It's affected my family a lot because my husband is in construction. He's doing commercial work now for a company after losing his own small business.
It's also the reason we moved 1600 miles to Texas.
I see real problems ahead for the USA, the lack of employment is a huge factor that has yet to be addressed and unemployment is more severe than anticipated by the government.
So, what are your brilliant solutions for the recession? If you could sit down with the president and his staff and tell them what you think, what would you say?
Even though I like Obama as a person, I think some of his plans are too high minded. And the bailout that started under Bush? Ridiculous! So many better things we could have done with that money and what money the banks took should have been strictly stipulated as to use.
You can't just give institutions money like that! People are too greedy and self-interested. Don't we have enough proof of that? It was a desperate, hasty and ill thought out measure that has proven it's inefficiency already.
My two main thoughts: We need to improve the state of health care for the sake of the economy. It's one of the largest drains on the economy in the US. Over 60% of bankruptcies are caused by the inability to pay for health care. Medicare is already in the red. Health care costs need to come down and be made affordable. I'm sure that will take significant restructuring of insurance companies, and the health care system itself. I'm not threatened by the thought of competitive affordable government run health care made available to those who need it. It's not ideal, but it works better than our system is working in most other countries and has served to keep a cap on health care costs. It will no doubt have it's problems too, but I think it will help solve some our of the most urgent health care related problems.
My other thought: We need a program like some of the post WWII programs to get easier and less expensive access to higher and technical education so more people can get better jobs. Not only for their own sakes, but many of the future jobs available and all of the new tech jobs will simply require training to be filled, so for the sakes of employers, also. Already, there are areas where even in this almost double digit unemployment, employers are having a hard time finding people to fill some jobs that require an aptitude for math, science and high tech. Also, higher level teaching and nursing, two very vital jobs, are under-filled and underpaid jobs in America.
Utilizing our work force better would go a long ways towards better employment rates. The more people working, the more taxes paid, the sooner we pay ourselves out of this crushing debt we're going to be under the rest of our lives and pass on to our children...and possibly their children too.
How to pay for this: Cut the pork! Focus on programs that have proven measures of success in both defense and social services, cut the rest of this nonsense out. And quit sacrificing the needs of the people and the country over political partisanship and pettiness.