Vets shouldn’t be Homeless, They Deserve Better

Other View: Vets shouldn’t be homeless

Everywhere there is a homeless population, it is likely some of the homeless are veterans.
The problem is getting well-deserved attention recently from the Department of Veterans Affairs. About 131,000 of the nation’s 24 million veterans may be homeless on any given night, and about twice as many are homeless each year, according to VA estimates. More…

Support our troops when they become veterans: 25% of US homeless are veterans
November 12, 11:53 PMLA County Nonpartisan ExaminerCarl Herman
The first support of our troops is to respect their families and lives by not putting them at risk unnecessarily. I am among hundreds of writers documenting the declassified evidence that proves the “leadership” of both parties lied to begin illegal Wars of Aggression.
More…

Valley homeless shelter sees increase in demand
KGBT-TV
By Rafael Carranza HARLINGEN — The downfall in the economy has placed more families in greater need of the services from homeless and food shelters, …
See all stories on this topic
By Rafael Carranza
Friday, November 13, 2009 at 6:55 p.m.

HARLINGEN — The downfall in the economy has placed more families in greater need of the services from homeless and food shelters, according to one Valley shelter. More…

Vice President Biden serves lunch at homeless shelter
Washington Post

They stuff stockings for soldiers and serve the homeless. The homeless shelter at St. Aloysius was established in the early 1980s to carry on the work of a … More…

It’s official: US has been in a recession all year!!!

WOW!!! Finally official word that we are in a recession and have been for the past year! That’s like telling passengers on a sinking ship that the ship is sinking AFTER THE FACT! Brother!!! I would like to know what type or model Crystal Ball these guys at the National Bureau of Economic Research are using. Most of the local vagrants and homeless have known we have been in a recession for the longest time. If it took them this long for the announcement I wonder when they will Officially announce that we are in a DEPRESSION!!!

There is an old joke among economists that states:

A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.

A depression is when you lose your job.

Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Here is a definition of a recession: Definition: A recession is defined to be a period of two quarters of negative GDP growth.

Now here is the definition of a depression:

Depression

Before the Great Depression of the 1930s any downturn in economic activity was referred to as a depression. The term recession was developed in this period to differentiate periods like the 1930s from smaller economic declines that occurred in 1910 and 1913. This leads to the simple definition of a depression as a recession that lasts longer and has a larger decline in business activity.

And for those who might not have heard it yet:

Bush Administration Ignored Warnings of Pending Financial Meltdown

Monday, December 01, 2008

WASHINGTON  —  The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

Like if we needed to be told that! I think every Tom, Dick and Harry on the street figured that out.

Here is the link from the Official National Bureau of Economic Research:

It’s official: US has been in a recession all year

Recession’s Being Declared Worldwide

Well the list keeps getting larger and larger as the days go by. Now Japan has joined that list of countries that are Officially in a recession.  In the past couple of weeks several other countries have made the same announcement and one has become bankrupt, Iceland.

Here are the various links to only a handfull of articles:

IMF warns of deepening recession in rich countries

Reuters Published: November 7, 2008
WASHINGTON: The world’s developed economies are headed for the first full-year contraction since World War II and governments should ramp up spending to support the global economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.

Japan Economy Declared in Recession

17 November 2008, Monday
window.google_render_ad(); The Japanese government announced officially Monday that the country’s economy, which is the second largest in the world after that of the USA, had entered into a recession.

After shrinking by 0,9% in the second quarter of 2008, Japan’s economy shrank another 0,1% in the third quarter, CNN reported.

Euro-zone countries enter a recession

Last Updated: Friday, November 14, 2008 | 11:39 AM ET

The 15 countries that use the euro as currency have entered a recession.

The European Union reported Friday that its latest figures show the economy in its 15 euro-zone countries shrank 0.2 per cent for two quarters in a row.

The technical definition of a recession is two quarters of decline in gross domestic product.

A spending slowdown and tight credit conditions have been hurting industry across the continent.

Italian economy slides into recession

November 14, 2008
MILAN, Italy: Italy slid into a recession as Europe’s fourth-largest economy posted negative growth for the second consecutive quarter, the national statistics office said Friday.
The ISTAT statistics office said gross domestic product in the July-September period contracted by 0.5 percent compared with the previous quarter and by 0.9 percent compared with the same quarter in 2007.

Germany declares official recession

Germany has become the first of the G7 powers to declare an official recession. It will almost certainly be followed by France and Italy as growth collapses across the eurozone
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:18PM GMT 13 Nov 2008
The OECD club of rich states issued its own gloomy forecasts yesterday, warning that Euroland, the US and Japan, will all shrink next year – the first synchronized slump in the three areas since the first oil crisis of the mid-1970s. “This is certainly not a V-shaped recession,” said Jorgen Elmeskov, the group’s chief economist.

Layoffs and Tracking Recession

Here are a number of links that are of interest for those tracking the economic crisis.

How’s the economy in your hometown?

By Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY
On the campaign trail and in homes across the USA, the debate is underway about whether the U.S. economy in 2008 will see its first downturn in seven years. Click here for article and interactive map.

Job Layoffs
October 23, 2008
A collection of news and information related to Job Layoffs published by Tribune Company sources. More…

Wall St layoffs topped 49,000 last month
18 Sep, 2008, 1130 hrs IST, REUTERS

NEW YORK: New York’s financial industry this year had already laid off 49,340 people by late August, a number doomed to rise in the wake of Lehman

Brothers’s bankruptcy and Bank of America’s embrace of Merrill Lynch, the State Assembly speaker said on Wednesday.
This is one of the largest estimates of job losses so far for the banks and brokerages that pay one-fifth of the state’s taxes and about one-third of city wages and salaries. More…

Economics Prof Daniel Blake expects state employment figures to get worse
(October 22, 2008)
By Tony Castro and Barbara Correa, Staff Writers
Article Last Updated: 10/22/2008 12:25:44 AM PDT

California’s employment picture grew bleaker Tuesday, when AIG and Yahoo announced widespread layoffs as they struggle to cope with the worsening economy.

American International Group Inc. issued a statement saying it was terminating nearly 7 percent of the employees in its auto insurance division. More…

Layoffs drive up jobless claims in state
By Michael E. Kanell
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, September 12, 2008

Layoffs apparently spiked last month in Georgia, taking the largest one-year leap since October 2001, the state Labor Department said Thursday.

In August, 59,090 Georgians filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance, up 72 percent from the same month a year earlier. More…