Detroit v. New York

Like everyone else, I was royally pissed to hear about the Big Three Execs flying to DC on private jets to beg for money for their failing companies. I am personally vested in GM because my mother, Mama T, works for the company as a laborer. Seeing these rich ass holes flaunting their wealth just proved to me the disgusting degree of the disconnect between the welfare of a company and that of the capitalists who own and run it. It almost seems as though they don't give a shit if their companies fail, because they will still be walking away with hundreds of millions in severance pay.

My mom has seen drastic cuts in insurance coverage, and her pension is now largely her own responsibility (without contribution from the company.) For instance, as a family (of two kids under 6, herself, and me) we are allowed three doctor appointments per year. I went to the doctor recently, thinking that it would be covered by insurance, and later received a bill for $150. The prescription I had was not covered either, and I had to pay $40 per refill.

Thus it feels criminal that GM CEO is enjoying unprecedented (in GM's history) compensation. Shouldn't he be taking cuts like our family has? No one would question his or his family's right to unlimited access to medical care. Hell, no one would question his right to at least five luxury homes, located across the globe in the most beautiful locales. I guess it's too much to ask for him to cut back, sell a couple of those mansions, for the sake of the whole. Instead, the poor folk that break their backs day after day will have to internalize the costs.

That being said, I was listening to NPR today when a story compared this scenario to that of the financial institutions. The reporter pointed out that the latter, New York companies, didn't have to do much work to receive bailout packages. Indeed, they were throwing lavish parties the day after with government monies. The Detroit companies are asking for fractions of the amount received by the New York companies, but the government has been reluctant to grant these funds. While it was outrageous that the CEOs flew in on private jets, and that they were unprepared for the meeting in Congress, why isn't the government rushing to their aid, as it did for the New York financial companies?

It should be said that the financial companies play a perhaps more important role in the functioning of the economy, by providing credit for other sectors. But can we really afford to let the Big Three go broke, especially when we consider the extent to which the Midwest relies on them for employment directly and via complimentary companies? I don't know what the solution is, but I am telling Mama T to start looking for some other employment options, because I definitely don't have room for everyone here in my little Columbus apartment :)

The Chagrin of a soon-to-be college grad

In a word, I am DISTRESSED. The US economy is out of control. Our country’s debt is skyrocketing (bought by China Inc.), Americans’ personal debt is following suit to lenders, and what is normally our most valuable asset, our home, is, in some cases, worth half of the mortgage borrowed in its namesake. What with the skyrocketing price of oil, on which the economy has been stupidly founded, we are in real danger of economic disaster on the scale of the Great Depression. The dollar is plummeting in value, while prices continue to soar, in recognition of that fact.

All of this means different things for different people. For the baby boomers (the ones who are not billionaires,) this manifests itself as a shrinking nest egg for retirement. (Perhaps shrinking is too weak – shriveling.) For many corporate CEOs, the economy in its current state is a cash cow. Even when their companies fail, they walk away with millions of dollars in severance. For middle-aged professionals, perhaps they can no longer depend on returning to work tomorrow.

But for people like me, (or the person I will be at the end of this academic year,) that is, fresh graduates looking to begin their professional lives, the economy is perhaps even more bleak. We are in desperate need for a job to start repaying all the debt we have accumulated over the four to six years we’ve spent in undergrad and graduate schools. We were promised the world… “Get an education, and you can do whatever your heart desires.” Some crock of bullshit that has turned out to be. Lending institutions have taken advantage of our naiveté, cashing in on all those student loans we needed to fund our study abroad that would “pay itself back in a few years.” Yet another lie financial and academic institutions have worked together to propagate.

Unfortunately for us, there are no jobs that can help us pay those loans back. We students, who followed our dreams, pursuing liberal arts degrees with no clear career track like professional degrees, are stuck working in the service sector, or maybe, nonprofit sector, earning barely the minimum wage, and hardly a livable wage. Furthermore, those jobs exist in bulk only in big cities, where the cost of living greatly exceeds what the wages we are offered can sustain.

I suppose all we young people can do is resign ourselves to destitution, and hate our baby boomer parents and grand parents for enjoying higher standards of living than we ever will.