Well, in addition to all to all the empty commercial buildings around here, (mine,too. maybe) The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News have declared bankruptcy. Soon, we may not even be able to read about this stuff anymore....I figured a 6-7000 Dow, but is 5 on the horizon? We had 4 companies, including Ritz Camera, which has huge debts to Nikon, Canon and Fugi, in the last week declare bankruptcy. Scary. :sigh:

Yes the Rocky Mountain News closed it`s doors on Sunday! They have put out a newspaper since 1859. Sad day.

Yes the Rocky Mountain News closed it`s doors on Sunday! They have put out a newspaper since 1859. Sad day.

Newspapers, sadly, are suffering a double-whammy. Normally with this economy, as you'd think that the market for newspapers would go up when people are home (out of work) with time to pass, and maybe looking in the Classified for jobs. But with the Internet replacing the Classified Ads in the paper, and the cost of printing a newspaper skyrocketing, I don't see how any paper can stay solvent. I will be very disappointed when I can't hold a physical newspaper in my hands, which I've been doing since I learned to read. But the days are certainly numbered, regardless of economic recovery :tears:

In many posts on this forum and in small editorials which I wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News, I have said that this economic crisis will wind up to eclipse the Great Depression. And it is behaving exactly, event-by-event, as I predicted. American greed replaced the American dream about 25 years ago, and now we pay.

Charles

American greed replaced the American dream about 25 years ago, and now we pay.

Charles

This sentiment is worth its weight in gold!
So sorry to hear of that KX!

The invention of the computer along with the internet has certainly been a benefit to our society, but also its demise. The loss of manpower due to the onslaught of supposedly more efficent machines has replaced the work force once known. The newspaper nonetheless is suffering from such forces that be as well.

Rome

Just the normal cycle of things, like the weather.

Something else will come along and replace it. The whole trick is to see it coming and plan accordingly.

Yes the Rocky Mountain News closed it`s doors on Sunday! They have put out a newspaper since 1859. Sad day.

I saw that, too. I always liked reading Bernie Lincicome.........And the Chronicle of San Francisco, another.

Just the normal cycle of things, like the weather.

Something else will come along and replace it. The whole trick is to see it coming and plan accordingly.

Not so sure this time. And your state is really in the tank...Sad...I read where Intel is investing 7 billion...and none of it in California.

I used to read a lot of papers every day when I was a teen, but now I get most of my news on the net.

the internet will one day replace the printed word, books will still be available, but will be a novelty in the whole of the market, just like vinyl is in today's digital music market.
devices like the Amazon kindle will be the ipod of the written word, and you will buy your books digitally, and carry them around on electronic notepads like they do in star trek TNG.

so we trade cutting down trees, to higher energy consumption. same carbon footprint IMHO.

Newspapers will certainly be phased out someday. Perhaps sooner rather than later. It's an inevitable fate IMO.... I don't know many people who have one delivered anymore. Most people turn to the net or the TV. Personally, I don't think you can beat the net. Example: "Market closes at 11-year low - Reuters, 4 minutes ago."

Maybe that was a poor example, but the point is that no newspaper or periodical can deliver the news so quickly.

We'll pull through. I agree this is just the natural cycle of things too. We've been through recessions before.

I still get a paper.Gotta have the Sunday funnys. Though they get smaller every year.

I am not sure if its just cyclic...there are many things that are just slides. there are many things that I see in schools, and its hard to say if the future the way I see it shape up is a recoverable event, or a return to where we think things belong.

The error is thinking and expecting economies to grow indefinitely. I think its time we start simply improving what we have. a smaller economy shouldnt mean death, but simply stronger. in reality the bigger the economy, i believe the weaker it is. How come no one hears the politicians talking about bringing companies back to our shores. everyone gains....these bailouts that mainly focus on finances and not the root is simply ass-inine.

let other countries find employment for their people instead of our kmarts.

I always prided myself on frugality and practicality in my life. It was out of style as hell for the longest while, but now it appears I am in style once again. As it is, my house and 2 cars are paid for, I have no debt and yet I am struggling to keep my head above water. I fear for my friends who are loaded down with debt. The American Dream is just that, a dream, for most now.

I do think the role played by "Big Oil" in this tragedy is being underplayed. The banking and mortgage industry and people's greed and poor decision making are a part of this but, IMO, the oil/gas prices are what really broke the back of the economy world wide. No one is saying this out loud but it certainly is a big part of the overall picture.

I always prided myself on frugality and practicality in my life. It was out of style as hell for the longest while, but now it appears I am in style once again. As it is, my house and 2 cars are paid for, I have no debt and yet I am struggling to keep my head above water.

About the same here King Bubba. I'm paying rent, and everything else I have is fully paid for, especially the 1993 5-spd Ford Ranger that is my daily transportation. The only thing I'm making payments on for it are the insurance premiums to keep it legally insured. I feel bad though still because I'm getting a disability check each month, possibly the only person under 30 on this entire board who's more living off of his disabilities than anything else. :no:

The error is thinking and expecting economies to grow indefinitely. I think its time we start simply improving what we have. a smaller economy shouldnt mean death, but simply stronger. in reality the bigger the economy, i believe the weaker it is. How come no one hears the politicians talking about bringing companies back to our shores. everyone gains....these bailouts that mainly focus on finances and not the root is simply ass-inine.

let other countries find employment for their people instead of our kmarts.

HEAR HEAR!!


Indefinite growth is impossible with finite resources, and finite markets.

I always prided myself on frugality and practicality in my life. It was out of style as hell for the longest while, but now it appears I am in style once again. As it is, my house and 2 cars are paid for, I have no debt and yet I am struggling to keep my head above water.

Same

The last newspapers I bought were for the classified ads for sales. That aside, I haven't bought a paper to read since the Packers won the Superbowl back in 1997.

We have left newspapers behind and moved on to other media, at least here in this country.

Not so sure this time. And your state is really in the tank...Sad...I read where Intel is investing 7 billion...and none of it in California.

Luckily for me I'm not dependent on what Intel does - or any other large corporation. During the good times I sell to people with more money than brains. During the bad, I sell to the people that were smart enough to put some away for the essentials, and are looking for bargains. Sure, things slow down for me, too, but there is always a need for something.

PATRIOT 1776 - "I feel bad though still because I'm getting a disability check each month, possibly the only person under 30 on this entire board who's more living off of his disabilities than anything else."

Don't feel bad if that's the cards you were dealt. Some things we can't change. But there is one the YOU can. Start making a dedicated effort to live off your ABILITIES instead! Believe me, it can be done. It might not happen overnight, but it never will if you don't give it a try!!!:thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp:

Don't feel bad if that's the cards you were dealt. Some things we can't change. But there is one the YOU can. Start making a dedicated effort to live off your ABILITIES instead! Believe me, it can be done. It might not happen overnight, but it never will if you don't give it a try!!!:thmbsp::thmbsp::thmbsp:

I'm starting to wonder if it's too late for me to try and find a way to learn to become a record cutting engineer. I'm pretty dang savvy when it comes to this stuff, more savvy than many people my age when it comes to audio equipment since I play records instead of MP3s and CD's, and there's got to be fresh blood to run the cutting lathes if vinyl is going to continue to thrive in the future.

............. if vinyl is going to continue to thrive in the future.

It doesn't have to thrive - it just has to exist. Scrounge out all of the record cutting companies on line and give them a shout!!!

I do think the role played by "Big Oil" in this tragedy is being underplayed. The banking and mortgage industry and people's greed and poor decision making are a part of this but, IMO, the oil/gas prices are what really broke the back of the economy world wide. No one is saying this out loud but it certainly is a big part of the overall picture.

QFT!:thmbsp:
tal

It doesn't have to thrive - it just has to exist. Scrounge out all of the record cutting companies on line and give them a shout!!!

That's good advice. If you want to do something, GO FOR IT! As a wise man once said, "Do the thing, and you will have the power". Just please, please, practice and get GOOD at it, and relentlessly seek to improve and perfect the output. We have enough inferior and disappointing re-releases coming out on vinyl these days! :D



Getting back to the thread topic, this economy is affecting everyone, and no doubt it will hasten the sad demise of newspapers. I had stopped buying so many papers (I used to read four daily) and cut back to reading just one, a number of years ago.

I've started buying the International Herald Tribune off the newsstand again, though, even though they've raised the price to a painful, whopping $2.50 per copy(!). In part, this is because I hope the paper survives, and feel I'm doing my bit to contribute to that.

Besides the great portability and comfort of actually holding a tangible paper, and being able to sit in a coffee shop and do the crossword puzzle as I eat my lunch, without the awkwardness of a laptop and without any eyestrain from a computer screen (I HATE looking at these awful screens!) I don't find anything quite like it online. The range of articles, and the depth of their analysis, and the convenience of being able to scan through the pages quickly and easily to find what I'll read next... nothing online --not even the newspaper sites-- comes close, IMO.

I will DEEPLY regret the loss of physical newspapers, when the time comes. Not MOST of them, but a few of the higher-quality ones like the IHT (or the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal, although the latter is already just a shadow of what it once was).

Like books and vinyl records, technology moves on... but I'm sort of glad that being middle-aged now, I'll probably be dead before the entirely-digital world of the future comes. At least I should be able to spin records and keep books around for the rest of my life, even if I end up without my daily newspaper(s).

Atlanta, Georgia will be my best bet then. I'm not going to do it though until the oncologist, my cancer doctor, says I'm finished with CT screenings and I have removed from me the port in my chest that my chemo was given through. Am going to contact them and ask them what it takes and what I have to know to be hired.

Saying a prayer for you Patriot!


Rome

700,000 jobs lost last month, but CNBC is saying to today much of the market's functions that will help to begin to stabilize things are starting to work again, and the bottom hasn't dropped out again positive early in the day. Hope it lasts.

And Rome, my last chemo session for Hodgekin's Lymphoma was Dec of '05. I'm now to the period of waiting 6 months between CT scans, the longest period before I'll hopefully move to just having a CT screening once a year for this. The cancer was found only after my chest was opened up however to remove what was thought to be a continuing to grow thymus gland, but was a Hodgekins tumor. They found I was in Stage II of it by then, though I hadn't felt any symptoms at all. I've since then had my chest opened up a second time to repair a leaking heart valve.

and the bottom hasn't dropped out again positive early in the day.


Yes, I heard a "rumor" though, that the slight upturn in the Asian Mkt.s last evening (which is supposedly why we look better this morning), was due to hope from a stimulus package that China was putting together.:scratch2: Dang, I'd almost rather lose some more money.:D

I've lived in the northern part of the Greater Los Angeles area (from the northwest San Fernando Valley to the suburbs of eastern Ventura County) since 1985, and I've seen the ups & downs in local industry. The worst UNTIL NOW was the big collapse of the defense/aerospace industry in the late 70s, which was the chief source of employment in this area (Boeing, Northrop, Lockheed, TRW, Rocketdyne/Rockwell Int'l., and 1000s of subsidiaries). The Chatsworth area has been home to lots of high-tech business and industry, and has some of the largest, newest electronics factories in the state (they refer to it as Silicon Valley South). It was home to Marantz, Superscope, Sanyo, Fisher, and other consumer electronics mfrs.

It really hit me in the stomach when I realized a couple weeks ago, just HOW MANY vacant buildings are sitting derelict in Chatsworth. Blocks and blocks of modern, concrete tilt-up buildings in the 30,000 to 200,000 sq. ft. range, sitting with half-fallen "FOR LEASE" signs among tall weeds, and shrouded by unkempt palm trees with brown foliage dangling. Dilapidated motor homes sit here & there in the parking lots of some of those buildings, likely with formerly well-paid employees inhabiting them. The once-green, perfectly maintained lawns and trees, which were a requirement for anyone who wanted to build an industrial building in Chatsworth, sit un-watered with beer cans stuck in dead tumbleweeds. I can say more, but it's too depressing.

Ventura County has not suffered so much yet, but Countrywide Funding is now part of BofA, and they will be vacating a lot of their offices here, and they were a major, major anchor employer. All we have left is Amgen, and if they go, Eastern Ventura County (the nicest and most expensive enclave of Southern California) will fall.

Charles

700,000 jobs lost last month, but CNBC is saying to today much of the market's functions that will help to begin to stabilize things are starting to work again, and the bottom hasn't dropped out again positive early in the day. Hope it lasts.

And Rome, my last chemo session for Hodgekin's Lymphoma was Dec of '05. I'm now to the period of waiting 6 months between CT scans, the longest period before I'll hopefully move to just having a CT screening once a year for this. The cancer was found only after my chest was opened up however to remove what was thought to be a continuing to grow thymus gland, but was a Hodgekins tumor. They found I was in Stage II of it by then, though I hadn't felt any symptoms at all. I've since then had my chest opened up a second time to repair a leaking heart valve.


Funny, I saw today an article considering whether or not to call this a depression or recession (it could just be quibbling with words, but I've been calling it a depression for months now). And recently a lot of bad news as the DOW fell below 7000 of course, including several economists saying this will take years to get over (of course most have been saying that for awhile).

This economic crisis has been a long time coming, I'm not surprised at all. The economy has been troubled for decades and the country so mismanaged and so blatantly "of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich" for so long I was just waiting for something big to happen, have been ever since I was a teen and developed an economic awareness. The US has been unraveling at the seams for a long time and has been bought and sold to the corporations and vested interests of the ruling class decades ago. Median income is down 12% since '74 as the cost of living is up, the gap between the rich and poor grows exponentially every year as the middle class shrinks because of these two conflicting factors.

For instance, the average price of a house in 1957 was $2,300...the average family income $5,000. So a house cost only half of a years income! Now? Now the average family income is about $50,000 and the average house costs $212,000. That means, of course, that the average house went from costing half a year's family income to 4 times the average families income in 50 years. And of course in '57 most family incomes were single, now most are double. So even with two adult workers people can't afford houses easily today, no wonder why so many "over financed" : many were just trying to get into a decent house in a decent area which cost at least $150,000 were I live. Hell, the average family of 4 pays $12,000 a year just for health care! Take that and taxes out of the average household income of $50,000 and we are now into the $30,000 range, which means the average house cost about 6 times the average family income. Add to this the food and energy prices of late and the stagnant wages that have not kept up with the cost of living (never before, for instance, has the minimum wage been so low in purchasing power, which of course means that higher wages are too), unregulated and irresponsible corporate pirates playing foolish games with millions of dollars knowing that the government will bail them out and being subsidized by the government anyway (while all the time ranting and raving about socialism and the free market...all the way to the bank), and of course we get economic disaster!

The country will probably endure, but it won't be as affluent as it was in those post WWII decades when a regular guy (high school degree, much less college), could have a good middle class life on a single income and provide for his family. Now it takes two incomes to make it for many families. The middle class has been steadily in decline since the 80's or so and just isn't coming back like it was in our golden years (50's through early 80's I'd say). All empires do, after all, fail, especially inequitable, over militarized, imperialistic, and overextended ones like the US.

Anyway, I've had open heart surgery twice, both for a leaky valve and aortic inefficiency I was born with. The first surgery I had when I was 4, the last at 28. The first I don't remember too much, but this last one...wow that was rough, worse than I thought it would be. I was on extended medical leave after the last one, it took me over a month before I could even stand up straight or take a shower by myself (I just couldn't flex!) and about 6 months until I really started to feel normal (not tired, sick, feverish, dizzy, nauseous, etc.). Fun stuff eh Patriot? :no:

So hang in there, and don't feel bad at all for getting the disability you need. It pains me when normal people who need and deserve help feel guilty about this sort of thing when there are such huge abuses of tax money committed by the ultra-rich (like a CEO getting bailout money for his company and buying a 10k trash can and 70k rug with it as one recently did), and those who claim 2 more kids than they have on their tax return. I'll gladly give my tax money to support people like you instead of them, and I may need it in return someday. :thmbsp:

Well I'm out, I don't want to get into a political debate or flame war here, this site is too good for that, and everyone has a right to his/her views anyway!

Hang in there all!

Permanent Waves, what started the concern and eventually led to the surgery for the heart valve repair was that my energy level didn't return to what it was before the chemo started, even after 6 months to recover from it. As hard as they had to hit me with the chemo, I figure maybe that nasty stuff did some damage to that heart valve, as from what I remember, the line running from my chemo port was inserted into my veins not far above possibly where my heart was.

One of the big bright spots in where I live, Cherokee County, is my employer, Industrial Opportunities Inc. We're the last mostly sewing plant of any kind in Cherokee County and we're still going full bore for a couple reasons. Firstly and most importantly, we're about the only place in the 3 immediate counties where those with disabilities far, far worse than what I have can work at. Over half the employees there have a physical or mental impairment of some kind, many multiple ones. Secondly, we don't make just one or just a few products. If it can be sewn together, we can probably manufacture it, one way or another, and we are making so many sewn products for different companies its mind boggling. The other half of the workforce that is able-bodied does the most difficult sewing work. We are a non-profit, but sell everything we make for a profit and ALL profits we make from sales and deliveries go directly to supporting the services we provide to the disabled clients and employees. We've managed to get ourselves to being 95% self-funded too, only needing couch-change local tax support to tie up loose-ends. I was a full employee, working a full 40-hours every week and on private health insurance before the cancer diagnosis and subsequent battle with it.

I think I've got you Patriot, your circumstances are different than the average disabled person as your employer employs (sorry for the redundancy lol), a disproportionate amount of disabled people than the average workplace. So you are feeling guilty knowing that many of your coworkers are still working with their disabilities and you are not with yours, correct?

But dude, I'm just saying go easy on yourself! :thmbsp: You have/had (sorry to say :tears:) a life threatening condition that must be dealt with and whatever it takes for you deal with that is the most important thing right now, period. Some people find that if they can work while sick it helps, it keeps them active and distracts them from their pain/sickness, others simply can not physically or mentally perform their jobs and so rightfully take disability. And others take advantage of disability and don't work when they really can. For instance:

I had a neighbor for years growing up that lived off of her parents (and when they died the inheritance) and disability. Her disability? Slurred speech and mild psychomotor disfunction in her arms that was the result of her attempting suicide by overdosing on some kind of pills. I was just a kid and teen when I knew her, but in my assessment, she could of worked. She certainly had little trouble doing housework (cooking, cleaning, tending to the garden, etc.) or driving to the store to get household items when she lived by herself (after her parents died). I routinely go to a movie theater where the ticket taker is in a wheelchair, has slurred speech to the point of incoherence (when he tries to tell you where your movie is showing), and has trouble taking the ticket from your hand and then giving it back because he simply can't control his arm movements well. It's so bad you have to literally follow his hand and to place the ticket in it and then try to pick the ticket stub out of it as his hand and arm waver all over the place. I (and my gf) always try to do the best we can at this while not making a big deal of it as others do thus making him feel bad (some people are nice and rip the ticket for him and others literally scoff at him, both, imo, do him no service or dignity). But he is working and this neighbor I had was not nearly as bad off. She was taking some advantage of the system and did for decades.

But again, why should I be mad at her? There are much bigger abuses of tax payer money out there than a borderline disability case who chooses not to work. (Even the disability system at first deemed her fit for work, so she went out and got a job as a typist. Well, of course she couldn't do that well and she knew it. So then she "demonstrated" to the system that she was unfit to work. Eventually they gave up with her and just gave her disability).

Just today I saw this article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090305/ap_on_bi_ge/merrill_bonuses

So here we have a company tanking whose CEO's still get 3.6 billion in bonuses (plus of course their regular salary which I'm sure isn't bad at all), 14 of which get 10 million or more. And the best part is these bonuses were announced: "...just days after Bank of America received an additional $20 billion from the government that it said it needed to help offset the losses it was absorbing from the Merrill acquisition", in other words, some of our tax money, yours and mine, are going to these CEO's who run a company into the ground and still get large bonuses, many more than the average person will make in his entire lifetime.

Now that's taxpayer waste and corruption and it is unjust and unfair. Those immoral criminals should feel guilty. You, however, should not (and they, I'm sure, do not). I totally understand that you do though, I did myself when I was off work for about a month (I got up to 6 weeks for medical leave after my heart surgery), because I knew my coworkers had to pick up my slack. But I hardly felt I was cheating the company I work for or felt that I should of gone in while still miserably sick and when I couldn't even lift a half gallon of milk because I was so weak out of some misplaced loyalty to a company that sees me as just another paycheck to cut if possible and cares nothing about me as a person (as do all companies of course, except perhaps small businesses).

So I'm just saying go easy on yourself, your health is the most important thing here period and you need to do whatever it takes to get better. You do not need to weaken yourself by continuing to work if that is the case. You must look out for yourself and stand up for your right not to work, because if you don't, no one else will, and your employer will work you to death if possible and then just move on to the next employee (as they would do to us all). That's pure capitalism, it's highly exploitative and ultimately cruel: people are entirely dispensable throwaways in that kind of system, thank goodness we have some government interference to protect our workers rights. :yes:

This is all jmo, and I hope I have not caused offence and I hope that whatever you decide to do or whatever happens you get better and stay better. :thmbsp: I watched my mom die of cancer at age 51 (she was unemployed as she was a homemaker although she was going back to college to get some computer training on top of her degree she had gotten in the early 70's), and saw her get so sick from chemo (she was terminal once they found it, it was in her liver, but she refused to believe it and fought in vain to overcome the cancer). I couldn't imagine her doing any job in that state; she did try to keep up with the housework to our dismay and insistence otherwise. If she had had a job at the time your g-damn right she should have rightfully taken extended medical leave or gone on disability if it took years for her to fight the cancer (luckily it was pretty quick: within 4 months of diagnosis she was gone), and she should have felt no guilt for doing so, although I know that she too would of.

Anyway, hang in there man, I bet you can beat this and it sounds like you are in remission (correct? sorry if I'm misinformed here). But be sure to look out for yourself above all else, for in the end you matter the most, and you can always give back when you are better! :thmbsp: (I am! I go to the hospital I had my surgery at fairly frequently and visit those who are having similar surgery, including kids, :tears: so they can see someone else who went through something similar to what they are and made it. I know I was scared to death as a 4 year old going into the hospital and surgery and I hope I can help ease some of these kids' fear, and the older patients just like to have someone to talk to :thmbsp:).

Yikes, got to go, my lunch break is almost over lol. :D