Sleeping in Cars in the USA

[Crewleader]

by Mike Whitney / June 5th, 2008

Look around. The evidence of a withering economy is everywhere. In “good times” consumers shun the canned meat aisle altogether, but no more. Today, Spam sales are soaring; grocery stores can’t keep it on the shelves. Everyone is looking for cheaper ways to feed their families. The Labor Dept. assures us that core-inflation is only 4 per cent, but everybody knows it’s load of malarkey. Food prices are going through the roof. White bread is up 13 percent, bacon is up 7 percent and peanut butter is up 9 percent. Inflation is rampant and there’s no end in sight. The dollar is closing in on the peso and working people are struggling just to get by. The bottom line is that more and more people in “the richest country on earth” are now surviving on processed pig-meat. That says it all.

In Santa Barbara parking lots are being converted into hostels so that families that lost their homes in the subprime fiasco can sleep in their cars and not be hassled by the cops. The same is true in LA where tent cities have sprung up around the railroad yards to accommodate the growing number of people who’ve lost their jobs or can’t afford to rent a room on service-industry wages. It’s tragic. Everywhere people are feeling the pinch; that’s why 9 out of 10 Americans now believe the country is now headed in the wrong direction and that’s why consumer confidence is at its lowest ebb since the Great Depression. This is the great triumph of Reagan’s free trade “trickle down” Voodoo economics; whole families living out of their cars waiting for the pawn shop to open.

The economy is on life-support. The rest of the world would be doing us all a favor if they decided to chuck the dollar and boycott US financial products altogether. That would put an end to Wall Street’s chicanery once and for all. Foreign investors should be demanding restitution and impounding American assets to compensate for the trillions of dollars they lost in the subprime/securitization swindle. Litigate, litigate, litigate; that’s the only way to make the guilty parties pay for their crimes. Either that or set up a gallows on Wall Street and get down to business.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/06/sleeping-in-cars-in-the-usa/

[mike_c]

1. there's been a guy living in his pickup behind my house for weeks now....

I have an old detached garage that opens onto the alley behind my house-- it's a tiny rural town so the "alley" is just a dirt drive between back yards. The garage door is sealed closed, and a man parked his truck on the apron in front of the garage door a few weeks ago. He sleeps there at night. I hope he's OK.

[Warpy]

7. You'd do him a service

if you told him you owned the garage and it was fine for him to be there.

It would just be one less thing he'd have to worry about.

Let him know he can use your hose for water, too.

[Xenotime]

11. That's a thoughtful idea. He might need some food too.

[On the Road]

14. I Lived in My Car for a Week

in Arlingon VA. The car was broken and I had no cash. I got two restaurant jobs and made enough to get a room by the week.

But that was 30 years ago. Rooms are much more expensive now and usually require two months upfront. If unemployment begins to spread, expect this to grow.

[jojo54]

2. It's a disturbing reality.

What a damn shame that it took so long for so many of the sheeples to see it.

[rwenos]

3. Free Fall

I live in Cali now, but I lived in Portland, OR, in the early 1980's. Twenty-Five percent unemployment. Yeah, just like the Great Depression. (After that, my Mom quit saying "You didn't live through the Depression, you don't know . . . ")

Middle-Class Depression:
First signs: restaurants go belly up.
Next: independent gas stations, indy coffee shops and small independent retail shops; big corps lay off white collar workers
Then "nice" single mothers are seen on the streets, living in their cars.
People start leave town in desperation.
People start trying to get small businesses going. People go back to school. People try selling Amway or getting real estate licenses. People move home with parents. People get roommates. People lose insurance and start going to ER's, but only when they're REALLY sick.
More drinking. More divorces. More violence toward women and children. More violence generally.

It gets pretty ugly. And then you REALLY know it sucks, when people who are still doing well start showing off -- like, "Look at my Mercedes."

It's happening around us right now.

[mike3121]

4. Don't forget the gambling

Whenever the economy goes to hell gambling skyrockets.

[defendandprotect]

5. Welcome to the GOP's "third world America" . . . !!!!

A superpower . . . . with 25% of our children living in poverty . . . and homelessness a huge

problem since the Reagan days ---

not to mention that he cut off so many disabled people that they began killing themselves --- !!1

[bronxiteforever]

6. And the charge card bill for the Iraq war gets bigger everyday-k & R

[CanonRay]

8. We should name these tent cities "Bushvilles"

Remeniscent of the Hoovervilles of the 30's.

[lib2DaBone]

9. Thank You George BUSH

Hooverville-1932


Bushville- 2008

[TalkingDog]

12. Shrubtown sounds grubbier. n/t

[leftofthedial]

10. all these losers need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps

and get a job.

anyone can be a millionaire in good ole Murka, if they work hard enough.

anyone who is not rich deserves to suffer and starve.

losers.

besides, the economy is doing great. well, pretty great.










:sarcasm:

[fasttense]

13. Sleeping in cars is the modern day Hooverville or bushville.

I was wondering where all the newly homeless families were going. I guess the poorest end up sleeping in their cars.

I feel like I've moved to a banana republic.