AlterNet: Not My Financial Crisis -- I've Got Literally Nothing to Lose

[marmar]

Not My Financial Crisis -- I've Got Literally Nothing to Lose

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted October 13, 2008.

Like most people I know in their 20s and 30s, it takes a stretch of the imagination to understand that I have a stake in the national economy.



In a literal sense, the financial meltdown has hit me close to home. The smoking ash piles on Wall Street lay just a 10-minute walk from my front door in New York's Chinatown. But my sense of proximity to events stops there. In terms of their impact on the soundness of my sleep, at least so far, the economy in question might as well be North Korea. My feeling of remove from the crisis is a product of the fact that I don't have much to lose. Like millions of Americans, I own nothing -- not property, not stock, not a 401(k) plan, not health insurance, not a car, nothing.

Like most people I know in their 20s and 30s, it takes a stretch of the imagination to understand that I have a stake in the national economy. In terms of day-to-day life, my only ties to large financial institutions are a Bank of America checking account, a single low-limit high-fee Visa card, and a Kilimanjaro of student debt, which I have come to accept as something I will die with, not from, like a benign but grapefruit-size tumor or peaceable parasite dwelling in my large intestine. When people use scary terms like "unchartered territory" and "total meltdown," my first thought is, "Would an economic cataclysm wipe out my student debt? If so, then let's press reset and start the whole damn thing over! Burn it clean!"

I haven't heard much from or about people like me in the last month. Watching the media report on the crisis, you'd think the United States had achieved the Republican dream of becoming a full-fledged "ownership society" populated by an upwardly mobile class of home-owning day traders sitting on fat nest eggs. But it hasn't. So here's a news flash from the young-and-indebted demographic: Those of us without retirement plans or health insurance, who just barely make rent and buy food in the real economy, a lot of us aren't as scared as maybe we should be. We have our own gut take on the disappearance of $9 trillion in electronic NYSE casino chips. And that is, we could give a shit.

There is even less angst when it comes to the popped housing bubble and fractured sub-prime mortgage mess that triggered the cascade. To paraphrase Stalin: no mortgage, no problem. If you occupy your home -- in my case, a small loft that I share with seven people -- on the basis of a month-to-month lease, you're not going to mourn a steep drop in housing prices. You are going to throw a party and hang a piñata in the shape of your landlord. If my landlord faces foreclosure on his property and I am evicted, my next crisis-era apartment will be that much cheaper, assuming I can find enough work to make rent. But what else is new?

I realize at some level that it's facile to think I don't have a stake in a stable economy, or that further meltdown will affect only those with the most to lose. As the economist Max Wolff told Josh Holland in his weekend roundup of progressive expert opinion on the crisis, "The banks' pain is ours. Millions will be fired. When it rains on the top of the hill, those who live on the bottom of the hill drown." I get that. Scraping by will likely become even harder in the days ahead for people in my income bracket. But it seems to me that a decade of scraping by is good practice for whatever's coming. And it's just a fact that this particular era of capitalism hasn't been very good for those of us at the bottom of the wealth pyramid. If it takes some creative destruction to herald a new, more egalitarian, better regulated economy, then so be it. Millions of us are waiting for the reckoning with belts already tightened. They've been tightened for as long as we can remember. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/102676/not_my_financial_crisis_--_i%27ve_got_literally_nothing_to_lose/

[Warpy]

1. Since I'm a parasite these days, it was my problem.

I elected to stay in, realizing that the only thing that changed were a bunch of numbers indicating how much debt I could leverage should I take leave of my senses. My income from the investments is stable.

However, what people who don't think they have anything to lose don't realize is how this affects everything. People who lose a lot of numbers off their 401K plans usually think they're suddenly poor and stop spending. With less demand for goods and services, jobs dry up, pink slips get issued, and stores close.

However, those of us who have had ample though involuntary experience being poor will definitely be ahead of the game. People who have never had to do anything practical to take care of themselves will find themselves on a very steep learning curve.

If they're really nice to us, we'll teach them how to cope.

[snappyturtle]

2. Excellent! I feel as the author does. I'm not young like the author is,

Maybe we're foolish but I don't think so. My crash came long before this one for a myriad of reasons, but I've learned to cope. I prefer my past life but I find the challenges of living more fulfilling today and I'm certainly more grateful for the little pleasures that come my way.

[DemReadingDU]

3. I wonder if this person has a credit card?

I'm hearing rumors that credit cards will most likely rejected, forcing most everyone to pay everything in cash.

[reggie the dog]

6. not likely

if we all paid in cash we would all have to take our pay in cash or take our money out of the bank, during good times everyone taking their paycheck out of their checking account on the first of the month would have created a panic, having us take all our cash out is the last thing they want now.

[FredStembottom]

4. I'm 52.....

...but my corollary to this story is how I spent the the entire 1990's without a raise.* 10 years ago I saw a statistic that we had lost 24% of our buying power to inflation (10 years ago!)

While the top 1% partied on the front of every magazine at the grocery store - I simply slid backward - inextricably. All the while doubling productivity by being forced to work more frantically each year.

And I didn't change jobs because this was not only a freeze for me - but for my entire industry (air freight). And not only a freeze for my industry but the entire blue-collar world! There was nowhere to go. Raises had simply left the building. Work till you drop (literally) is the lifestyle.....or "there's the door".

So at my house we are into our 18th year of "dealing with it".

*vast unsustainable attrition within my company pried a total raise of $0.89/hr out of my company in tiny chunks from 2001-2006

[LiberalEsto]

5. I'm 56 and paying huge student loan debts for my kids

The kids with the student loans aren't the only ones struggling. Some of the parents are having a hard time too.

One kid is 25, is 8 credits short of a B.A., and owes about $45,000 total. She finally landed a decent job and has promised to take over payments on two of her loans. I'll believe it when I see it.

The other one is 22, had some health & psychological issues, finally settled on a major and has 2 1/2 years to go. She owes about $26,000 in student loans, and I have no idea how we'll pay for the rest of her education, because we haven't got a spare dime. We're also paying for her room and board.

We can save literally NOTHING for retirement. My husband's Fannie Mae employee stock ownership plan just lost $15,000 and is now worthless.

[Leftist Agitator]

7. I'm 80k into student loan debt...

One semester away from getting my totally worthless, utterly unemployable Masters in History.

Those loans are unforgivable debt, even in Chapter 7, I'd still have to pay far, FAR more than I'd ever be able to at $8 - $10 per hour.

I rent, I don't have a car or credit cards, I live very simply, and very poorly.

There is a bit of schadenfreude in watching Wall Street collapse. I know that for every uber-rich asshole who is finally being forced to contemplate poverty there are ten regular people who are being wiped out by this crisis. Still, it's gratifying to watch the McMansion, Hummer-driving beyond-their-means crowd get smacked the fuck down and learn what it is to have NOTHING.