wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

in '92 i had 3 degrees: a B.S. in mathematics, and a pair of M.S.E.E degrees in lasers and optical communications, and no experience. that was a tough time too, like now. with those credentials it took me 2 years to get a decent job. in that period I lived with my dad, did some programming at a local college and built an electronics lab in a spare bedroom. jobs in lasers were scarce, so i taught myself circuit design by reading journals and building ciruits in my lab. the following years found me moving around the country and doing whatever i needed to do to grow in my career. i had my share of insane technical supervisors and years of insomnia; but i always held on, sometimes by a thread, and never gave up. i've been designing analog and mixed signal integrated chips for 10+ years now. i enjoy a great salary (> 100k), benefits, stock options (already cashed in 40k), good hours, respect and appreciation. i'm debt free and saving about 3k a month. sure it's tougher now than it used to be. globalization happened. are you still not hip to that at this late date? i kind of think it's up to the individual and you have to roll with it. work hard and never give up. having a well-spring of personal faith helps too. this is America and, i think, has always been America.

Go to my blog. read what I think are the SEVEN
major points we need to fix our society and the entire country...

look at sos-newdeal.blogspot. com

Here are the main points:
(I think it covers almost everything...)
We need to do the FOLLOWING to FIX our Society:
* Create A Living Wage
* Create a National Single payer Healthcare
* Create a National 3-4 year draft (or alternate service)
* Create a Federally paid Day Care starting at six months
* Implement Tax Reform on the ULTRA Rich
* Lobbying (Political Reform)
* Education
* Infrastructure (road /bridge/Systems repairs)
* Lack of Training/futures
* Truth and Reconcilliation Commission
* A new "Manhattan" project, focusing on Energy INDEPENDENCE

tell ME what you think.. Tell Leonard (and brian too) if you agree with me.

Here's one request:

Please see if you can buy into each of these ideas, before asking "How will you pay for it?"

MarkB

I am comapring the time period from 2004 to today. I know that I have to hold on to my townhouse for another 5 yrs.

Socializing anything in this country is a dangerous idea. Not fear of socialism but fear of the government screwing up whatever government program it is trying to run. Can you name one socialized government program that has only the American people’s best interest in mind and not some company lobbyist best interest? If you socialized heath insurance tomorrow, do you really think insurance companies, drug companies and hospitals are just going to step aside and not demand their piece of pie in Washington? So much has to be cleaned up before anything can realistically happen. It’s a huge undertaking but not impossible. Corporate America has to be scrubbed from government. The place to start, lobbyists. It’s true that there are some good lobbyists groups out there with good intentions. But for the good of all, they must all go. Publicly fund all elections and eliminate 90% of America’s problem with being taken hostage by corporate America. Yes its that easy…. The hard part is getting the public to realize this. And then and only then can you realistically talk about socializing any program and still maintain the publics trust that they are not being fleeced by their own government…..

I am feeling the pinch. I haven't required any new bills, have a fixed 30-yr mortgage, my income going up 2.0% a year but my discrention spending budget is going down about since 2007.

At this rate, my idea of dining out will be to go to mother's house. Yet I would have to give her some money because the price of food has been going up. I can't be a one-person economic machine any more.

I am 37 years old. Both my parents (who are approaching their sixties) were layed off this past year. My father from a Project Manager position at a manufacturing company (after 20 years) and my mother, a customer service rep for a national financial newspaper (after 16 years -- her job outsourced to India). My company (a financial services company in Manhattan), where I've been for 11 years more for "security" than anything), has had two rounds of layoffs, which I've survived so far. However, just because I have seniority doesn't mean that my job is secure, since my salary is higher than more recent hires (which is often incentive for companies to lay off long-time employees). And there are more layoffs to come (our company wrapped up in all that subprime/cdo nonsense)

I am recently married and me and my husband (who is currently looking for work after a protracted settlement battle with his former employer, where he was injured on the job). We care for his legally blind mother who is suffering from dropped feet neuropothy. On top of that, we need look for a two family house (his mother needs to be on the first floor) in Bayside, where, despite the downturn in the market, such homes start at $750,000.

So, no. I don't feel secure.

Reagan overhauled the Tax system to benefit the very wealthy,,, he created the loopholes for off-shore tax havens, he emasculated our government and then justified privatization by blaming government for being ineffective. All this was the Conservative/Republican Adgenda that has sought to destroy the New Deal and The Great Society that was the promise and fulfillment of the American Dream. Some people don't worship money as their god,,, money is only a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. Greed is the true enemy on both sides of the congressional aisle.

My final comment.

In addition to our "entertainment obssessed society, I believe the disparities between upper management and lower paid workers is abominable. Our society and city is being stratified to an unparalleled degree (since the 20th Century.)

It violates the social contract and is ultimately unsustainable.

It makes our tendency to buy into all the comsumerism that much more ironic. Too many of us are enriching the few with money we can ill afford to spend.

you all didn't know we were headed for a crash when Reagan eviscerated the Air Traffic Controllers union thereby holding a gun to the head of the Union system in America? When he unleashed the legal dogs of war against the doctors by legalizing Amublance Chasing and gifting the insurance industry with massive income from the resultant lawsuits? When instead of promoting a shift in the automotive & energy industry to alternative sources, he allowed the petrochemical industry to engineer covert influence in foreign goverments to maintain the status quo to avoid a changeover in our industrial system, resulting in the political blowback that we are now facing from Islamic Fundamentalism

I'm living in Europe at the moment and it's given me a real perspective on just how bad healthcare is in the US--not the quality, but the coverage and everything surrounding insurance. I know these European nations are saying that they can't support the system for much longer, but there needs to be an in between and something absolutely has to happen in the U.S. The idea that some how the idea of universal healthcare is "socialist" or will make us "socialist" seems so dated red-scare era.

The very fact that pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition and therefore women can be denied healthcare coverage is enough to say that something needs to be done.

As someone in my mid-20s, with a Master's degree, and $45,000 in outstanding student loans (and I went to CUNY for my Master's... that debt could be a lot higher had I chosen NYU!), I cannot even imagine being able to afford the "American Dream" - family, home, etc. I'm not sure it's realistic these days. So many people are in this same kind of situation. I think what's going to result is that people will have to wait longer and longer to try to start a family, or face really taking on much more financial responsibility than can actually be handled.

Leshka (#6), I didn't mean everyone, but certainly too many people aren't showing any discipline nor taking enough responsibility for their own financial state.

Despite all our complaints, we have more "goods" than any generation in the history of mankind. We've lost our perspective of how past generations coped or what they had to cope with.

And we -- we who are better educated and have been given so much more, we, who for the most part are the first generations in history who don't have to worry about our next meal -- we too often do the bidding of the marketers and fall prey to every one of their spiels in our dailiy lives, day-in-day out.

We take cabs instead of mass transit. We turn the A/C on instead of trying to use fans and when we do turn the A/C on, we turn it lower than we need to. People throw out food if it's sat in the fridge for a few days -- even if the food is fine (you'd think the refrigerator proved no better at keeping food fresh than the techniques of the 19th century.)

It is the same story everywhere we look. What's the moral? We -- people in our society just take too much for granted. We don't connect the dots -- we don't connect the countless, individual everyday decisions and actions to our own financial condition and those of society at large.

I, like many, find myself with a great education, but scrambling to find a secure position.

I have a Masters in Accounting and both a J.D. and LL.M. law degrees, however I have no health benefits, no pension plan and work essentially freelance as a contract employee at a law firm. Last year, I worked 3,000 hours, but my employer would dump me in a second if things slow down. Partners here make millions per year, but feel no obligation to keep quality attorneys who are not on a partnership track.

Sometimes I feel like I'm running on a hamster wheel. Giving great effort, but knowing that I'm really not getting anywhere and that anything I have managed to build could be wiped out in an instant.

If it's that tough for me, I can only imagine the pain of those without a college education.

So, I am married, and I have a child, and because of that, I am unable to put in the type of hours necessary to advance my career. I am a masters trained professional in a career with a pretty significant salary cap. Getting additional training would allow me to look "outside the box" so to speak. However, with a family to raise, I feel like I don't realistically have the time to start all over and pay my dues. It is my bed, and I am lying in it, I guess, but I am not happy about.

Many companies change the rules in mid-career for employees (reductions to or elimination of pensions, reduced healthcare coverage, etc.) This is especially difficult when an employee does not have enough time to make up for the loss. As the guest just said, even if one want to work longer to make up for these benefit changes, it's not always possible as layoffs intensify.

I think that college educations are extremely important for the whole person BUT I think there is a future in blue collar work such as electrician, carpenter, and other skilled labor. My cousin, in Holland, is head of an organization pushing blue collar jobs in an era of shrinking, outsourced, white collar jobs. MKaplan

I suspect the line about how we're all in debt because we buy $4 lattes every is an exaggeration designed to help us justify ignoring the overall problem. Even if you did buy such (terrible tasting) drink every weekday, you're probably looking at $1,000 per year, but that's nothing compared to getting hit with a $50,000 medical bill or the same amount in student loans because, let's face it, health care and education are things you need and you can't just walk away from them without either dying or condemning yourself to poverty.

The bottom line is we need universal health insurance and cheaper college tuition (and that's just the beginning).

during the great depression people still went to the movies. it's a cheap night out, good escape and free AC.

I hope u saw a movie that u learned something from.
the empire is over get use to it. 'Americans' are not ready for the next phase. should be fun to watch.

Why is there still such resistance to shifting responsibility for the safety nut (particularly health insurance, partial retirement) to the government. It seems that American corporations would welcome shedding these burdens? Also, it seems that it would put American companies on more equal footing w/their competitors based in other developed countries.

Just a thought (yes nagging on the big corporations) how they complain that they can't afford health insurance for their workers, as their products would sky rocket and would not be competitive in the market place.

..and now they're sending jobs to Canada? So can we read it as, "raise the corporate taxes so we can have socialized medicine, as the insurance are too expensive"???

I have a thought that citizens of the USA are caught up in the position that sharecroppers are. We don't "own" things, rather the owners in this economy give us access to script and items in the company store which we will never really own and debt which we will never be able to pay off. If Swedes can pay UP TO 55% of their income in taxes (that is UP TO, calculate how much of your income is taken by all taxes and it will probably be almost the same) yet the Swedes get more services for their money... Why do Americans continue to accept being economic sharecroppers.

Sure Americans buy Starbucks, ever more pricey movies tickets, and Harry Potter books, but I grew up the in 80's and never would of thought of paying with a credit card for cup of coffee or to see a Indiana Jones and Superman.

Today, the majority of Americans don't use cash, but credit. With that, it's more difficult to know what a person really is spending and how much cash one actually possesses.

Most Americans are acting like children and blind as to how credit (home equity credit) can be dangerous and, like children, are playing with fire without knowing the dangers. We need to live within our means and stop using credit all the time. The bubble has burst!

I'm sorry that MichaelB has such a cynical view of "generations from the Baby Boomers on."

My husband and I (both 30 years old) saved up to go see that movie this past weekend. It's a reward for saving money by not going out at all this week and deciding to let my clothes go another season even though things are falling apart.

We were incredibly lucky to get a good apartment in a good neighborhood at a good price. We don't own a car. We don't own the latest gadgets. We're dropping our cable and Netflix because we're figuring out what's more important in our lives. After this year we're looking at $100,000 in student debt because we want to better our lives and have actual careers.

I agree that many people complain and don't try hard enough to save money, but we're not all that way.

PS: the first few things that needs to be fixed are:

*executive-to 'regular' compensation... FIX it.
* tax the top 10,000 taxpayers at 40% on ALL income..., use proceeds to ddrop ALL other income taxes...
* a LIVING wage (indexed to inflation) that would allow a family to live on ONE income
See my blog above for details...

Yes, I am MUCH MUCH MUCH worse off then five years ago.

I am totally convinced (see my blog above) that we are HEADED into A SEVERE DEPRESSION!!!!

I think the only way OUT of this is if we TOTALLY
attempt to RESTRUCTURE our ENTIRE society.

I am white collar, and bemoan the day I gave up my union job to become a manager.

Benefits lost, more hours worked, retirement packages reduced...

we need to fix the ENTIRE economy

"THE AMERICAN DREAM"

An elderly friend told me when she was growing up in the 1920s-30s the definition of "THE AMERICAN DREAM" was to own your own business.

For exaxample, Mom-and-Pop stores...be your own boss...be independent........

MichaelB made some good points on personal responsibility with money. Many people are very oriented toward instant gratification where only the best or most wasteful will do. Bottled water is a great example of this.

However, I think we are increasingly moving toward a class system and if you watched Bill Moyer's show last night they showed how predatory lending and usury laws along with the newer bankruptcy laws are squeezing blood from a stone and also are destroying neighborhoods like the one shown in Cleveland, OH.

People are getting squeezed by being fooled into going into debt for whatever reason, ouses, education, cars, vacations, or whatever junk you put on your creditcard like a dinner out.

Americans spent 1/4 of a billion dollars on one movie this past weekend.

And how much do we spend on fancy lattes and the like at Starbucks every week?

Meanwhile, we complain about the rising cost of gasoline, despite the fact that we still pay considerably less than our European counterparts and despite decades of ignoring warnings of this inevitability -- buying inefficient gas guzzlers.

A new iPhone is announced? A new pair of Michael Jordan sneakers? New movie? New Harry Potter book? We line up -- hell, we camp out! -- like children who have not yet learned any discipline and who expect to have every desire instantly gratified.

Having said this, there ARE people in our society and the world who are truly hurt in economic downturns. The problem is, the rest of us are so busy living our lifestyle of the rich and famous that there's nothing left to help those who really need it.

Shame on generations from the Baby Boomers on.