[Cajunlady]

It just hit me about the previous two items I posted. I listed the name of the company. Is this considered spam. If it is that was definitely not my intention. Just trying to get the word out to people who may be in a bind and looking for employment. Sorry Ron.

[cowgirlup]

You have nothing to gain from it. It's not spam (spamity spam, wonderful spam) just info.

:)

[Solar Geek]

Best Buy in Chicago-land is laying off for the 4th time this year. Our neighbor (fairly senior in chain of command) got 15 minutes notice last week and was escorted out per their standard policy. I think as the big box stores see the lack of holiday shopping they will completely scale back and lay off thousands more. No one I know is planning on spending much this year -maybe elsewhere but not here in the midwest.
More enlightening, as we drive north from Chicago to Milwaukee and west each weekend, we see literally ghost town "malls" with maybe one or two stores open in them. Blockbuster is gone, many fast food places are gone, smaller strip malls were overbuilt and never had any tenants.
Who will use these facilities? Someone wrote elsewhere that they would be perfect shelters for the homeless as they are set up for water, sewer, lites and heat. Maybe so and at least it would be a good usage.
But unfortunately, since we are on the road alot, we have been noticing the increase of businesses closing rather than the economy "slowly picking up" as the papers and government would like us to believe.

[cowgirlup]

BB laying people off!!?? No way! I work very PT (10 hours or less, come and go as I please.) for them doing reports and my store is off the charts with business. They can't eve find enough seasonal help.

Go Figure...

[crazydave]

heard today the dollar is overvalued so a reduction might help the international portion of the economy. it'll certainly help me when i'm buying stuff from over there.

the biggest problem for both our countries is we've gone from being producers to being consumers and service industries relying on finance for a big chunk of govt revenue. its something we cant get back unless we arrest this trend for globalisation for the benefit of a few and get back to simple honest jobs.

the news here is full of kraft trying to buy cadbury's which still produces mainly in this country. a few years ago they bought terry's another ex quaker chocolate company, shut it down and moved everything to poland where its cheaper. its that kind of practise which is ruining our countries and losing our jobs.

[Pat/Rick]

In a word, no. Will the situation improve before the stimulus(?) money runs out? Hope so but I honestly think its gonna take a couple of more years. The reason being is that still more jobs are being sent offshore and i believe that the trend will continue.

[TaintRight]

Here the building of houses has stopped. A lot of developers and builders have lost everything. Most banks want no part of construction loans and are saying so. People working in any way with construction are out of work.

Strip shopping retail space lies vacant. A lot of retail stores are closing. People in the know are awaiting the "commercial shoe" to drop.

Foreclosures of homes continue to mount.

"They" say unemployment is at 10.3% I'd bet here its more like 20% due to the way the numbers are reported. People who take part time jobs or jobs for which they are grossly over qualified are not counted.

And the government cackles as it jams a $1.24trillion scheme down our throats? Resentment grows and quickly mutates into anger.

tick tick tick tick

[shadowwodahs]

Here in Tennessee things are still bad, but not according to the news media, and of course we all know who controls the news media. Governer Phil Bredison is talking about cutting more state jobs, and cutting funding to schools. There are hardly any jobs to be had here and unemployment is still high. There is even one large grocery chain closing some stores due to lack of business (Publix), and I expect to see others closing too before its all over. The one thing everyone needs is food, and I have heard that you can tell how the economy is doing by how grocery stores are doing business wise. We still have a long way to go and a lot of those folks who have lost jobs will have no jobs to go back to until things turn around and new businesses start up again. Plus, its still really hard to find ammo or componets for reloading.

[AlabamaDan]

Things are still here in Birmingham too, but the public is buying into the news media coverage and as I drove past the mall it was packed. Things aren't any better but people don't want to believe it.

[rollerpig82]

I am in the process of changing jobs right now. Luckilly, I work in the medical field and there are still some jobs available. Although, they are getting a lot more selective in who they hire.

I have worked for the state government for the last 3 years. They talked about cutting our wages by 10% at first, but decided to cut other benefits instead. They froze our wages for the next 3 years and cut our vacation by a minimum of 3 weeks per year along with other cuts lasting the same time.

People were releived that our wages were being left alone but failed to realize that the benefits they were cutting was equal to about an average of 18% decrease in wages over three years. So, starting in about a week I will be going back to the private sector.

Just as an indicator to the local economy, the house to my left has been forclosed on for some time now. The house across the street has 2 families and the one to my right has 3 families. I believe the one behind me is in the process. They moved out in one day and never said a word to me or my wife and we used to talk almost daily. I feel bad for them because he owned a construction company for almost 30.