there in exchange for a roof over his head.
"Being in the Bowery Mission, I've been able to see that you really don't appreciate what you have until you hit rock bottom," he says. "And being rock bottom right now at the Bowery Mission and servicing these people has been such a gratifying experience."
The Mission is a clean, orderly place that offers 82 beds and and provides job-training, tutoring, and GED study. To live there, however, means abiding by a strict set of rules. The men have to wake up by 5 a.m. and each has to work there in some capacity. No drugs, alcohol, or smoking is allowed and no violence or foul language tolerated.
In addition to providing food and shelter, there's also a 100-year old chapel where many of the Mission's regulars go for spiritual guidance. "This is a place for men to come and receive love and compassionate care," says Camacho. "It's a place where they get accepted just the way they are. And, with time, we start to work with them and feed them and give them clothes and a warm bed to sleep."
'The House is Packed'
The Bowery Mission has been helping New York's least fortunate for 130 years. Counting holiday surges, it serves about half a million meals to the homeless each year. Yet, with an estimated 50,000 people currently homeless in New York City, the Mission is only scratching the surface.
"Right now, the house is packed," says Camacho. On Thanksgiving, the Bowery Mission served more meals – about 8,000 – than in any year in recent memory, said Eden Gordon, the Mission's Coordinator for Public Relations. "The line wrapped around the block," she said. "It was crazy and sad all at the same time."
In some respects, Gonzalez is one of the lucky ones. Four months after arriving at the Bowery Mission, he is feeling positive about the future -- and his job prospects."Working here has given me insight into all the kinds of issues that people deal with on the outside, whether drugs and alcohol or mental health issues," he said. "You can see firsthand what it is that people go through out there, just trying to make it on a daily basis."
Gonzalez says he has two promising job leads -- he wants to work with the public in some capacity -- and hopes to start soon. "I see myself working in the next month."
To find out how you can help the Bowery Mission help New York City's least fortunate, please visit its web site .
Earlier this year, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimated that 1.5 million people would be made homeless over the next two years as a result of the recession. In this series of profiles, DailyFinance speaks with some of the people who have fallen victim to layoffs, foreclosure, unforgiving creditors and plain old bad financial luck. Here are their stories.
The descent into homelessness can occur with terrifying speed. For Mike, a 33-year-old aspiring Web developer, it happened after an emergency loan from a relative suddenly fell through, driving his family out of a motel and onto the streets of San Francisco in September.
His wife and two kids were lucky to get a bed at a shelter, but there was no room for Mike (he asked us not to disclose his last name). So he ended up spending four nights in Golden Gate Park, a sprawling urban greenscape that, while popular with tourists and locals alike during the day, can be dangerous after dark.
"I couldn't believe it," says the former Seattle resident. "I wasn't technically well off, but I could keep a job, and I was thinking, 'How the hell did I get here?'"
Just one year ago, everything seemed possible. Mike was living with his family in the pleasant beach-side community of Seattle and was in the middle of an exciting career change. After a decade of working as a chef, he was looking forward to finding a job as a Web developer. To make ends meet while he was finishing up a bachelor of science degree in software engineering at a state university, he was working for a company that did catering for private jets. A Sobering Reality
In February, the catering company Mike worked for dramatically cut his hours. Thanks to the Great Recession, people just weren't flying in private jets much anymore. Mike was no longer able to pay the bills and started collecting unemployment, which he viewed as a stopgap measure until he could graduate in June and get a job working for one of Seattle's technology firms.
By the time graduation came, however, Mike was confronted with a sobering reality: "I was looking for tech jobs all over the place, but no one would hire a guy fresh out of college," he says. "I was even looking for restaurant jobs, but restaurants had all cut back as no one was going out to eat."
Mike and his family decided to make a bold, if risky, move. In the beginning of September, they scraped together what little money they had left and relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, the nation's tech mecca, where Mike was certain he would find a job. For weeks, the family stayed in cheap hotel rooms booked on Priceline.com while Mike looked for work, cold-calling recruiters and sending out resumes.
The Money Dries Up
Toward the end of September, the unemployment money that was supposed to last them through the entire month ran out. Making matters worse, a relative who'd promised to give them a loan changed her mind at the last minute. Their only option was to try to get beds in one of San Francisco's shelters, already maxed-out with all of the other newly homeless looking for places to sleep.
Mike and his family ended up at Hamilton Family Center, one of the largest providers of homeless shelter and support services in San Francisco. The city has the highest per capita rate of homelessness -- nearly 1 for every 100 residents -- of any major U.S. city, and Hamilton and other nonprofit agencies like it have their work cut out for them. Even more disturbing is that homelessness is increasingly a family affair here. As many as 40% of homeless people in San Francisco are part of a homeless family.
"It's organizations like ours that are the last safety nets for this community," says Hamilton's Executive Director Beth Stokes, adding that funding cuts are leaving this net increasingly frayed. "We're all worried about what's going to happen next year."
According to Mike, Hamilton only had enough space for his wife and their children, ages 6 and 4. That's when he headed to Golden Gate Park. Help in the Nick of Time
"I found a little private bush and made sure nobody saw me," Mike says. "I chose a part that wasn't very popular since I know there are areas where the homeless like to congregate."
After four nights sleeping outside, another unemployment check came through. The money allowed Mike and his family to move back into a cheap motel in early November. A few weeks later, they finally caught a break. Thanks to money made available through the federal economic stimulus program, Hamilton was able to enroll the family in its First Avenues program, which helps families keep or find homes, depending on their situation. Since it started in 2006, First Avenues has prevented 375 families from getting evicted and helped another 500 homeless families get permanent housing.
Through the program, which will last 18 months, the family has received money for a deposit on an apartment in Oakland, Calif., as well as assistance paying the $875 rent. Mike says the neighborhood is much grittier than their old community in Seattle, but he's grateful for the roof over his family's head.
"It's a really nice unit," he says. "The kids are less stressed out."
Staying Positive
The one-year anniversary of Mike's unemployment is approaching in February. He is trying to stay positive, but sometimes it's hard to remain upbeat. He's sent out more than 75 resumes for tech and cooking jobs and has gone on a few interviews. One potential tech employer told Mike that he didn't have enough experience. A recruiter at another firm said he would like to hire him, but would wait to see if he had the money to do so in next year's budget.
If that's not overwhelming enough, Mike's family lost its eligibility for food stamps when they moved to Oakland. Mike says nobody ever told them they would have to reapply.
Mike finds what little solace he can in the kind gestures of others -- the landlord back up in Seattle who was able to reduce their payments on bills, or the folks at the First Avenues program who helped them get their apartment. "They've been really nice," he says. To find out how you can help Hamilton Family Center help San Francisco's least fortunate, please visit its website .
