This country has a glut of underemployed and needs to address labor-dumping.
By Daniel at 26 November, 2009, 10:22 am
People did not all-of-a-sudden become “cash-poor”, they lost good-paying jobs. Many companies have brought in “cheap skilled labor” and replaced people. Others have just outsourced jobs to other countries. In either case, a good-paying job was lost.
Someone making $80K - $130K can well afford a house and an occasional new car (especially in two earner families $160K-$260K), but when they drop to $35K-$45K jobs (one or both earners lose jobs) their spending power erodes to nothing. These include degreed people and highly-skilled people that have gotten displaced.
The abuse of H1B visas does not seem to get a lot of spotlight yet it is a big factor in why many have dropped out of good-paying jobs and have wound up - at best - in jobs paying substantially less.
In the beginning, most thought it was just a temporary setback and ran up their credit trying to remain at the same level of lifestyle. Now, they see that it is not a 3-6 or even 12-month “recession”.
As one friend put it - he has burned through his savings while trying to find another job while both his 401K plan lost money and the equity in his house evaporated in the last several years. He lost a project management job paying $90K in 2001 and since has not had a job paying more than $36K. Others have similar experiences.
I don’t care who you are, if you take a 50%-66% cut in pay for a sustained period in time, you are going to be in bad financial shape.
There is no mystery why all this financial vortex is happening.
Ask those who have lost a good-paying job and what their options are. They cannot qualify for the mortgage they already have, let alone for one with better terms.
Don’t count on the US consumer to get us out of this recession because they are not making the money they used to.
- JAMES CARLINI
yes, you are absolutely right. in a recession or not,
you need to get any job that pays
save as much as you can
and invest prudently , letting someone else manage your portfolio is big no no.
In fact I realised in 2000 , since than I’ve found top grade investment analysts at http://www.bigprofitsystem.com , who dig up top investment advise that I’ve used to build my portfolio and get returns of 22%-58% recession or no recession . If you give money to greed wall streeters you’ll lose , manage it yourself.