Friday I became a statistic of the Bush economy, and an unemployed hostage of the Republican obstruction agenda.
Abit of a rambling summary about my version of a nation wide epidemic, unemployment, and the panic that comes with being placed on it.
I never thought this would happen to me. When we bought our first home in 2007, everything was roses, life couldn't of been better. There we were, a young married couple who had kids young, no college, and yet, we were firmly in the middle class with me making $53K a year and my wife making $23K. We were so proud of ourselves. I'd learned surveying, a basically forgotten skill nowadays with extremely high demand for skilled workers who were willing to do the work, ranging from advanced maths, to grunt work, like swinging an axe for miles through the woods looking for little metal pins. With so much work, I could write my own check anywhere. Job security, it was unbelievable after struggling so long in the minimum wage hell that was fast food resturaunts. We'd made something for ourselves and our children we never thought we'd have.
When we bought our house, I didn't fall for the adjustable rate scams. Nope, not me, I saw plenty that did, and most wound up loosing their homes after they realized they got their homes from predatory lenders, and the contract was written to help everyone but them. I tried to play it safe, and figured out a home we could afford based off of a 30 hour a week check, when I was then making 50-60 hours a week. A little nicer then we thought our first house would be, but after years of living in trailers or duplexes, hell it was worth it pay a small bit more to be able to own a home in a cul-de-sac, and not just off a busy highway, and especially worth it to find a house on a lot that wasn't stripped bared of trees, on a postage stamp sized lot. We found a 1 acre wooded lot, with a great house on it, everything we could want, or think of asking for. Looking back, I think part of the problem with the housing bubble was that it was just too easy to get the loan.
We'd always paid in cash, we didn't trust credit cards, and I still don't, even more so now that we've become used to them and got ourselves in a small hole. We had no credit history whatsoever, but I was able to obtain a 6% fixed FHA 30 year loan on my salary, under my name alone. In fact, I was approved for $250K, TWICE the amount of the home we wound up buying, it was like they couldn't wait to throw money at me. I couldn't get approved for a $500 credit card line from my credit union with no prior history without putting $500 down to secure it, but they had no problem rubber stamping a house! Even though I had more stuff to do at work then we could ever handle, I wanted to be cautious. You never know right?
Then the bottom fell out when the banks started dropping like flies, and no one would loan money to the construction industry, despite untold billions being poured into the banks. I worked for a pretty greedy guy who'd screw with your hours if the price of gas so much as twitched up ward. The first signs of slowing down, blam, he hit all 200 plus of us with a 10% hourly wage pay cut. By the middle of 2009, we were down another 5%, and all overtime had been cut out. Suddenly I was down over $20K a year since overtime made up such a large chunk of my hourly pay.
We'll be alright I told my wife, we've got a good guy in there now, he'll help. Somehow they'll make sure all that cash that went to the banks wasn't wasted. The banks will start lending again, my work will pick back up. After all, we had over 5,000 housing lots spread all over to get to work on. Then banks panicked, and pulled their funding after the housing slump started, and there are thousands of lots, thousands upon thousands of acres that could of still been working on today, employing who knows how many thousands of people. But the banks couldn't just get away with their predatory lending and calling in notes by the barrel load, and sinking developer after developer could they? Nah, someone will inject some sanity into them.
So we waited. And waited. Work slowly started drying up for us, with zero hope of changing jobs. I've been on countless phone interviews. Many employers are taking advantage of folks right now, offering barely anything, hoping to snatch the workers up while they're desperate. A job where you earned $15 and hour before, now they're going to offer you $8. They'll offer you so low you can't take it because your unemployment insurance will pay you more then that, and you'll loose everything if you do. They then wind up hiring the poor folks who've maxed out on unemployment, who work for a fraction of their previous wages, having lost so much, to live on so little it should be a crime.
I called my bank to see about refinancing the house sometime in March, but they wanted perfect credit, and more or less told me to bugger off with the tones they were using. I called my bank again Friday afternoon. They won't help me do anything, because I'm not behind on my bills to where I'm risking foreclosure. They realize they can fleece me for more money, and they'll do it until I get so far behind that their offer to refinance to "help" will be a band-aid on a gaping head wound. I'm actually still current on my bills at the moment, but in a few months it's going to be rough. They have signs up everywhere about helping people save money, but only if your loan is owned through Fannie or Freddie, if Suntrust owes it, they'll tell you to call back in 90 days, and then pretend they don't know you, I've had that happen twice now.
I don't understand why we have an economy that rewards a system that tells you, in order to own a home, your monthly payment is going to be 65% interest, 19% taxes, with 16% going towards actually paying the thing off. It's another form of chaining the middle class to the banks. I also don't understand why the hundreds of billions the banks got didn't go towards wiping out, or eliminating the house payments of many, or just giving folks an interest holiday, instead of just making the rich, richer. Can you imagine what you'd do if your house payment suddenly vanished and you have $900-$2000 a month suddenly to help pay off those 29% credit card bills? Or pay off your car or college loans? Surely it'd be a hell of a lot more stimulating then just pissing the money away to the banks for them to stick it in hidden accounts and sitting on it.
Friday, literally the week before Christmas our company's owner came in, told us with no notice the doors were closing, the company couldn't find more stuff to do, and then took the high payed folks out to eat seafood and stuff their faces while the rest of us stood their bewildered and upset beyond belief. On Friday I knew what it was like to be scared to have Republicans in control of the government. They only care for the rich, they don't care about normal people like me, and their actions have shown that. They're not going to help pass anything to help anyone but themselves, ever.
It hurts that my truck will have to go back to the dealer, because there is nothing hiring and unemployment insurance is a shadow (35% of my salary in 2008 actually) of what I used to make even after pay cuts and overtime cuts made half of it vanish. It hurts that Christmas isn't going to come this year. But those are things that you get through as a family, and draws you closer together, if you're strong enough to take it.
I thought I could understand the frustration of folks before who couldn't find jobs, but I was sadly mistaken. My sense of self worth is pretty much gone, my wife says she's noticed the last two years I've acted more and more depressed. I just turned 29, but I have a nice start towards a head of gray hair, and stomach problems from stress I can't get rid of. I have trouble sleeping, and when I do, I often can't bring myself to get out of bed unless it was to go to work. It's not just a financial hole we've been put into as a group, it's like a pit of despair. I killed all three cordless phones in the house today again, talking for hours trying to find something. There's just nothing there, and it's driving me crazy.
But it breaks my heart and soul to know, that I'm just one of millions with the same problems, and all of us are nothing to group of politicians who will use us as hostages to obstruct and slow down the government, that will prevent anyone from ever helping us, because after all, us poor people are poor because we're lazy. They don't care if people like me starve or freeze to death if the unemployment checks don't come, if the jobs don't start moving again. They care about helping their rich buddies ship jobs offshore, about giving themselves more tax cuts. And they'll hold the knife to the throat of folks like me and you to get it.