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.

The New Poor – Despite Signs of Recovery, Long-Term Unemployment Rises – Series – NYTimes.com

Even during the Bush years when we often heard that the economy was strong, we knew that something was not right. It never seemed to trickle down to the level where it mattered the most. The GDP was up but many of our neighbors were down. The article calls them the new poor but as we all know in times of economic down turn it is the already poor who suffer even more.

I’ve always found it sad that banks will prey on the poor with sub prime mortgages and even underwrite pay day lenders. Yet they will not open up branches in areas that desperately need it. It’s the same thing with actual grocery stores. Many lower income areas suffer from the lack of  this essential business as well.

State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, who represents the area, said Van Nest’s banking problem is one reason the business community is less vibrant than neighboring Morris Park’s, which can boast of several bank branches.

“I don’t think you can have a thriving business community without a bank in the area,” Mr. Klein said. “They really need a bank to serve as the anchor for the community.”

I like reading Robert Reich. I’ve read two of his books and when he writes a column I tend to read it. As far as economic writers go I like him and Robert Kuttner. Of course there are others like Barbara Ehrenreich that I like as well, but I digress.

Reading Reich’s piece in Huffington Post he states that there is a forty percent likelihood of a jobless recovery.

Jobless recovery (40 percent). The stimulus remains in full force, the Fed keeps interest rates low, firms replace inventories and expand production. But with the average workweek hovering around 33 hours, employers don’t add new jobs; they just have current workers put in more hours. Result: No drop in unemployment.

The most startling development for the anti-usury campaign is the endorsement from the CEO of Citigroup, Vikram Pandit. Like other leading banks, Citi has been kicking up its credit-card rates as high as 30 percent, even as Citi is kept afloat with billions from the taxpayers. Nonetheless, Pandit told editorial writers at the Boston Globe he would support a legal ceiling on interest rates if it is applied industry-wide. “Were completely in support of having a rational rate structure.” Pandit said.

The Citigroup executive did not endorse a specific ceiling, but cited the example of the 10 percent credit cards his bank introduced several years ago, believing other banks would follow and lower their rates too when they didnt, Citi lost money in the venture. The Globes exchange with Pandit was most likely inspired by news stories about the anti-usury actions in Boston.

via Stop Usury Now.

This is a most interesting concept. It would ensure that repayment was more feasible for a larger group of people. When you let interest rates skyrocket the defaults are bound to follow.

I’m reading Progress and Poverty by Henry George (the techie in me was happy to find a .pdf file and convert it to mobipocket for my Kindle with the mobipocket creator software) and I found a few clippings I wanted to share.

Investigation reveals that differences in civilization are not due to differences in individuals or races, but rather to differences in social organization. Progress is always kindled by association. And civilization always declines as inequality develops.

Then there’s this…

Unpleasant as it may be to admit, it is at last becoming evident that progress has no tendency to reduce poverty. The great fact is, poverty, with all its ills, appears whenever progress reaches a certain stage. Poverty is, in some way, produced by progress itself.

It’s like a paradox in some ways. As progress goes on the more inequality rises until civilization declines. That is unless you find a way to ensure that progress does not exclude but includes everyone!

The background is that China was flooding the US market with cheap tires, costing thousands of American jobs and forcing factories to close. Our agreement when China joined the WTO was that we could impose a tariff when “disruptions” occurred, and this was a disruption. President Bush refused to enforce trade agreements and we suffered 8 years of job loss and factory closings, but President Obama enforced it, and we are already seeing jobs return.

via Obama Enforced Trade Agreement – Jobs Already Returning | OurFuture.org.

Bush was such a free market ideologue that he would stoop so low as to not enforce a trade agreement that happened when China entered the WTO in 2001–when he was president. Now that the agreement is actually being enforced 100 jobs are being created.

I was watching the Today Show this morning where they did a segment on the Starkey School. I first read about this school in Robert Frank’s book Richistan. It is rather depressing to me to see people who publicly state that they were having trouble finding work or decided against going back to school for four years—taking this route. Sure they will be very well paid to be “household managers.” Yet, this ultimately tells me one important thing. We are becoming more and more economically polarized. You have the rich who live in Richistan and then everyone else. If this keeps up and the Obama administration is not able to save the middle class, then we will just have the rich and the very poor.

That said, Mr. Sanders’s philosophy seems sensible. Breaking up the biggest financial firms would remove unfair subsidies in the form of implicit government backing, sharply reduce systemic risk, and perhaps foster greater competition. Given the poor performance of some of the biggest financial conglomerates, it might even benefit shareholders. It’s quite a show of capitalist sympathies from a Green Mountain socialist.

via Breakingviews.com – Wells Fargo’s Big Dilemma – NYTimes.com.

He calls it the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act. If you’re too big you’ll get chopped up!

James is awaiting final approval on his visa to Korea. The hagwon, a special school for learning English, has hired him for about $1,000 a month plus living expenses. He explains that it’s the best he can do: even the Korean English-teaching market, which used to hire any college graduate with a pulse for $2,000 a month or better, is now saturated with grads hoping for an economy-class transpacific ticket and a fresh start.

via The New Okies: Brain Drain in Class of ‘09.

I wondered when this would actually start happening. It is depressing. Actually, in a sarcastic critique of neoliberalism I used to say if US based corporations were laying people off to outsource and offshore to foreign nations, then maybe some other country would want the laid off US workers. I said it sarcastically because I would rather there be jobs in the United States for people. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be the case.

“I feel great about the change,” said Mr. Muniz, now a salesman at a police goods store. “The neighborhood was hot during the crack era. It was a terrible time. You see it now, the Bronx has changed. I’m amazed at how it looks now.”

via Bronx Park South Journal – A Desolate Princess of the Bronx? Not Then, Not Now – NYTimes.com.

I was born and lived in the Bronx until I was eighteen. In 1997,  my mother had saved up and moved us to Westchester County, NY in Hartsdale (in the Town of Greenburgh, NY). It was the best thing she ever did for my sister and I. Though I did not live in the area this article talks about, the Wakefield area was not much better.

When I was going to high school in the Bronx I was surrounded by a lot of negative elements and had been heading in the wrong direction. Of course I’m not entirely absolved of responsibility for the direction I was headed in, but I was also a teenager. It took me moving to a new area to see what was important. Finishing high school in Greenburgh, NY allowed me to eventually find what I consider to be my calling, and that is, political and advocacy related work. After high school I sort of headed off into another direction with what I was studying &c., but I eventually I found my way back to working in the area that I discovered I liked in high school. I must also add that after working in retail and retail banking, while going to a two-year college at  night, I also developed my immense dislike of corporate power and the financial obstacles thrown up in seeking a higher education, but I digress from the main subject of the Bronx.

Growing up in the Bronx was also tough for me because I was not one of the “tough or cool kids.” I admit to being constantly bullied in my neighborhood and in school. It has had long lasting effects on me even up to now. If you could not fight people immediately preyed upon you. I am still tormented by the nicknames once hurled at my person.

It is needless to say that I have no good thoughts about the Bronx. I’ve cut all ties to people I knew then. I don’t care to know them or what they are doing. I do hope that the Bronx is changing however, for the sake of everyone else there. They deserve better.