SavvySugar

Credit-card industry may cut $2 trillion lines: analyst

Woop — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:41:50 -0800

Mon Dec 1, 2008 4:06pm EST

(Reuters) - The U.S. credit-card industry may pull back well over $2 trillion of lines over the next 18 months due to risk aversion and regulatory changes, leading to sharp declines in consumer spending, prominent banking analyst Meredith Whitney said.

The credit card is the second key source of consumer liquidity, the first being jobs, the Oppenheimer & Co analyst noted.

"In other words, we expect available consumer liquidity in the form of credit-card lines to decline by 45 percent."

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) represent over half of the estimated U.S. card outstandings as of September 30, and each company has discussed reducing card exposure or slowing growth, Whitney said.

Closing millions of accounts, cutting credit lines and raising interest rates are just some of the moves credit card issuers are using to try to inoculate themselves from a tsunami of expected consumer defaults.

A consolidated U.S. lending market that is pulling back on credit is also posing a risk to the overall consumer liquidity, Whitney said.

Mortgages and credit cards are now dominated by five players who are all pulling back liquidity, making reductions in consumer liquidity seem unavoidable, she said.

"We are now beginning to see evidence of broad-based declines in overall consumer liquidity."

"Already, we have witnessed the entire mortgage market hit a wall, and we believe it will, for the first time ever, show actual shrinkage over the next few months," she wrote.

The credit card market will be 18 months behind the mortgage market and will begin to shrink by mid-2010, Whitney said.

Whitney also expects home prices to continue falling another 20 percent hurt by lower liquidity. They are down 23 percent from their peak, she said.

"In a country that offers hundreds of cereal and soda pop choices, the banking industry has become one that offers very few choices," Whitney wrote in a note dated November 30.

She also said credit lines to consumers through home equity and credit cards had been cut back from the second-quarter levels.

"Pulling credit when job losses are increasing by over 50 percent year-over-year in most key states is a dangerous and unprecedented combination, in our view," the analyst said.

Most of the solutions to the situation involve government intervention, and all of them require more dilutive capital to existing lenders, she said.

"Accordingly, we continue to be cautious on our outlook on US banks."

(read rest of article here: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4B01HI20081201?pageNumber=...)

Downward spiral? Scarey times.

School, Work, Unemployment . . .?!

Savvy Community — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:16 -0800

This post was submitted by Renees3 in our Ask Savvy group.

I worked for a company for six years. Dec. 21st I found out they decided to downsize my department and a bunch of others to zero. So I've joined the ranks of the unemployed. While I liked my job okay, I've decided I want to go to school. I'm 27 and have never been to college. I want to get my AA in accounting. But I honestly have no idea what to do now. I'm eligible for unemployment, can I get it while I go to school (a local community college)? I have a mortgage and bills to pay, I can't just not have money coming in. I know there are student loans, but I really don't want to get myself into major debt for just a couple years of school. I've thought maybe if I take night courses or online school (like University of Phoenix) I might still be able to collect unemployment. Does anyone know of any other options or ideas? Please help, I'm losing sleep over this.

Do you have a question for Savvy and fellow readers? Create a PopSugar account or log in to your account. Then ask your question in the Ask Savvy group.

Romney Makes 'No Apology' For Going After Obama

Roarman — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:36:48 -0800

Mitt Romney has been a governor, the head of an investment capital firm and the man who ran the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. More recently he applied for an even bigger job but finished out of the money in the Republican presidential primaries of 2008.

Romney seems set on another run in 2012, the latest sign being the release of his new book. No Apology: The Case for American Greatness comes with a big promotional tour starting Tuesday.

Romney's presidential run came to an end in February 2008 before members of the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, in Washington. Romney had bounced back a bit after crucial early losses in Iowa and New Hampshire the month before. But he could see he was done.

"I entered this race because I love America," Romney told the crowd then. "Because I love America, in this time of war, I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and for our country."

It was a difficult day for a man accustomed to success but Romney wasn't ready to regard the setback as permanent. He spent two years helping raise money for Republican candidates across the country. He's making friends and collecting favors and last month he was back at CPAC - this time having more fun.

Romney told the crowd he was just back from the Olympics: "You probably didn't hear the news this morning - late-breaking - that the gold medal that was won by Lindsey Vonn has been stripped. It was determined that President Obama has been going downhill faster than she has."

The joke was followed by a by a broad critique of the administration: "When he assumed the presidency, his energy should have been focused on fixing the economy, creating jobs, succeeding in our fight against radical violent jihad in Afghanistan and Iraq; and keeping us safe," Romney asserted.

"Instead, he applied his time and political capital to his ill-conceived take over of health care, and to building his personal popularity in foreign countries. He failed to focus, and so he failed."

In his book, the title No Apology echoes a common critique of the president by Republicans - that Obama has been too willing to apologize around the world for American actions.

Elsewhere in the book Romney lays out a vision for U.S. economic and foreign policy. It argues that the current path is one toward weakness and decline.

As for the book tour, Romney will be all over network and cable TV Tuesday - ending with a stop at the Late Show David Letterman. So far the travel schedule includes 42 stops in 19 states.

"You look where he's going on this book tour and he has surrounded himself with the same guys he had in 2008," says Erick Erickson, who publishes the popular Republican blog RedState.com. "He's definitely in for President."

Romney's 08 campaign had trouble with conservatives, particularly evangelicals who had doubts about his Mormonism and about his switch from pro-choice Massachusetts governor to pro-life presidential candidate.

Some analysts wondered why he didn't simply run on his resume as a highly successful business man and executive. With polls showing the struggling economy and weak jobs picture to be the dominant issue for Americans, Erickson says Romney has an opportunity while on this book tour.

"He needs to set himself up as the fixer," Erickson adds. "As the guy who knows what's wrong with the economy and can fix it."

But a big book tour also risks comparison to others on the same well-trodden path - including one whose book came out in November: Sarah Palin.

Kevin Madden, a GOP strategist who worked for Romney in 08, is quick to head off comparisons to Palin's massive crowds. "This is not about building crowds, instead it's about going out and meeting people sharing his ideas and his vision for the country with as many people as possible. Rather than being an event, it's a process of engaging on many of these ideas and issues."

The Republican party is searching for a new standard bearer, as polls show it is on track to make big gains in this year's mid-term elections.

Mitt Romney wants to make sure his name is more than just part of that discussion.

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124227822

Exclusive interview with Robert Pattinson! Rob talks Remember Me, Bel Ami, and what makes him happy!

athena4rob — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:00:21 -0800

There's a few indirect spoilers in this so if you wnat to remain spoil-free,don't read this Yesterday I attended a roundtable interview with Robert Pattinson for his upcoming romantic drama Remember Me. I’m a new writer at Collider and it was my first time attending a press junket and participating in a roundtable interview. Let’s just say it was an interesting experience. Anyway, in the coming days, expect more from the junket and I’ll also be contributing TV and film news.Since Rob was there to talk about Remember Me, I was only able to get a small bit of information for you Twilight fans. But about Remember Me, Rob was very passionate about the film and seemed very eager to dive deep into his character, Tyler Hawkins. He spent a lot of time unfolding the elements of Tyler, and discovering how much he had in common with him. Hit the jump for everything Rob had to say. Remember Me gets released March 12.

Was there a time where you were sitting with Alan Coulter and the producer and something clicked for you? Can you talk about why you were attracted to this character, and about taking that step to produce?

Robert Pattinson: Well, the producing thing. (laughs) I’m kind of embarrassed about the producing thing because I wasn’t really acting like a proper producer. I only really came on after the shoot just to kind of help Alan and Nick make sure that the product was what the product in which we all wanted to make in the end. It was the summer after the first Twilight thing. I read it then and I met with Alan and Nick. I thought they were really great, and I talked to them for hours about it. I think basically what I commented to them about was, what shocked me was I was reading a ton of scripts and it just didn’t fall into any, the way the dialogue was written and the plot was structured, it didn’t fit into any kind of normal category. It didn’t seem very formulaic. I had just read tons and tons of formulaic scripts in one genre or another and it was just such a relief to find that. There was also something about Tyler, the way he reacted to things seemed very relatable to me, and I hadn’t seen another character like it in like 100 scripts. So that’s why when the period came up between New Moon and Eclipse, we only had two months, you can’t really do that much, it’s difficult to find a movie which can fit in such a short period. It seemed like the perfect fit.

He’s a rebellious character, especially against his father. Were you attracted to that idea?

Pattinson: I mean, I don’t know if it was so much about just the rebellion that interested me. I liked how it seemed like Tyler didn’t really know what he was rebelling against. It seemed like no matter what his father was like, no matter what everyone around him is like, he’d still be rebelling. There was one interesting thing, I liked how he wasn’t fighting against everybody, he only chose to fight against his father. I think it was a pretty broken family to begin with, and I think he just takes out all of his rage on his father because his father is the only one who can take it. I mean if he tried to attack his mother, she’d probably end up killing herself or something. She’s too wounded to be able to take that. I don’t think it’s particularly typical rebel. It just comes in fits and starts all the time, so I think he’s kind of faking it. I think what he’s really rebelling against is himself.Were there any scenes that were cut from the movie that you wished stayed?
Pattinson: I don’t know, I haven’t seen the final cut. (laughs)
What was your favorite scene to film, then?
Pattinson: I like the scene where Tyler confronts his little sister’s bullies. Basically because I kind of fancy which I would have myself just kind of being the tough guy. Actually there was more of a take that was cut out, or they didn’t use. When I pushed the little girls desk that was bullying her, and the first take I pushed it too hard and she fell on the floor and the desk on her. She looked absolutely terrified after, and it just became this turn into a psychopath. (laughs) And they had to cut it out, because they were like “you wouldn’t just go to jail for vandalism, you’d go for child abuse.” (laughs) That would really change the story. That was quite fun.
Both characters seem to really be embracing life, and I think audiences will really come away with that. What do you think is the overall feeling around love. What will people learn from watching this film?
Pattinson: I think one of the things, which I always liked about it, is that he doesn’t. Like when you meet someone who you feel whatever for, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s a finish line, and that’s like “oh you’ll be alright now afterwards.” I think that worked in the relationship with Allie and Tyler. I think it’s to show that its sort of ok to have, if you just have one moment of happiness, where you can feel that you’re happy, even if it just lasts for a minute. It’s worth a lot. Because I think people now, everyone does all of these things because they think they should be happy like all the time. Doing therapy, and taking anti-depressants and all of these things. If you’re happy all of the time, it’s difficult to acknowledge when you actually are happy.
What makes you happy?
Pattinson: I don’t know. It’s like these weird little things. It’s like what I was trying to put across in the movie, when funny little things happen, it’s not just meeting Allie, it’s all of these things kind of melds together and it hits you from left field, and you’re just like “oh yeah, I’m happy” (laughs)
This movie is so steep. The locations are amazing in the film, and it feels so authentically New York. What’s interesting to me is so much of the cast aren’t New Yorkers and don’t have a New York accent, and you’re Brooklyn accent is on point. I wonder if, working on that, what kind of research you did, or if you knew a lot about New York in 2001. And what it was like to film in the streets of New York?
Pattinson: My sister lived in New York for like 5 years and I used to go visit her all the time. I don’t know. When I read the script there seemed to be a sort of voice that was just there as soon as you read it. I’ve never had a dialect coach or anything. Ironically I’ve only had a dialect coach for this film I’m doing now, which I’m doing now in an English accent. (laughs) I guess I’ve forgotten how to do an English accent.
But what was it like for you to film in Queens, at NYU, what was that like?
Pattinson: It was nice. Obviously it was great for doing stuff at NYU, you’re filming at NYU, which is perfect. I like this bar, I went in there a few times before we starting shooting. That’s not really research. (laughing) Oh yeah I just went to a couple of bars. (laughs)
So that was a sum total of your New York research?
Pattinson: (laughs) No, I mean it was nice. I was sort of staying, it’s difficult to go out and stuff there at the time. I’ve gone out more in New York since. There’s funny little things which happened, experiences which I had in New York which were put into the script. Like a friend of mine, the whole fight in the beginning, how that was all set up, it happened to a friend of mine the day before we did the rewrites to the script. We were down in Alphabet City, and this guy jumped out of the car with a little mini baseball bat and just hit my friend in the face. The whole thing. It was literally the day before. The whole thing was put into the movie. (laughing) Annoyingly, I didn’t react in the same way. (laughing)
You ran?
Pattinson: (laughing) I didn’t see what was happening until it was too late. (laughs) Even when the police asked me, they asked all the people around to give a testimony. The police looked at me and was like “oh it’s alright you don’t have to give one”, and it was because of the Twilight thing. I was like “no, I want to give a testimony!” (laughing) “I want to be a witness!”
Alan spoke a lot about your focus that you had to maintain while shooting because of the constant paparazzi attention and the screaming fans. What was that like for you to shoot such an emotional movie under the eye of people Twittering about it, and people screaming at you?
Pattinson: It’s like the first two weeks were kind of crazy, because I was all around NYU and Washington Square park and there’d be tons of people around anyway. I think it was annoying people as well, that all of these crowds came and disrupted peoples days, so that was really difficult at the beginning. But, I think after that you just get used to it. You just block certain things out. I was trying to figure out a way to use the sort of rage that was built up, but you couldn’t really use it for that character. If the same thing had happened during this movie that I’m doing now, it would have been perfect and I could have gone around hitting paparazzi and stuff and it would have been great because I would have been staying in character. (laughs) But it didn’t really work for Tyler, he’s not that kind of guy.
Do you see yourself trying to sort of make a big gap between Twilight and everything else you do so people realize there this…something so different from the phenomenon that everybody focus on?More to you…
Pattinson: No, I don’t really focus on trying to do it, I don’t think. I pick scripts the same way, I think, that I’ve always done. I barely like anything, and so it’s kind of easy to pick your jobs. The things which I’m signed onto now are all completely different. Like I’m playing a white Comanche in one thing and the parts completely in Comanche. Bel Ami is, I thought there was a kind of irony in Bel Ami as well, because a lot of the women are attracted to this character and then he kind of screws them over and steals their money and stuff. (laughs) Which I thought was quite funny compared to the Twilight character. (laughing) It’s kind of the polar opposite. It wasn’t intentional, I just thought Bel Ami was very funny, and it’s a very interesting character. With Remember Me, I’d never done a simple story before, and it’s not that simple, but its playing a normal guy and trying to relate to things on a normal level it’s kind of relief in a lot of ways.
It reminded me of James Dean on a slight, with the rebel without a cause. Did you think of him in sort of a classical way? When you said he’s rebelling against himself, that this is just someone who’s just someone who’s sort of in a fury about the way the world is.
Pattinson: I think it’s a fairly typical state to be in. I think there’s that element, but I was also interested in the kind of, in Tyler there was a lot of elements of sort of arrogance things about him, which I thought were quite interesting. To have a loss in your family, and then I think a lot of the fighting in his family is because he feels like the attention has kind of gone off of him a bit. You have these petty things, which turn you into this iconic rebel or whatever, and it’s just based on these silly things, kind of like almost despicable emotions that you have about it. I tried to make that apparent in Remember Me. There’s a reason why James Dean stereotype is so common, especially in actors, I think. I think its pretty real. It’s also an ideal for young guys I think. I think, anyway. Because as soon as you stop struggling against something, what have you got to do? That’s the whole point being young, struggling against things.
Your chemistry with the younger sister character was so strong. Can you talk about what you had to do, and if there was anything different you had to do finding that with a child actor?
Pattinson: She did everything; I mean completely. On the first day I met her. Me, Alan, and Emilie were sitting around discussing our scenes together and she hadn’t really said anything, and I kind of asked just to be nice. I was just like [ducking his head down and talking just above a whisper] “so, you know what do you think about it?” And she’s sitting there with her pencil and engaged in this whole diatribe of her characters back story and everything, and in the most interesting way. And she’d be writing notes, about all of the stuff we were saying, like quoting what we were saying. She’s phenomenal. She’s going to be a massive actress, I think. She’s the best improviser I’ve ever met. You can literally say anything to her, and she’ll completely stay in character. Even if the camera is not on her, she’ll stay completely in character the whole time. Also, she’s no actressy as well. She’s kind of like one of those weird, hyper-intelligent, hyper-mature kid. Then I saw her with her little friends and just like a little girl when you see her with her friends. I just don’t understand how that happens at all. She’s so easy to act with, you don’t have to do anything, just look at her. It’s the first time since the day I began acting where I just feel completely unselfconscious, because I could feel that she wasn’t at all and it rubs off on me. I love when she was like “you’re so retarted” (laughs) That’s just an 11 year old girl thing to say.
How was it to work with Emilie?
Pattinson: She’s great, yeah. And completely different to what I…what I thought was going to be cast.
Are you a fan of LOST?
Pattinson: I’ve never seen it
What are your thoughts on the Breaking Dawn being two films?Pattinson: I really don’t mind either way.

Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs

Roarman — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:42:41 -0800

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives - potentially for years to come.

Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

Here in Southern California, Jean Eisen has been without work since she lost her job selling beauty salon equipment more than two years ago. In the several months she has endured with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check, she has relied on local food banks for her groceries.

She has learned to live without the prescription medications she is supposed to take for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She has become effusively religious - an unexpected turn for this onetime standup comic with X-rated material - finding in Christianity her only form of health insurance.

“I pray for healing,” says Ms. Eisen, 57. “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got to go with what you know.”

Warm, outgoing and prone to the positive, Ms. Eisen has worked much of her life. Now, she is one of 6.3 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer, the largest number since the government began keeping track in 1948. That is more than double the toll in the next-worst period, in the early 1980s.

Men have suffered the largest numbers of job losses in this recession. But Ms. Eisen has the unfortunate distinction of being among a group - women from 45 to 64 years of age - whose long-term unemployment rate has grown rapidly.

In 1983, after a deep recession, women in that range made up only 7 percent of those who had been out of work for six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. Last year, they made up 14 percent.

Twice, Ms. Eisen exhausted her unemployment benefits before her check was restored by a federal extension. Last week, her check ran out again. She and her husband now settle their bills with only his $1,595 monthly disability check. The rent on their apartment is $1,380.

“We’re looking at the very real possibility of being homeless,” she said.

Every downturn pushes some people out of the middle class before the economy resumes expanding. Most recover. Many prosper. But some economists worry that this time could be different. An unusual constellation of forces - some embedded in the modern-day economy, others unique to this wrenching recession - might make it especially difficult for those out of work to find their way back to their middle-class lives.

Labor experts say the economy needs 100,000 new jobs a month just to absorb entrants to the labor force. With more than 15 million people officially jobless, even a vigorous recovery is likely to leave an enormous number out of work for years.

Some labor experts note that severe economic downturns are generally followed by powerful expansions, suggesting that aggressive hiring will soon resume. But doubts remain about whether such hiring can last long enough to absorb anywhere close to the millions of unemployed.

A New Scarcity of Jobs

Some labor experts say the basic functioning of the American economy has changed in ways that make jobs scarce - particularly for older, less-educated people like Ms. Eisen, who has only a high school diploma.

Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 - the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks.

“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.”

During periods of American economic expansion in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, the number of private-sector jobs increased about 3.5 percent a year, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, a research firm. During expansions in the 1980s and ’90s, jobs grew just 2.4 percent annually. And during the last decade, job growth fell to 0.9 percent annually.

“The pace of job growth has been getting weaker in each expansion,” Mr. Achuthan said. “There is no indication that this pattern is about to change.”

Before 1990, it took an average of 21 months for the economy to regain the jobs shed during a recession, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the National Employment Law Project and the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research group in Washington.

After the recessions in 1990 and in 2001, 31 and 46 months passed before employment returned to its previous peaks. The economy was growing, but companies remained conservative in their hiring.

Some 34 million people were hired into new and existing private-sector jobs in 2000, at the tail end of an expansion, according to Labor Department data. A year later, in the midst of recession, hiring had fallen off to 31.6 million. And as late as 2003, with the economy again growing, hiring in the private sector continued to slip, to 29.8 million.

It was a jobless recovery: Business was picking up, but it simply did not translate into more work. This time, hiring may be especially subdued, labor economists say.

Traditionally, three sectors have led the way out of recession: automobiles, home building and banking. But auto companies have been shrinking because strapped households have less buying power. Home building is limited by fears about a glut of foreclosed properties. Banking is expanding, but this seems largely a function of government support that is being withdrawn.

At the same time, the continued bite of the financial crisis has crimped the flow of money to small businesses and new ventures, which tend to be major sources of new jobs.

All of which helps explain why Ms. Eisen - who has never before struggled to find work - feels a familiar pain each time she scans job listings on her computer: There are positions in health care, most requiring experience she lacks. Office jobs demand familiarity with software she has never used. Jobs at fast food restaurants are mostly secured by young people and immigrants.

If, as Mr. Sinai expects, the economy again expands without adding many jobs, millions of people like Ms. Eisen will be dependent on an unemployment insurance already being severely tested.

“The system was ill prepared for the reality of long-term unemployment,” said Maurice Emsellem, a policy director for the National Employment Law Project. “Now, you add a severe recession, and you have created a crisis of historic proportions.”

Fewer Protections

Some poverty experts say the broader social safety net is not up to cushioning the impact of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Social services are less extensive than during the last period of double-digit unemployment, in the early 1980s.

On average, only two-thirds of unemployed people received state-provided unemployment checks last year, according to the Labor Department. The rest either exhausted their benefits, fell short of requirements or did not apply.

“You have very large sets of people who have no social protections,” said Randy Albelda, an economist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “They are landing in this netherworld.”

When Ms. Eisen and her husband, Jeff, applied for food stamps, they were turned away for having too much monthly income. The cutoff was $1,570 a month - $25 less than her husband’s disability check.

Reforms in the mid-1990s imposed time limits on cash assistance for poor single mothers, a change predicated on the assumption that women would trade welfare checks for paychecks.

Yet as jobs have become harder to get, so has welfare: as of 2006, 44 states cut off anyone with a household income totaling 75 percent of the poverty level - then limited to $1,383 a month for a family of three - according to an analysis by Ms. Albelda.

“We have a work-based safety net without any work,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “People with more education and skills will probably figure something out once the economy picks up. It’s the ones with less education and skills: that’s the new poor.”

Here in Orange County, the expanse of suburbia stretching south from Los Angeles, long-term unemployment reaches even those who once had six-figure salaries. A center of the national mortgage industry, the area prospered in the real estate boom and suffered with the bust.

Until she was laid off two years ago, Janine Booth, 41, brought home roughly $10,000 a month in commissions from her job selling electronics to retailers. A single mother of three, she has been living lately on $2,000 a month in child support and about $450 a week in unemployment insurance - a stream of checks that ran out last week.

For Ms. Booth, work has been a constant since her teenage years, when she cleaned houses under pressure from her mother to earn pocket money. Today, Ms. Booth pays her $1,500 monthly mortgage with help from her mother, who is herself living off savings after being laid off.

“I don’t want to take money from her,” Ms. Booth said. “I just want to find a job.”

Ms. Booth, with a résumé full of well-paid sales jobs, seems the sort of person who would have little difficulty getting work. Yet two years of looking have yielded little but anxiety.

She sends out dozens of résumés a week and rarely hears back. She responds to online ads, only to learn they are seeking operators for telephone sex lines or people willing to send mysterious packages from their homes.

She spends weekdays in a classroom in Anaheim, in a state-financed training program that is supposed to land her a job in medical administration. Even if she does find a job, she will be lucky if it pays $15 an hour.

“What is going to happen?” she asked plaintively. “I worry about my kids. I just don’t want them to think I’m a failure.”

On a recent weekend, she was running errands with her 18-year-old son when they stopped at an A.T.M. and he saw her checking account balance: $50.

“He says, ‘Is that all you have?’ ” she recalled. “ ‘Are we going to be O.K.?’ ”

Yes, she replied - and not only for his benefit.

“I have to keep telling myself it’s going to be O.K.,” she said. “Otherwise, I’d go into a deep depression.”

Last week, she made up fliers advertising her eagerness to clean houses - the same activity that provided her with spending money in high school, and now the only way she sees fit to provide for her kids. She plans to place the fliers on porches in some other neighborhood.

“I don’t want to clean my neighbors’ houses,” she said. “I know I’m going to come out of this. There’s no way I’m going to be homeless and poverty-stricken. But I am scared. I have a lot of sleepless nights.”

For the Eisens, poverty is already here. In the two years Ms. Eisen has been without work, they have exhausted their savings of about $24,000. Their credit card balances have grown to $15,000.

“I don’t know how we’re still indoors,” she said.

Her 1994 Dodge Caravan broke down in January, leaving her to ask for rides to an employment center.

She does not have the money to move to a cheaper apartment.

“You have to have money for first and last month’s rent, and to open utility accounts,” she said.

What she has is personality and presence - two traits that used to seem enough. She narrates her life in a stream of self-deprecating wisecracks, her punch lines tinged with desperation.

“See that,” she said, spotting a man dressed as the Statue of Liberty. Standing on a sidewalk, he waved at passing cars with a sign advertising a tax preparation business. “That will be me next week. Do you think this guy ever thought he’d be doing this?”

And yet, she would gladly do this. She would do nearly anything.

“There are no bad jobs now,” she says. “Any job is a good job.”

She has applied everywhere she can think of - at offices, at gas stations. Nothing.

“I’m being seen as a person who is no longer viable,” she said. “I’m chalking it up to my age and my weight. Blame it on your most prominent insecurity.”

Two Incomes, Then None

Ms. Eisen grew up poor, in Flatbush in Brooklyn. Her father was in maintenance. Her mother worked part time at a company that made window blinds.

She married Jeff when she was 19, and they soon moved to California, where he had grown up. He worked in sales for a chemical company. They rented an apartment in Buena Park, a growing spread of houses filling out former orange groves. She stayed home and took care of their daughter.

“I never asked him how much he earned,” Ms. Eisen said. “I was of the mentality that the husband took care of everything. But we never wanted.”

By the early 1980s, gas and rent strained their finances. So she took a job as a quality assurance clerk at a factory that made aircraft parts. It paid $13.50 an hour and had health insurance.

When the company moved to Mexico in the early 1990s, Ms. Eisen quickly found a job at a travel agency. When online booking killed that business, she got the job at the beauty salon equipment company. It paid $13.25 an hour, with an annual bonus - enough for presents under the Christmas tree.

But six years ago, her husband took a fall at work and then succumbed to various ailments - diabetes, liver disease, high blood pressure - leaving him confined to the couch. Not until 2008 did he secure his disability check.

And now they find themselves in this desert of joblessness, her paycheck replaced by a $702 unemployment check every other week. She received 14 weeks of benefits after she lost her job, and then a seven-week extension.

For most of October through December 2008, she received nothing, as she waited for another extension. The checks came again, then ran out in September 2009. They were restored by an extension right before Christmas.

Their daughter has back problems and is living on disability checks, making the church their ultimate safety net.

“I never thought I’d be in the position where I had to go to a food bank,” Ms. Eisen said. But there she is, standing in the parking lot of the Calvary Chapel church, chatting with a half-dozen women, all waiting to enter the Bread of Life Food Pantry.

When her name is called, she steps into a windowless alcove, where a smiling woman hands her three bags of groceries: carrots, potatoes, bread, cheese and a hunk of frozen meat.

“Haven’t we got a lot to be thankful for?” Ms. Eisen asks.

For one thing, no pinto beans.

“I’ve got 10 bags of pinto beans,” she says. “And I have no clue how to cook a pinto bean.”

Local job listings are just as mysterious. On a bulletin board at the county-financed ProPath Business and Career Services Center, many are written in jargon hinting of accounting or computers.

“Nothing I’m qualified for,” Ms. Eisen says. “When you can’t define what it is, that’s a pretty good indication.”

Her counselor has a couple of possibilities - a cashier at a supermarket and a night desk job at a motel.

“I’ll e-mail them,” Ms. Eisen promises. “I’ll tell them what a shining example of humanity I am.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/business/economy/21unemployed.html?sq=... New Poor&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all

Get Fit For 2010: How I Learned to Love Running

Fit Community — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:00:42 -0800

Hurrah! We made it through another week of the Get Fit For 2010 giveaway. It's been great to read everyone's progress reports. Check out FitSugar user sfmalinali's inspiring post on how she found her love of running.

I just completed my first organized run - a 4-mile Run For Haiti event in NYC and I loved it! I finished in about 40 minutes, which is not too bad considering there were thousands of people running. I feel great and super ready and stoked for the half marathon I'm signed up to do in April.

I never thought that I would enjoy running. All my life I've been pretty active but running was my enemy. I played soccer for 10 years but hated running at practice. Since I was a defensive player, I hardly did any running during the games. If I did run, it was short and quick. It also helped that I was running for a purpose: to stop the ball or the player on the other team. Long distance running just sounded awful and boring, but look at me now - I love it!

To see how her weight loss is going and what she's given up for Lent, read more.

As for my weight loss, I have lost 10-pounds since January, which is great. The weight I gained from dealing with a heartbreak and moving has finally come off and I am ready to shed more. I am hoping to lose 10-15 more pounds before the half marathon.

I've been pretty good about eating but I definitely have my bad days. I think sticking to a healthy diet is the hardest part for me. I buy healthy food but it's so easy to eat unhealthy in NYC. Every restaurant delivers, and since I'm a grad student and also have emotional days, I end up eating out more than I should. Compared to last year, I don't do it as much so it is an improvement.

Overall, I feel great and I want to keep up this excitement. (I also gave up cigarettes for Lent. Hopefully it will continue even after Lent ends.)

Great job, sfmalinali! We'd love to hear about your exercise life, so join our Get Fit For 2010 community group and write a blog post about what workouts work for you! By participating, you'll not only be on your way to a healthier you, but you'll also be entered into the drawing for our weekly giveaway of a $100 Nike gift card as well as an awesome grand prize.

Good question Nancy, what did Obana's people say about it?

Grandpa — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:43:19 -0800

Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?

August 1, 2003

Washington, D.C. -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in July and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since President Bush took office:

“The fact is that President Bush’s misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since President Bush took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job.

“Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families. While Democrats are fighting for opportunity, jobs, and economic security for working families, Republicans continue to focus on helping those who need help the least.

“According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high. In addition, the unemployment rate for African Americans was still over 11 percent in July, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.2 percent in July.

“It is time for President Bush and the Republicans to get to work for all Americans, not just the elite few.”

http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/Aug03/prWherearetheJobs080103...

PetCo, Bento Boxes and Weight Loss

HappyKate — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:07:46 -0700

I have been VERY busy with my new job at PetCo. So far I am enjoying working there, they (at least my store) take immaculate care of the animals and everyone that I work with is really great!

Another plus besides finally gaining on the money front is that I am so busy running around at work that I am staying in good shape even when I don't get a chance to jog. Which by the way has been going really well when I get a chance, even if it is only once a week or so.

A while back (about a year ago) I got really into Bento box making. I over the summer I never really had an opportunity to make them, but now that I am back to work I make them all the time! I don't know why I have never talked about them before because they are a great fun way to watch portions and get all of those healthy foods in!

For those who do not know packing a bento box is a Japanese practice. When making a bento you should strive to incorporate a range of colour and beauty with the foods. I have been dying to show you some photos of my cute boxes but my memory card for my camera is acting funny and won't read. So until I get a new one you will have to do with some random photos of bentos like mine (but are not made by me). A great sight that can enlighten you to more is....

http://community.livejournal.com/bentolunch/
oh and another is...
http://www.cookingcute.com/aboutbento.htm

Anyways between work and my bentos full of great foods in proper portions I have been doing great! (Did I mention that bentos are FUN to make!

180lbs starting weight
149.0lbs current
31lbs lost
8lbs to my healthy range
14lbs to go till my goal of 135lbs
5'3" height

Not bad! I am sooo excited and I feel great! Defiantly some bento pics to come, when I get a new card or find my other one!

Traditional Bento

Modern American Bento, thanks to Jokergirl

Cute bento with great colour, thanks to pikkopots

Cute Hello Kitty bento! Thanks to Trekkiegirl

They Still Don’t Get It

Tulipe — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:45:02 -0800

January 23, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
By BOB HERBERT

How loud do the alarms have to get? There is an economic emergency in the country with millions upon millions of Americans riddled with fear and anxiety as they struggle with long-term joblessness, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and dwindling opportunities for themselves and their children.

The door is being slammed on the American dream and the politicians, including the president and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, seem not just helpless to deal with the crisis, but completely out of touch with the hardships that have fallen on so many.

While the nation was suffering through the worst economy since the Depression, the Democrats wasted a year squabbling like unruly toddlers over health insurance legislation. No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

The public interest? Forget about it.

With the power elite consumed with its incessant, discordant fiddling over health care, the economic plight of ordinary Americans, from the middle class to the very poor, got pathetically short shrift. And there is no evidence, even now, that leaders of either party fully grasp the depth of the crisis, which began long before the official start of the Great Recession in December 2007.

A new study from the Brookings Institution tells us that the largest and fastest-growing population of poor people in the U.S. is in the suburbs. You don’t hear about this from the politicians who are always so anxious to tell you, in between fund-raisers and photo-ops, what a great job they’re doing. From 2000 to 2008, the number of poor people in the U.S. grew by 5.2 million, reaching nearly 40 million. That represented an increase of 15.4 percent in the poor population, which was more than twice the increase in the population as a whole during that period.

The study does not include data from 2009, when so many millions of families were just hammered by the recession. So the reality is worse than the Brookings figures would indicate.

Job losses, stagnant or reduced wages over the past decade, and the loss of home equity when the housing bubble burst have combined to take a horrendous toll on families who thought they had done all the right things and were living the dream. A great deal of that bleeding is in the suburbs. The study, compiled by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, said, “Suburbs gained more than 2.5 million poor individuals, accounting for almost half of the total increase in the nation’s poor population since 2000.”

Democrats in search of clues as to why voters are unhappy may want to take a look at the report. In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people - more than 30 percent of the entire U.S. population - fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which is a meager $21,834 for a family of four.

The question for Democrats is whether there is anything that will wake them up to their obligation to extend a powerful hand to ordinary Americans and help them take the government, including the Supreme Court, back from the big banks, the giant corporations and the myriad other predatory interests that put the value of a dollar high above the value of human beings.

The Democrats still hold the presidency and large majorities in both houses of Congress. The idea that they are not spending every waking hour trying to fix the broken economic system and put suffering Americans back to work is beyond pathetic. Deficit reduction is now the mantra in Washington, which means that new large-scale investments in infrastructure and other measures to ease the employment crisis and jump-start the most promising industries of the 21st century are highly unlikely.

What we’ll get instead is rhetoric. It’s cheap, so we can expect a lot of it.

Those at the bottom of the economic heap seem all but doomed in this environment. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston put the matter in stark perspective after analyzing the employment challenges facing young people in Chicago: “Labor market conditions for 16-19 and 20-24-year-olds in the city of Chicago in 2009 are the equivalent of a Great Depression-era, especially for young black men.”

The Republican Party has abandoned any serious approach to the nation’s biggest problems, economic or otherwise. It may be resurgent, but it’s not a serious party. That leaves only the Democrats, a party that once championed working people and the poor, but has long since lost its way.

Twitter terror? Man arrested for venting about canceled flight.

MartiniLush — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:44:04 -0800

Since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attempted bombing of a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, full-body scanners have been introduced at many airports worldwide, but the increasingly paranoid world of terror prevention appears to be spreading its tentacles right into homes and workplaces, via the Internet.

Paul Chambers of Doncaster, England, now knows this all too well. He was arrested for making an off-color joke on the popular social networking website Twitter amid frustration with flight cancellations at his local airport caused by icy conditions.
Mr. Chambers says he posted the message, which reads in part: "Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to [fix the problem], otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky-high!!" He had planned to fly to Ireland to visit a friend.

Now, he's facing terrorism charges and the possible loss of his job. Chambers has also been banned for life from Robin Hood airport. A spokesperson said the airport supported the police's actions.

In this first instance of an arrest in Britain for making comments on Twitter, Chambers's remarks appear to have been brought to police attention by a third party: he was arrested on Jan. 13, a full seven days after posting the comment.

The arrest came as a shock to Chambers, who has since been suspended from his job as a finance supervisor.

"All together, five officers were there. One said [we're] arresting you under the Terrorism Act because of a tweet you sent, and he showed me a copy of my tweet. I didn't realize the gravity of the situation. I was stuck in a cell, processed, fingerprint[ed]," he said in an interview, after he was released on bail.

Chambers was arrested at his workplace and held in a police vehicle while officers searched his car for explosives. He was then taken to a police station in the town of Doncaster and questioned by detectives from the criminal investigation department. He was released on bail late on Jan. 13 pending further investigation.

The arrest was under aegis of the Terrorism Act (2006), Britain's controversial version of the Patriot Act. The Terrorism Act gives police sweeping powers of arrest and the right to detain suspects up to 28 days without charge. The Act politically damaged former British Prime Minister Tony Blair when members of his Labor Party rebelled against initial plans to allow authorities to hold suspects for up to 90 days.

Chambers, who has no legal counsel of his own, was provided with state legal aid by GV Hale and Company solicitors. Andy Blennerhassett, a solicitor at the firm, declined to comment "while the investigation is still going on."

Privacy advocates say the police action crossed a line. Though Chambers's remark was ill-advised, a simple investigation should have showed he was not a threat, they argue.

Tessa Mayes, author of "Restraint or Revelation: Free Speech and Privacy in a Confessional Age," says authorities do not appreciate jokes: "We live increasingly in a no-laughs-allowed age. In a democracy, our right to say what we please to each other should be non-negotiable – even on Twitter," she says.

Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent, says the arrest wasn't surprising. "Arresting people in order to make a point is one of the features of contemporary 'impression policing,'" says the author of "Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown." "It is arbitrary, petty, and intrusive and of course has absolutely nothing to do with curbing the behavior of those who represent a real threat to people's lives," says Furedi.

Others say the arrest was appropriate. Counterterrorism expert Andy Oppenheimer argues the police had to take notice.

“Regardless of what you think of the law," Oppenheimer says, "if you say anything in the public domain you’ve only got yourself to blame. People are trying to address the terrorist threat, and people making jokes like this muddy the water.”

But Chambers says the workplace arrest, which has him facing potential charges and also the sack, failed to take account of his personal background; the accounting student has no links to militant organizations.

"I'm the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine," says Chambers.

The Irish friend Chambers was hoping to visit, who asked that her name not be used, didn’t initially believe he had been arrested.

"He phoned me and told me the story, I thought he was joking,” she says. “I'm angry at how the whole thing has been dealt with by the police. If they had looked into it properly before they could have avoided all of this – and saved taxpayers’ money.”

Other European nations are also jittery over terrorism, but this does not appear to deter all Europeans from making off-color jokes at transportation hubs. A German man was temporarily detained at Stuttgart airport Tuesday after he jokingly told security personnel he had explosives in his underwear.

Source