Well, Ms. Hart (and the rest of the country), welcome to my world. Your “new” normal has been my normal since 2001.
A strong comparison can be made between the state of Michigan and the rest of the country as a whole. We have here a state that has been bleeding jobs, and thus population. Michigan’s expenses far exceed what it makes in taxes, what with social services, bloated government, high prison population and legacy costs of benefits and retirement for state workers. Personal income tax and small business tax do nothing to lure business to make a home here. Cut spending? Ha, ha — the idea! It’s more exciting to teeter on the edge of insolvency. Besides, we can make do on stimulus money or hope for a bailout. The corruption in Detroit is not only embarrassing, but we've also seen, as the layers are peeled away little by little, that it also costs all of us untold millions.
The fun ride for the rest of the cash-strapped country is just beginning; here, it’s been in full swing for almost a decade. Had Velma beenliving here, she would have left years ago.
Business is declining, yet we work longer hours. We are petrified of a future with no Social Security or Medicare, so we save more. The unknown has us cutting down on improvements to home and business, freezing salaries, buying used cars instead of new. There are no more vacations on a whim like we could when we were younger and had money to burn. I use my time and airfare to visit family, and instead of renting a car, I mooch one from a relative. I grow my own food, do my own yard work, clean my own house, cut and color my own hair. I buy more of my groceries in bulk. If an item isn’t at least 50% off, I won’t buy it at all. We don’t eat out as often as we used to, and splurge on really good dinners on weekends only.
We can’t sell our house, because it’s worth about half what we paid for it. We’ve been thinking of renting out the extra bedrooms, but we may need them for when the kids might have to boomerang back to the nest. It took eight months for my son to find a part-time job after graduating from college, and who knows if the daughter can find employment in two years when she has her degree.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Ruvy
Having lived on the street for a year, and with no hope at all for several after that, I really feel for you and for your husband.
I hate to say this, but Australia beckons. Too bad you're not Jewish. We need level headed and intelligent people here like you.
Michigan needs you too. So, does America. But increasingly, neither appears to be able to make it worth your while to stay.
2 - Glenn Contrarian
Joanne -
In the short term - the next decade or two - America is in danger of becoming a right-wing oligarchy. Indeed, in many ways we are one already. If America can make it through the next twenty years, then the youth and younger adults of today will comprise the majority of the electorate...and as a whole they are FAR more liberal than what passes for a 'normal conservative' today (which would've been seen as a far-right extremist loony a generation earlier).
Nothing I can say will help your situation right now, but here's a little something to give you some hope that this far-right lunacy will not stand the test of time.
3 - Arch Conservative
Yes that's it Glenn. We're not "progressive" enough.
You're right that youth tend to be more liberal. The only problem with your little pipe dream is that they will eventually grow up, see the world as it reallly is and abandon the bullshit left wing rhetoric of their heady impetuous youth.
4 - zingzing
archie, do you think the world has steadily become more conservative?
5 - John Wilson
Whistling past the graveyard, Arch?
6 - Arch Conservative
There is no doubt that in term of global politics the USA is a slightly right of center nation.
WE're also seeing conservative trends in Europe and Canada while the libs in this country claim Shang gri la lies to our left, our far left.
This country didn't get to be number one in terms of economic , social and military might by being just another european style socialist state now did it.
Capitalism encourages greed, socialism encourages laziness and dependency. No pure "ism" can work but rather a combination of different "isms" is what the dr ordered for a stable, productive society.
One of my favorite people, Mark Steyn, pointed out in one his books that if one were to compare the relative safety and peace that America has enjoyed as a nation over the past two hundred years to the rest of human history one would see it as an anomoly. Most of human history and civiliaztion has been dominated by war, upheaval and general misery. So maybe the good times will be over for us too soon and we can join in the rest of the world in the suffering and misery.
In the meantime I guess I'll do what I have to do to make life as pleasant as possible for myself and my loved ones without delibrately trying to make it worse for others.
7 - zingzing
"No pure "ism" can work but rather a combination of different "isms" is what the dr ordered for a stable, productive society."
there, i will agree with you.
"WE're also seeing conservative trends in Europe and Canada"
i don't pay that much attention to economic politics, but the right wing trending i've seen in europe has been troubling. france and the gypsies, france and the burqas, switzerland and the minarets, etc, etc.
"maybe the good times will be over for us too soon and we can join in the rest of the world in the suffering and misery."
ron paul, of all people, made the point that it was war and the conquest of new lands that has lead to the end of all great nations. with our multiple fronts and our intractable position in the middle east, we may be headed that way.
"In the meantime I guess I'll do what I have to do to make life as pleasant as possible for myself and my loved ones without delibrately trying to make it worse for others."
a reasonable position, and the law of laws: do what you will, but harm no other. what's wrong with you tonight? being all reasonable and shit.
8 - Arch Conservative
Well if you know me then you will know that Ron Paul is the only Washington politician that I don't believe will be going to hell when he passes zing. The rest of them aren't even worth the dirt on his shoes.
9 - zingzing
ron paul has his problems. he's right about some things. he's dead wrong about others. a bit of a conundrum, he is. i don't think anyone likes everything about him. but at least he's consistently baffling.
10 - Doug Hunter
#6
Europe is just a different animal. Check out this publicly funded UK video featuring schoolchildren who question global warming being graphically blown up and the gore spattered on their classmates. Funny huh!
This is what I don't want in America, the government indoctrinating conformity (I'm thankful my tax dollars aren't going to fund garbage like this yet... directly.. that I know of), but it soon will be. We're running as fast as we can to be just like them.
11 - Arch Conservative
Ron Paul is not perfect. He's just a man. But what sets him apart from everyone else in Washington is that he is honest. Agree with him or not, you know that when he answers your question he's telling you what he truly believs and not what his handlers told him to say based on the latest polls.
He may not have evrything right (although I think he gets most of it right on the domestic issues) but he's sincere and he's genuine. He has no equal in terms of character and integrity in Washington.
12 - zingzing
doug, i saw a psa the other day that equated fast food with heroin. "you wouldn't shoot your child up... would you?"
it must be noted that 10:10 (the environmental group behind the psa that you link) seems to be funded mostly by the guardian newspaper. maybe i'm wrong, but i can't find any reason to believe it's "publicly funded" or "government indoctrinating conformity," as you say. did the british gov't have something to do with this?
it's pretty funny, although the message is incredibly muddled. someone fucked up.
13 - Doug Hunter
#12
I don't see the humor in blowing up kids. I don't think you would either if the message was something you disagreed with. I'm trying not to invoke Godwin's law here, but children are very sensitive to stuff like this. Germany was showing "funny" caricatures of Jews in their films in the 1930's too. What starts as a joke can turn ugly very quickly as it desensitizes the mind to the idea.
14 - zingzing
"I don't see the humor in blowing up kids."
sorry. sick humor gets me.
"I don't think you would either if the message was something you disagreed with."
i'm not sure what the message is in the end. are they going to kill people if they don't agree? doubt it. are those kids killing themselves? i dunno. just what exactly i'm supposed to get out of it is rather vague. but on a purely comedic level, it was absurd and strange. i'm alright.
"I'm trying not to invoke Godwin's law here, but children are very sensitive to stuff like this."
well then don't. and oh no! the children! come on.
15 - Doug Hunter
Ok, we agree to disagree. I do enjoy gore and am a huge horror flick fanatic. I watch every stupid zombie movie and love it no matter how bad it is. I do see the humor in blowing up kids, just not with a political message attached.
I would be embarassed if the state of Texas funded a video in which spanish looking schoolkids who 'didn't have their citizenship papers' were blown to smithereens. I suspect you might find a way to dislike that campaign or empathize with the immigrant groups that denounced it... or maybe I'm wrong and you'd think it funny as well.
16 - zingzing
you're probably right about that second paragraph. although i might laugh at the balls on display.
17 - Jordan Richardson
WE're also seeing conservative trends in Europe and Canada
News to me.
18 - STM
Arch: "This country didn't get to be number one in terms of economic , social and military might by being just another european style socialist state now did it."
No, it got to be that way because at the turn of the 20th century, it had become the most populous of the capitalist, industrial western democracies - and with a little shove 40 years later, was on its way to superpower status thanks to industrial output and post-war consumerism that couldn't be matched.
That's it, pure and simple. Industrialisation made America a power; population, industrial output and canny sales of its military hardware made it a superpower. Nothing to do with politics ... or at least nothing to do with any kind of politics that were really any different to the other western democracies of the time.
Its leap from just another world power with half a dozen others to superpower with one other during WWII, also came at a time when the European social democracies could hardly have been described as socialist states (and that includes conservative-thinking Britain, which was still holding on to most of its colonies at the time).
So that kind of thinking has nothing to do with anything.
Of course, we know what the extreme right did in the lead-up to WWII.
You know, those nice folks ruling the roost in Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militarist Japan.
More right thinking from Arch, but this time without some of the thinking.
19 - STM
Or, he said, sounding like a broken record, another example of Americans buying in to the delusion of the myth of American exceptionalism without bothering to look at the facts beyond what some like-minded fella told them during a long-winded jibber session at the pub.
20 - zingzing
we go to bars, not pubs. but i agree.
21 - STM
Lol. Sorry zing. You do have pubs though ... I've been to a few in New York :)
Irish ones ... mostly I don't remember much about it, but I know I was there because the bit I CAN remember is actually entering through the front door. Beyond that it's all a bit of a blur.
Those bloody Irish joints operate like a temporary mind vortex. It must have something to do with the obligatory downing of 15 pints of Guinness.
22 - STM
It just happens by osmosis.
23 - El Bicho
"This country didn't get to be number one in terms of economic, social and military might by being just another european style socialist state now did it."
That's right. Look at all the U.S. accomplished last century. I mean, can you name a European style socialist state that conducted secret STD experiments on mentally ill Guatemalans. I doubt it.
24 - STM
Hadn't thought of it like that EB.
Although it does depend on what type of "socialist" you mean.
Among its many other horrific crimes, National Socialist Germany also conducted a barrage of medical experiments on the mentally ill.
I daresay the good folks of the US wouldn't have condoned the Guatemala experiments though had they known about it.
I guess that's also what's worrying about it.
25 - El Bicho
"I daresay the good folks of the US wouldn't have condoned the Guatemala experiments though had they known about it."
No, the vast majority certainly would not have, and yet some Americans did.