Cascade Bancorp Seized By Regulators
I think one commenter put it best, we're seeing "The End of Days".
Over 2 years ago, when I picked up BEM's mantle, and started this blog, I only knew a few things:
But I think the World is coming around to this blog & it's commenters way of thinking, that this thing is going to be disastrous. That this thing will redefine Moore's Law, and everything that can go wrong will go horribly wrong. And a whole bunch of stuff we never even thought about in the early days, will also go wrong.
Because if there is one thing we're all learning, implosions don't go "according to plan". "Project Management" won't help you during a catastrophe. Neither will Positive Thinking. In fact, positive thinking which leads to positive action can hurt you BADLY in many ways in our current circumstances.
And of course, that is exactly what we are seeing. Jay Audia being a prime example, among others. THIS is Not the time to be "Optimistic". We've got a ways to go.
And from the headline, you can see I've "taken a page" from The Bulletin, and put a somewhat misleading headline on this weeks post. Well, sorta, kinda. As the Bulletin always does. We will see CACB seized by bank regulators, sooner or later. NOW is the time to extract your funds. NOW.
CACB, 5 days
CACB is finally having it's Day of Reckoning; a time when we all realize that this Big Behemoth that represents our Diabolical Corporate Levaithan, is really just a decent sized fish in a very, Very small pond. CACB, while Big To Bendites, is Dogshit on a Shingle to the rest of the World, and the banking federales will have no compunction about swooping in and closing this beast one lovely Friday Morning.
In fact this past Friday, the FDIC saw fit to close 3 middling banks, but there was one point of interest in these closures: When shuttering the Magnet Bank in Salt Lake City, the FDIC found itself unable to find anyone willing to simply assume this business:
Utah's MagnetBank closed without an acquirer
FDIC shuts down three banks in one day amid ongoing credit crisis
By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last update: 6:42 p.m. EST Jan. 30, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Federal regulators closed three banks in a single day Friday, as the ongoing credit crisis showed no signs of abating.
Utah's MagnetBank became the fourth bank failure of the year, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was forced to directly refund depositors after being unable to find another institution willing to take over its operations.
That marked the first time the FDIC has been unable to find an acquirer for a failed bank in nearly five years, according to FDIC spokesman David Barr. "This bank did not have an attractive franchise value, and not many retail deposits or core deposits," Barr said. The FDIC had conducted an extensive marketing process for the bank's assets, he said.
Salt Lake City-based MagnetBank had total assets of $292.9 million as of Dec. 2, and
$282.8 million in total deposits. "It is estimated that the bank did not have any uninsured funds," the FDIC said in a statement.
The FDIC later said it has also closed Maryland-based Suburban Federal Savings Bank, and Florida's Ocala National Bank.
Suburban Federal had total assets of roughly $360 million as of Sep. 30, and total deposits of $302 million, the FDIC said in a statement. Tappahannock, Va.-based Bank of Essex agreed to assume all of the failed bank's deposits, the FDIC said.
Ocala National had $223.5 million in total assets as of Dec. 31, and $205.2 million in total deposits, the FDIC said. Winter Haven, Fla.-based CenterState Bank has agreed to assume all of the failed bank's deposits.
The closures mark the fourth, fifth and sixth bank failures of 2009, bringing the total to 31 since the start of the credit crisis.
The FDIC can almost always find someone willing to take over a banks operations. Almost Always. It's like getting the customers for free. All the bad stuff is wiped out. You just get a whole bunch of customers for almost nothing, and since they are free, you can cherry-pick and get rid of the crap, by imposing onerous fees, etc.
What will be interesting to see, is if they can find a buyer for poor, sad little Cracker Ass Cracker Broke. Let's face it, CACB does have a decent presence in this dust-ridden shithole. But that's about it. What we're seeing with Magnet Bank in UT is just the beginning; banking seems to be a business model that is again on the brink of complete failure.
We saw this in the early 90's. Of course, we saw it en masse during the Depression. Banking is a business model that simply is compelled to undo itself.
To become big, you must take risks & leverage to the hilt. You must participate in the bubble du jour, you must. Or you won't get big. But once the soup goes cold, you face calamitous implosion. And you are once again a nobody.
Unless. Unless you can convince someone that you are Too Big To Fail. Then you receive Corporate Welfare, your corpse has new life breathed into it, and you go on your merry way, doing as you've done before, driven towards ever-larger temporary Bubble-fueled successes and subsequent Taxpayer-fueled failure-bailouts. Always becoming Ever Too Big To Fail.
Which is where we are writ large. We've done this so often with banks, that it has now spread to autos. But NOT one auto maker. It's the industry that is failing. Like banks. It's the whole edifice that is crumbling. We can't move to another part of the cliff face & be safe, the whole thing is crumbling.
And so shall pass our "Civilization". America. This crazy 200+ year experiment seems to be itself collapsing. Like Krugman says: This isn't cyclical, this is structural. There is a fundamental flaw that seems to have rendered Unbridled Capitalism as a system with no fundamental equilibrium point. The pendulum swings. But the force of the feedback mechanism (Greed) is rendering the entire structure supporting the pendulum, unstable.
We've exceeded the engineering specs of capitalism. hbm may be right: Unbridled capitalism undoes itself. This got me to reading Marx:
Political economy
Marx argued that this alienation of human work (and resulting commodity fetishism) functions precisely as the defining feature of capitalism. Prior to capitalism, markets existed in Europe where producers and merchants bought and sold commodities. According to Marx, a capitalist mode of production developed in Europe when labor itself became a commodity—when peasants became free to sell their own labor-power, and needed to do so because they no longer possessed their own land. People sell their labor-power when they accept compensation in return for whatever work they do in a given period of time (in other words, they are not selling the product of their labor, but their capacity to work). In return for selling their labor power they receive money, which allows them to survive. Those who must sell their labor power are "proletarians". The person who buys the labor power, generally someone who does own the land and technology to produce, is a "capitalist" or "bourgeois". The proletarians inevitably outnumber the capitalists.
Marx distinguished industrial capitalists from merchant capitalists. Merchants buy goods in one market and sell them in another. Since the laws of supply and demand operate within given markets, a difference often exists between the price of a commodity in one market and another. Merchants, then, practise arbitrage, and hope to capture the difference between these two markets. According to Marx, capitalists, on the other hand, take advantage of the difference between the labor market and the market for whatever commodity is produced by the capitalist. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that this surplus value had its source in surplus labour, the difference between what it costs to keep workers alive and what they can produce.
Capitalism is capable of tremendous growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment. Marx considered the capitalist class to be the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly improved the means of production. But Marx argued that capitalism was prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labor. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labor is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. When the rate of profit falls below a certain point, the result would be a recession or depression in which certain sectors of the economy would collapse. Marx thought that during such a crisis the price of labor would also fall, and eventually make possible the investment in new technologies and the growth of new sectors of the economy.
Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this cycle of growth, collapse, and more growth. Moreover, he believed that the long-term consequence of this process was necessarily the enrichment and empowerment of the capitalist class and the impoverishment of the proletariat. He believed that were the proletariat to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, and a system of production less vulnerable to periodic crises. In general, Marx thought that peaceful negotiation of this problem was impracticable, and that a massive well-organized violent revolution would be required, because the ruling class would not give up power without struggle. He theorized that to establish the socialist system, a dictatorship of the proletariat - a period where the needs of the working-class, not of capital, will be the common deciding factor - must be created on a temporary basis. As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."[24] While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the US and the Netherlands), he suggested that in other countries with strong centralized state-oriented traditions, like France and Germany, the "lever of our revolution must be force."[25]
Marx has a fairly compelling arguments here. The decline of Unions, the rise of vast capitalist fortunes. A lot seems to be going according to Marxist plans here.
But there is one problem with the Marxist thought of 150 years ago, and today: We have lowered the barrier to capitalist entry so low, that everyone is a Capitalist Proletariat.
Realtors. Graphic Designers. Web engineers. Even traditional employees. How many people do you know who have held their current position over 10 years? I never have.
Marx said that politicos & proletarians would ultimately revolt against capitalism. But who do we revolt against? The division is so unclear, that like a terrorist cell, it's hard to figure out who the enemy really is.
So we are headed towards something. I almost feel a sense of melancholy, watching as my beloved Capitalism dies a slow torturous death. Will it arise someday for my kids? Maybe. But it seems clear to me, that during the remainder of my working productive years, something will take its place.
I don't think it will be straight up Marxist Communism. But it will be governmentally managed. The Invisible Hand will be cuffed. We'll become more like Italy or (gag) France. We'll bleed the patient with leeches to ensure This Never Happens Again. Cure worse than the disease, as is the way in circumstances like this.
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed, strange days indeed
... most peculiar mama
Moving on....
I've found myself headed towards the business listings on craiglist. The Bulletin will not tell us The Bad News of small and middling businesses closing, and so we have to rely on the businesses themselves. And many will either come right out and tell you that they are closing their doors:
The Children's Boutique on Kearney Ave is going out of business!
everything is for sale, even the fixtures.
I have two cash registers, credit card machines, slatwall, tagging supplies and more.
come by and see what we have. Last day Feb 10th
The Children's Boutique
325 ne Kearney
(across from Taco Bell)
385-1168
Or you can sift through the vast picked-over carcasses of your favorite ex-retailer. There's a lot of stuff there. If you have a urgent fundamental need, you can get pretty good deals there. Not great, cuz after all, This Is Bend.
But people like Dunc, and other survivors can outfit the current shop at fairly decent prices.
Of course I raise my usual caveat: Don't Buy Anything Unless You Absolutely Have To. We are in what Krugman calls a deflationary spiral. Cash is becoming worth more, the stuff we bought on the way up like homes, cars, fake titties, Hummers, Volo, City Council Seats, CACB shares, botox, and the rest is becoming worth-less. OK, I can't resist re-prodicing a short reprint of Krugmans Dead On Analysis:
Nobel economist: 'Not your father's recession'
Krugman has a recurring economic nightmare involving a syndrome called a deflationary trap, something that could conceivably last a decade. "This has me very frightened," he says, "and it's just starting to get under way."
Deflation, the opposite of inflation, means that prices fall -- which might strike shoppers as a good deal. But as prices drop, consumers hold onto their money in hopes of even better bargains.
Reduced demand sends prices lower, triggering a downward spiral as factories close, employment shrinks and loans default. Pay cuts mean that homeowners, who thought rising incomes would reduce the bite of their mortgages, instead see their house payments effectively increase, boosting their debt load.
Japan suffered a lost decade or more to deflation after its 1980s economic bubble burst. Krugman says the current recession has disturbing parallels.
During Inflation, your money becomes worth-less, and so it is best employed in real goods. Holding cash simply impoverishes you. Deflation is the opposite: Holding onto your money and not spending it increases your wealth. It is the unfortunate side-effects that collapse the economy.
And spending DOES NOT REVERSE THE PROCESS. Same as holding cash during inflation doesn't STICK IT TO THE MAN or some such. You can't "reverse" deflation by spending. It's not an Entity, it's a state.
This brings me to my final thought: BEDROCK. Seems like people are starting to wonder if there is a "base" to this collapse. Is there a bottom. Will we ever stop falling?
I guess Great Minds Think Alike as Dunc had a recent post on this topic:
It's the psychology, stupid.
To follow up on the previous post, I'm starting to look at the psychology of the consumer again.
While I wouldn't put in the dire terms that Buster put in the comments, there is a fine line between having a wounded consumer and a mortally wounded consumer. To my mind, it's better to be informed and skeptical, but not panicked.
Last night, I began wondering about all those people who have secure jobs, or relatively secure jobs. This is probably the majority, even the vast majority of consumers.
But they've cut back, nevertheless. It's a natural response. But most of them are still coming in and getting their favorite comics, or buying a book, or pulling the trigger for a toy that wows them.
What would be very dangerous is if they didn't just cut back, but stopped spending altogether.
I think that's what all the stimulus package talk is all about. Maybe Buster is right, and little of it will reach Bend in truth. But as long as the 'impression' is out there that SOMETHING is being done, I believe that the consumer will continue to be careful, but not stop altogether.
Obama is a plus, because he holds out the potential for improvement. The stimulus package is a plus, because it looks as though something is being done. The bail-out -- god help me -- is a plus, at least psychologically -- because it keeps the Big Bank Fails headlines out of the paper.
On street level, I saw the immediate impact of Bears, Sterns going down. Then the even bigger impact of Lehman brothers, and Bernie Madoff was the nail. I suppose, Murphy being a tricky bastard, that I should expect at least one more real eye-opener, and hope the psychology doesn't turn permanently bearish.
The underlying conditions are stark, but I can deal with them as long as there isn't another total shift in psychology.
People will start asking this question: What is Bedrock in the American Economy? Where is the bottom? What is fake & what is real? For every Madoff, how many non-shysters are there? Are there any? Is Buffett real? Who can I trust? Can I trust anyone ever again?
Where's the Bedrock? There IS Bedrock in this country. OK, I sound pretty alarmist on here, I know. It's in large part because we are collectively being over-pacified by the local media, and someone needs to don some clapboards to raise awareness.
But even in a place like Bend, people have to eat, they need to sleep largely under a roof, they need clothes. There is a ROCK BOTTOM here. I don't think we'll end up like Fossil or worse.
But where is The Bottom? I don't know folks, but it seems to be that those who went up the most will fall the farthest. And No Where Went Up Farther And Faster Than Bend Oregon. No Where. And we've already seen that things are far worse than anyone thought possible even 1 year ago. A year ago McPain had a chance.
So when I and others in the comments talk about this town going back to 40-50,000 people, homes reverting back to $125K, and unemployment going to 20-25% (or more), this isn't panic-mongering; its just a reversion to Bends Bedrock. Its base. A place where people eat, drive, dress, work and otherwise live simply. It's not bad. It's our bedrock.
I'll end with a Bully piece about how bad this is already for select locals. And remember: This is the price we are paying for having as a community CHOSEN to have a 24 month unbridled Greed-fest primarily for those at the very top of our local socio-economic stratum. This is it. The hangover will affect everyone and will linger for a decade or longer. Was it worth it?
Meet the people behind the numbers
By Story by Lauren Dake Photos by Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Published: February 01. 2009 4:00AM PST
Department of Human Services employees say they’ve never seen anything like it. Every month, the number of people seeking assistance rises. In December, 10,636 families in Central Oregon received food stamps. Statewide, they are calling it an emergency. But in Central Oregon, they are looking for an even stronger word. With a 29.5 percent increase in families receiving food stamps in December compared with December 2007, the tri-county area is the hardest hit in the state, when measured by the increased request for food stamps. Many families and individuals are seeking help for the first time in their lives, others are finding they need more. Below, a few of those people agreed to share their stories.
Jeff Johnson
Jeff Johnson’s chicken Parmesan dinner expired 22 days ago.
In about a month’s time, he went from buying fresh foods at the grocery store to getting free, slightly expired food.
A recent divorce came at a time when the 45-year-old, self-employed residential and excavation construction worker was experiencing slow times.
The Bend resident went from living in a 2,552-square foot, five-bedroom, three-bathroom home on 40 acres, to a 35-foot fifth-wheeler in his church’s parking lot.
Now, the man who lives in a $42,000, 2006 Weekend Warrior, which he bought with visions of traveling the state with his family, is answering questions he never dreamed someone would ask him.
“How are you meeting your basic needs?” asked Department of Human Services employee Sue McDonald — a stranger to Johnson.
His face flushed, Johnson shared the story of his first visit to the food bank, of living behind his church, of borrowing $20,000 from his parents.
“Do you have any income?” she asked. The answer was no.
She asks about assets.
“It’s kind of hard driving a 2006 Chevy pickup to a food bank,” he said.
He tried for military benefits but was told by officials in the Veterans’ Affairs office he was 33 days short of continuous active duty to qualify.
On Wednesday, he decided he needed more help than he could get from the food bank and applied for state assistance for the first time in his life.
McDonald gave him a list of resources, places to go for transitional housing, for clothes, for extra food.
“Food stamps weren’t intended to carry anyone through today’s economy,” McDonald told him. “They don’t last a month.”
In 2006, Johnson’s gross annual income was $170,000. His house, then appraised at nearly $1.2 million, was $70,000 away from being paid off.
“There have been slow stretches during the last couple of winters,” Johnson said. “But not like this. This is just incredible.”
It’s an odd feeling, Johnson said, to own expensive goods that aren’t worth anything. He tried selling his tools at Trade-N-Tools, where you can trade tools for money. But he quickly found out he wasn’t the first one with the idea; the place was inundated, he said.
He was never irresponsible with money. He planned ahead. He had a savings account, but that was wiped out by lawyer’s fees.
His parents, who also live in the area, are using their savings to help their son.
“I grew up with parents that never took vacation; we drove a station wagon with a red-front fender. It was all mismatched and had snow tires on it year round,” he said, adding he intends to pay back every dime his parents have given him.
Although Johnson never dreamed he would be in this position, he said, he’s being proactive about surviving. “There’s just no income. I just can’t get any money …” he said. “But it’s easy to find people in worse shape than me.”
Joel Hall
Joel Hall would like to leave Bend — but he can’t.
“There are more job opportunities elsewhere … But I can’t afford leaving,” he said. “The economy’s impact on a small town like this …”
When he first moved to the area, in 2005, 37-year-old Hall worked for the Bend-La Pine School District as a teaching assistant.
He has a bachelor’s degree in education from California State University- San Marcos.
Hall was laid off from that job. He was laid off from Flatbread Pizza. He’s been a bartender but was laid off there as well.
"It was tough five years ago finding a job in this town,” he said. “Now, this town that seemed to explode for a while, it’s just imploded.”
He’s getting by teaching snowboarding a few hours on Mt. Bachelor. But that’s only about two hours a week. And he hasn’t received unemployment benefits yet, because he’s been told it’s a four- to six-week wait.
“In the meantime, there’s no income,” he said while waiting in line for food stamps on Wednesday. He’s dressed in all black, with The North Face sneakers. He’s clutching an issue of National Geographic magazine. “I wouldn’t be standing in this line if that wasn’t the case.”
Hall has moved in with a friend to reduce expenses.
“Thank God I have good friends,” he said. “But they are losing their jobs, too, and they have educations. They are lawyers …”
Maybe, he said, it’s time for a career change.
“I would like to get into a field that can withstand this stuff,” he said, mentioning health care as a possibility.
Wednesday was his first time applying for food stamps.
“I never though there would be this many people here,” he said, after waiting in line for about 40 minutes. “But it seems to be hitting people from all directions.”
Although Hall said he’s determined to stay optimistic and keep his head up, it was a difficult decision for him to visit the DHS office.
“I’m totally embarrassed,” he said. “I didn’t want to come down here and wait in this line. But six weeks with no income … I check Craigslist and the paper all the time. There’s just not much out there.”
Kris Hakkila
As soon as Kris Hakkila, 44, of Bend, noticed his work drying up, he started applying for jobs.
He has yet to hear from anyone. In December alone, he sent out 40 résumés, looking for jobs at flooring manufacturing companies or as a project manager on different jobs — without a single call back.
“Not a thing, not a letter, not a call,” he said. “You just know they are being bombarded with applications.”
And so, on Wednesday, the self-employed hardwood floor contractor applied for food stamps for the first time.
His sentiments echoed many others at the DHS office.
“I’ve been through tough times,” he said. “But never this bad before.”
Along with his wife, who works as an assistant to a financial broker, Hakkila has two daughters, 14 and 17.
“All our money is going to pay our bills,” Hakkila said. “Soon, we’ll have absolutely nothing.”
Two years ago, his business was bringing in around $60,000. He has a job lined up in March, but other than that his income is close to zero.
He’s never even thought of applying for food stamps before. And he waited until there were no other choices.
“You know, it kind of sucks,” he said.
Karen Albert
Nearly every weekday morning, Karen Albert took the Les Schwab Tire Centers shuttle from Prineville to her office at the company’s new headquarters in Bend.
But last Friday, she decided to drive her own car.
An hour into her workday, at 8 a.m. her boss called Albert into an office. The human resource director was waiting.
“They told me they were letting me off due to the economy,” she said.
The 48-year-old didn’t see it coming.
“They told us they were done with layoffs.”
Albert was one of 25 people laid off a couple of weeks ago. Earlier this month, the company also laid off about 25 people.
“I just called my daughter and cried,” Albert said.
Since she drove her own car, she didn’t have to wait until her shift was over for the shuttle to arrive and ride home with her former co-workers.
“That was lucky,” she said. “I’m trying to find the blessings in all of this.”
She drove home and cleaned the house.
“And then I went online and applied for unemployment benefits,” she said.
Albert worked for the tire company — Central Oregon’s second-largest private employer — for five years.
A single mom with no other income, Albert immediately thought of her two children, ages 21 and 19. Her daughter, the oldest, has rheumatoid arthritis. And her youngest, a son, is a wrestler in college.
On Wednesday, Albert sat in the Prineville office filling out an application for the Oregon Health Plan.
“Amy can’t go without medical coverage, and my son is on the wrestling team,” she said. “If I don’t have coverage, I don’t care, but they need to be covered.”
Albert said she’s hoping the insurance coverage will be the only assistance she needs.
“I was raised in a family where you don’t ask for help. You take care of yourself,” Albert said. “So it’s rather humiliating. But you do what you have to do to take care of your family.”
Mona Meeds
Mona Meeds didn’t want her children to know.
But she mentioned food stamps while speaking to her husband, and her children heard.
“I didn’t want them to be embarrassed,” said the 31-year-old mother of four.
“If I hadn’t mentioned the Oregon Trail card, they wouldn’t know,” she said.
The Oregon Trail card is a debit-like card that makes food stamps available electronically.
When it became harder and harder for her husband, who owns his own heating and cooling business, to find work, Meeds knew she had to apply for help.
“The work just isn’t there,” she said. “During the housing boom, there was so much work.”
She applied for food stamps and signed her children up for the free and reduced-lunch program.
Without the aid, she’s not sure what would happen. Savings are gone, and her husband continues to take jobs farther and farther away from Prineville.
Even though she is constantly on the move, picking up and dropping off her children, ages 5, 11, 14 and 15, she applied for a job at Rite-Aid.
“It’s the only job I’ve seen posted,” Meeds said. “But they didn’t call.”
Four years ago, the family built a home and had money in the bank.
“Now, I try not to think about it,” she said.
Her children took the news well.
“I told them Dad doesn’t have much work and we’re getting assistance. When it gets better, we’ll get off of it,” she said.
With Crook County’s unemployment rate recently reaching 14 percent, Meeds said her children took it well, in part because they are familiar with tough times.
“They took it better than I thought,” she said. “They have a lot of friends that are having hard times too.”
Keshia Yaw
Keshia Yaw sat in the Department of Human Services office in Madras on Wednesday, waiting for her mother to pick her up.
“I know what I’m going to do,” said the 18-year-old single mom from Warm Springs. “I’m going to find a job, work on scholarship forms, get re-accepted to COCC (Central Oregon Community College) and transfer to Portland State.”
Maybe, she said, she would study something in the medical field.
Although, she doesn’t like asking for help, Wednesday was the first step in realizing her goals.
A blue folder, full of information, was on the table in front of her. Inside was information on how to receive cash assistance from a program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The cash grants are $647 a month for families of four that earn less than $795 a month and have less than $2,500 in assets.
More than money, she’s hoping the program will help her get a job. The goal of the temporary assistance program is to create self-sufficiency for participants. To receive benefits, job searches are mandatory. And the individual must participate in the services available — such as job training classes that help with résumés.
Yaw lives with her mom, who receives food stamps and disability. She doesn’t have her driver’s license. It was too expensive, so any job needs to be near home.
“I don’t like it, depending on other people,” she said.
Yaw wasn’t the only young face at the Madras DHS office on Wednesday. Vicky Higgins, the operations manager, said her office serves a large teenage population.
In 2007, the office helped nearly 40 homeless teenagers.
“The biggest increase is those people who have never asked before,” Higgins said. “But the teen population is really increasing, too.”
Basilio Gomez
For the past 12 years, Basilio Gomez has worked at Bright Wood, in Madras.
He’s no stranger to the economy impacting the hours he works.
When times are good, the forklift driver is guaranteed 40-hour workweeks at the wood remanufacturing company. But lately it’s impossible to work enough hours to support his wife and four children.
On Wednesday, the 44-year-old applied for more food stamps and filled out the paperwork to put his two older children, ages 12 and 11, on the Oregon Health Plan.
The younger two children are already covered through the plan.
He has insurance through the wood manufacturing company, but the deductible is too high.
“It’s bad this year,” Gomez said.
Jaimie and Dave Crockett
Since September, Jaimie Crockett, 25, of Jefferson County, has been taking her résumé to any grocery store and gas station she can drive to.
“I’m trying to find anything,” she said.
Her husband, Dave, 36, was demoted from a salaried to hourly position at Bright Wood, Central Oregon’s third-largest private employer. During a recent week, he only worked 16 hours. He’s been with the company for 14 years.
The couple waited Wednesday in the lobby of the DHS office in Madras for an appointment with a caseworker, who will explain how to apply for food stamps.
Dave never imagined it would come to this point.
“A couple of years we went through this at Bright Wood,” he said. “But that was for a month.”
The couple has two daughters, ages 7 and 2.
“This is horrible,” Dave said. “I’ve never had to ask for help for anything.”
In September, Dave was bringing home about $3,000 a month. The money went to house payments and groceries. Last month, his income was $1,000.
Although Jaimie doesn’t like it, she has an easier time asking for help.
“I’m willing to do whatever to put a roof over our kids’ heads,” she said.
Dave is also studying accounting at Central Oregon Community College, so there are student loans to pay. He’s hoping it’s a recession-proof job.
As the mortgage payments pile up, the hardest part, Jaimie said, is not knowing if they will be able to stay in their house.
“We need to have a safe, comfortable place for our kids,” Jaimie said. “And that’s in jeopardy. If I didn’t have kids, it would be different.”
They are hoping the food stamps can alleviate some of the grocery bill costs so they can put more money toward paying off their house.
“I just kept thinking we could do this on our own,” Dave said.
But they couldn’t.
“We tried to put it off, but it caught up with us,” Jaimie said. “We couldn’t think about it anymore; we just had to do it. So here we are.”
Over 2 years ago, when I picked up BEM's mantle, and started this blog, I only knew a few things:
- We were at or near the top of the biggest Bubble of all time
- Bend was one of the most heavily participating cities in the country
- It would all end badly
But I think the World is coming around to this blog & it's commenters way of thinking, that this thing is going to be disastrous. That this thing will redefine Moore's Law, and everything that can go wrong will go horribly wrong. And a whole bunch of stuff we never even thought about in the early days, will also go wrong.
Because if there is one thing we're all learning, implosions don't go "according to plan". "Project Management" won't help you during a catastrophe. Neither will Positive Thinking. In fact, positive thinking which leads to positive action can hurt you BADLY in many ways in our current circumstances.
And of course, that is exactly what we are seeing. Jay Audia being a prime example, among others. THIS is Not the time to be "Optimistic". We've got a ways to go.
And from the headline, you can see I've "taken a page" from The Bulletin, and put a somewhat misleading headline on this weeks post. Well, sorta, kinda. As the Bulletin always does. We will see CACB seized by bank regulators, sooner or later. NOW is the time to extract your funds. NOW.
CACB, 5 daysCACB is finally having it's Day of Reckoning; a time when we all realize that this Big Behemoth that represents our Diabolical Corporate Levaithan, is really just a decent sized fish in a very, Very small pond. CACB, while Big To Bendites, is Dogshit on a Shingle to the rest of the World, and the banking federales will have no compunction about swooping in and closing this beast one lovely Friday Morning.
In fact this past Friday, the FDIC saw fit to close 3 middling banks, but there was one point of interest in these closures: When shuttering the Magnet Bank in Salt Lake City, the FDIC found itself unable to find anyone willing to simply assume this business:
Utah's MagnetBank closed without an acquirer
FDIC shuts down three banks in one day amid ongoing credit crisis
By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last update: 6:42 p.m. EST Jan. 30, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Federal regulators closed three banks in a single day Friday, as the ongoing credit crisis showed no signs of abating.
Utah's MagnetBank became the fourth bank failure of the year, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was forced to directly refund depositors after being unable to find another institution willing to take over its operations.
That marked the first time the FDIC has been unable to find an acquirer for a failed bank in nearly five years, according to FDIC spokesman David Barr. "This bank did not have an attractive franchise value, and not many retail deposits or core deposits," Barr said. The FDIC had conducted an extensive marketing process for the bank's assets, he said.
Salt Lake City-based MagnetBank had total assets of $292.9 million as of Dec. 2, and
$282.8 million in total deposits. "It is estimated that the bank did not have any uninsured funds," the FDIC said in a statement.
The FDIC later said it has also closed Maryland-based Suburban Federal Savings Bank, and Florida's Ocala National Bank.
Suburban Federal had total assets of roughly $360 million as of Sep. 30, and total deposits of $302 million, the FDIC said in a statement. Tappahannock, Va.-based Bank of Essex agreed to assume all of the failed bank's deposits, the FDIC said.
Ocala National had $223.5 million in total assets as of Dec. 31, and $205.2 million in total deposits, the FDIC said. Winter Haven, Fla.-based CenterState Bank has agreed to assume all of the failed bank's deposits.
The closures mark the fourth, fifth and sixth bank failures of 2009, bringing the total to 31 since the start of the credit crisis.
The FDIC can almost always find someone willing to take over a banks operations. Almost Always. It's like getting the customers for free. All the bad stuff is wiped out. You just get a whole bunch of customers for almost nothing, and since they are free, you can cherry-pick and get rid of the crap, by imposing onerous fees, etc.
What will be interesting to see, is if they can find a buyer for poor, sad little Cracker Ass Cracker Broke. Let's face it, CACB does have a decent presence in this dust-ridden shithole. But that's about it. What we're seeing with Magnet Bank in UT is just the beginning; banking seems to be a business model that is again on the brink of complete failure.
We saw this in the early 90's. Of course, we saw it en masse during the Depression. Banking is a business model that simply is compelled to undo itself.
To become big, you must take risks & leverage to the hilt. You must participate in the bubble du jour, you must. Or you won't get big. But once the soup goes cold, you face calamitous implosion. And you are once again a nobody.
Unless. Unless you can convince someone that you are Too Big To Fail. Then you receive Corporate Welfare, your corpse has new life breathed into it, and you go on your merry way, doing as you've done before, driven towards ever-larger temporary Bubble-fueled successes and subsequent Taxpayer-fueled failure-bailouts. Always becoming Ever Too Big To Fail.
Which is where we are writ large. We've done this so often with banks, that it has now spread to autos. But NOT one auto maker. It's the industry that is failing. Like banks. It's the whole edifice that is crumbling. We can't move to another part of the cliff face & be safe, the whole thing is crumbling.
And so shall pass our "Civilization". America. This crazy 200+ year experiment seems to be itself collapsing. Like Krugman says: This isn't cyclical, this is structural. There is a fundamental flaw that seems to have rendered Unbridled Capitalism as a system with no fundamental equilibrium point. The pendulum swings. But the force of the feedback mechanism (Greed) is rendering the entire structure supporting the pendulum, unstable.
We've exceeded the engineering specs of capitalism. hbm may be right: Unbridled capitalism undoes itself. This got me to reading Marx:
Political economy
Marx argued that this alienation of human work (and resulting commodity fetishism) functions precisely as the defining feature of capitalism. Prior to capitalism, markets existed in Europe where producers and merchants bought and sold commodities. According to Marx, a capitalist mode of production developed in Europe when labor itself became a commodity—when peasants became free to sell their own labor-power, and needed to do so because they no longer possessed their own land. People sell their labor-power when they accept compensation in return for whatever work they do in a given period of time (in other words, they are not selling the product of their labor, but their capacity to work). In return for selling their labor power they receive money, which allows them to survive. Those who must sell their labor power are "proletarians". The person who buys the labor power, generally someone who does own the land and technology to produce, is a "capitalist" or "bourgeois". The proletarians inevitably outnumber the capitalists.
Marx distinguished industrial capitalists from merchant capitalists. Merchants buy goods in one market and sell them in another. Since the laws of supply and demand operate within given markets, a difference often exists between the price of a commodity in one market and another. Merchants, then, practise arbitrage, and hope to capture the difference between these two markets. According to Marx, capitalists, on the other hand, take advantage of the difference between the labor market and the market for whatever commodity is produced by the capitalist. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that this surplus value had its source in surplus labour, the difference between what it costs to keep workers alive and what they can produce.
Capitalism is capable of tremendous growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment. Marx considered the capitalist class to be the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly improved the means of production. But Marx argued that capitalism was prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labor. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labor is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. When the rate of profit falls below a certain point, the result would be a recession or depression in which certain sectors of the economy would collapse. Marx thought that during such a crisis the price of labor would also fall, and eventually make possible the investment in new technologies and the growth of new sectors of the economy.
Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this cycle of growth, collapse, and more growth. Moreover, he believed that the long-term consequence of this process was necessarily the enrichment and empowerment of the capitalist class and the impoverishment of the proletariat. He believed that were the proletariat to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, and a system of production less vulnerable to periodic crises. In general, Marx thought that peaceful negotiation of this problem was impracticable, and that a massive well-organized violent revolution would be required, because the ruling class would not give up power without struggle. He theorized that to establish the socialist system, a dictatorship of the proletariat - a period where the needs of the working-class, not of capital, will be the common deciding factor - must be created on a temporary basis. As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."[24] While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the US and the Netherlands), he suggested that in other countries with strong centralized state-oriented traditions, like France and Germany, the "lever of our revolution must be force."[25]
Marx has a fairly compelling arguments here. The decline of Unions, the rise of vast capitalist fortunes. A lot seems to be going according to Marxist plans here.
But there is one problem with the Marxist thought of 150 years ago, and today: We have lowered the barrier to capitalist entry so low, that everyone is a Capitalist Proletariat.
Realtors. Graphic Designers. Web engineers. Even traditional employees. How many people do you know who have held their current position over 10 years? I never have.
Marx said that politicos & proletarians would ultimately revolt against capitalism. But who do we revolt against? The division is so unclear, that like a terrorist cell, it's hard to figure out who the enemy really is.
So we are headed towards something. I almost feel a sense of melancholy, watching as my beloved Capitalism dies a slow torturous death. Will it arise someday for my kids? Maybe. But it seems clear to me, that during the remainder of my working productive years, something will take its place.
I don't think it will be straight up Marxist Communism. But it will be governmentally managed. The Invisible Hand will be cuffed. We'll become more like Italy or (gag) France. We'll bleed the patient with leeches to ensure This Never Happens Again. Cure worse than the disease, as is the way in circumstances like this.
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Nobody told me there'd be days like these
Strange days indeed, strange days indeed
... most peculiar mama
Moving on....
I've found myself headed towards the business listings on craiglist. The Bulletin will not tell us The Bad News of small and middling businesses closing, and so we have to rely on the businesses themselves. And many will either come right out and tell you that they are closing their doors:
The Children's Boutique on Kearney Ave is going out of business!
everything is for sale, even the fixtures.
I have two cash registers, credit card machines, slatwall, tagging supplies and more.
come by and see what we have. Last day Feb 10th
The Children's Boutique
325 ne Kearney
(across from Taco Bell)
385-1168
Or you can sift through the vast picked-over carcasses of your favorite ex-retailer. There's a lot of stuff there. If you have a urgent fundamental need, you can get pretty good deals there. Not great, cuz after all, This Is Bend.
But people like Dunc, and other survivors can outfit the current shop at fairly decent prices.
Of course I raise my usual caveat: Don't Buy Anything Unless You Absolutely Have To. We are in what Krugman calls a deflationary spiral. Cash is becoming worth more, the stuff we bought on the way up like homes, cars, fake titties, Hummers, Volo, City Council Seats, CACB shares, botox, and the rest is becoming worth-less. OK, I can't resist re-prodicing a short reprint of Krugmans Dead On Analysis:
Nobel economist: 'Not your father's recession'
Krugman has a recurring economic nightmare involving a syndrome called a deflationary trap, something that could conceivably last a decade. "This has me very frightened," he says, "and it's just starting to get under way."
Deflation, the opposite of inflation, means that prices fall -- which might strike shoppers as a good deal. But as prices drop, consumers hold onto their money in hopes of even better bargains.
Reduced demand sends prices lower, triggering a downward spiral as factories close, employment shrinks and loans default. Pay cuts mean that homeowners, who thought rising incomes would reduce the bite of their mortgages, instead see their house payments effectively increase, boosting their debt load.
Japan suffered a lost decade or more to deflation after its 1980s economic bubble burst. Krugman says the current recession has disturbing parallels.
During Inflation, your money becomes worth-less, and so it is best employed in real goods. Holding cash simply impoverishes you. Deflation is the opposite: Holding onto your money and not spending it increases your wealth. It is the unfortunate side-effects that collapse the economy.
And spending DOES NOT REVERSE THE PROCESS. Same as holding cash during inflation doesn't STICK IT TO THE MAN or some such. You can't "reverse" deflation by spending. It's not an Entity, it's a state.
This brings me to my final thought: BEDROCK. Seems like people are starting to wonder if there is a "base" to this collapse. Is there a bottom. Will we ever stop falling?
I guess Great Minds Think Alike as Dunc had a recent post on this topic:
It's the psychology, stupid.
To follow up on the previous post, I'm starting to look at the psychology of the consumer again.
While I wouldn't put in the dire terms that Buster put in the comments, there is a fine line between having a wounded consumer and a mortally wounded consumer. To my mind, it's better to be informed and skeptical, but not panicked.
Last night, I began wondering about all those people who have secure jobs, or relatively secure jobs. This is probably the majority, even the vast majority of consumers.
But they've cut back, nevertheless. It's a natural response. But most of them are still coming in and getting their favorite comics, or buying a book, or pulling the trigger for a toy that wows them.
What would be very dangerous is if they didn't just cut back, but stopped spending altogether.
I think that's what all the stimulus package talk is all about. Maybe Buster is right, and little of it will reach Bend in truth. But as long as the 'impression' is out there that SOMETHING is being done, I believe that the consumer will continue to be careful, but not stop altogether.
Obama is a plus, because he holds out the potential for improvement. The stimulus package is a plus, because it looks as though something is being done. The bail-out -- god help me -- is a plus, at least psychologically -- because it keeps the Big Bank Fails headlines out of the paper.
On street level, I saw the immediate impact of Bears, Sterns going down. Then the even bigger impact of Lehman brothers, and Bernie Madoff was the nail. I suppose, Murphy being a tricky bastard, that I should expect at least one more real eye-opener, and hope the psychology doesn't turn permanently bearish.
The underlying conditions are stark, but I can deal with them as long as there isn't another total shift in psychology.
People will start asking this question: What is Bedrock in the American Economy? Where is the bottom? What is fake & what is real? For every Madoff, how many non-shysters are there? Are there any? Is Buffett real? Who can I trust? Can I trust anyone ever again?
Where's the Bedrock? There IS Bedrock in this country. OK, I sound pretty alarmist on here, I know. It's in large part because we are collectively being over-pacified by the local media, and someone needs to don some clapboards to raise awareness.
But even in a place like Bend, people have to eat, they need to sleep largely under a roof, they need clothes. There is a ROCK BOTTOM here. I don't think we'll end up like Fossil or worse.
But where is The Bottom? I don't know folks, but it seems to be that those who went up the most will fall the farthest. And No Where Went Up Farther And Faster Than Bend Oregon. No Where. And we've already seen that things are far worse than anyone thought possible even 1 year ago. A year ago McPain had a chance.
So when I and others in the comments talk about this town going back to 40-50,000 people, homes reverting back to $125K, and unemployment going to 20-25% (or more), this isn't panic-mongering; its just a reversion to Bends Bedrock. Its base. A place where people eat, drive, dress, work and otherwise live simply. It's not bad. It's our bedrock.
I'll end with a Bully piece about how bad this is already for select locals. And remember: This is the price we are paying for having as a community CHOSEN to have a 24 month unbridled Greed-fest primarily for those at the very top of our local socio-economic stratum. This is it. The hangover will affect everyone and will linger for a decade or longer. Was it worth it?
Meet the people behind the numbers
By Story by Lauren Dake Photos by Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Published: February 01. 2009 4:00AM PST
Department of Human Services employees say they’ve never seen anything like it. Every month, the number of people seeking assistance rises. In December, 10,636 families in Central Oregon received food stamps. Statewide, they are calling it an emergency. But in Central Oregon, they are looking for an even stronger word. With a 29.5 percent increase in families receiving food stamps in December compared with December 2007, the tri-county area is the hardest hit in the state, when measured by the increased request for food stamps. Many families and individuals are seeking help for the first time in their lives, others are finding they need more. Below, a few of those people agreed to share their stories.
Jeff Johnson
Jeff Johnson’s chicken Parmesan dinner expired 22 days ago.
In about a month’s time, he went from buying fresh foods at the grocery store to getting free, slightly expired food.
A recent divorce came at a time when the 45-year-old, self-employed residential and excavation construction worker was experiencing slow times.
The Bend resident went from living in a 2,552-square foot, five-bedroom, three-bathroom home on 40 acres, to a 35-foot fifth-wheeler in his church’s parking lot.
Now, the man who lives in a $42,000, 2006 Weekend Warrior, which he bought with visions of traveling the state with his family, is answering questions he never dreamed someone would ask him.
“How are you meeting your basic needs?” asked Department of Human Services employee Sue McDonald — a stranger to Johnson.
His face flushed, Johnson shared the story of his first visit to the food bank, of living behind his church, of borrowing $20,000 from his parents.
“Do you have any income?” she asked. The answer was no.
She asks about assets.
“It’s kind of hard driving a 2006 Chevy pickup to a food bank,” he said.
He tried for military benefits but was told by officials in the Veterans’ Affairs office he was 33 days short of continuous active duty to qualify.
On Wednesday, he decided he needed more help than he could get from the food bank and applied for state assistance for the first time in his life.
McDonald gave him a list of resources, places to go for transitional housing, for clothes, for extra food.
“Food stamps weren’t intended to carry anyone through today’s economy,” McDonald told him. “They don’t last a month.”
In 2006, Johnson’s gross annual income was $170,000. His house, then appraised at nearly $1.2 million, was $70,000 away from being paid off.
“There have been slow stretches during the last couple of winters,” Johnson said. “But not like this. This is just incredible.”
It’s an odd feeling, Johnson said, to own expensive goods that aren’t worth anything. He tried selling his tools at Trade-N-Tools, where you can trade tools for money. But he quickly found out he wasn’t the first one with the idea; the place was inundated, he said.
He was never irresponsible with money. He planned ahead. He had a savings account, but that was wiped out by lawyer’s fees.
His parents, who also live in the area, are using their savings to help their son.
“I grew up with parents that never took vacation; we drove a station wagon with a red-front fender. It was all mismatched and had snow tires on it year round,” he said, adding he intends to pay back every dime his parents have given him.
Although Johnson never dreamed he would be in this position, he said, he’s being proactive about surviving. “There’s just no income. I just can’t get any money …” he said. “But it’s easy to find people in worse shape than me.”
Joel Hall
Joel Hall would like to leave Bend — but he can’t.
“There are more job opportunities elsewhere … But I can’t afford leaving,” he said. “The economy’s impact on a small town like this …”
When he first moved to the area, in 2005, 37-year-old Hall worked for the Bend-La Pine School District as a teaching assistant.
He has a bachelor’s degree in education from California State University- San Marcos.
Hall was laid off from that job. He was laid off from Flatbread Pizza. He’s been a bartender but was laid off there as well.
"It was tough five years ago finding a job in this town,” he said. “Now, this town that seemed to explode for a while, it’s just imploded.”
He’s getting by teaching snowboarding a few hours on Mt. Bachelor. But that’s only about two hours a week. And he hasn’t received unemployment benefits yet, because he’s been told it’s a four- to six-week wait.
“In the meantime, there’s no income,” he said while waiting in line for food stamps on Wednesday. He’s dressed in all black, with The North Face sneakers. He’s clutching an issue of National Geographic magazine. “I wouldn’t be standing in this line if that wasn’t the case.”
Hall has moved in with a friend to reduce expenses.
“Thank God I have good friends,” he said. “But they are losing their jobs, too, and they have educations. They are lawyers …”
Maybe, he said, it’s time for a career change.
“I would like to get into a field that can withstand this stuff,” he said, mentioning health care as a possibility.
Wednesday was his first time applying for food stamps.
“I never though there would be this many people here,” he said, after waiting in line for about 40 minutes. “But it seems to be hitting people from all directions.”
Although Hall said he’s determined to stay optimistic and keep his head up, it was a difficult decision for him to visit the DHS office.
“I’m totally embarrassed,” he said. “I didn’t want to come down here and wait in this line. But six weeks with no income … I check Craigslist and the paper all the time. There’s just not much out there.”
Kris Hakkila
As soon as Kris Hakkila, 44, of Bend, noticed his work drying up, he started applying for jobs.
He has yet to hear from anyone. In December alone, he sent out 40 résumés, looking for jobs at flooring manufacturing companies or as a project manager on different jobs — without a single call back.
“Not a thing, not a letter, not a call,” he said. “You just know they are being bombarded with applications.”
And so, on Wednesday, the self-employed hardwood floor contractor applied for food stamps for the first time.
His sentiments echoed many others at the DHS office.
“I’ve been through tough times,” he said. “But never this bad before.”
Along with his wife, who works as an assistant to a financial broker, Hakkila has two daughters, 14 and 17.
“All our money is going to pay our bills,” Hakkila said. “Soon, we’ll have absolutely nothing.”
Two years ago, his business was bringing in around $60,000. He has a job lined up in March, but other than that his income is close to zero.
He’s never even thought of applying for food stamps before. And he waited until there were no other choices.
“You know, it kind of sucks,” he said.
Karen Albert
Nearly every weekday morning, Karen Albert took the Les Schwab Tire Centers shuttle from Prineville to her office at the company’s new headquarters in Bend.
But last Friday, she decided to drive her own car.
An hour into her workday, at 8 a.m. her boss called Albert into an office. The human resource director was waiting.
“They told me they were letting me off due to the economy,” she said.
The 48-year-old didn’t see it coming.
“They told us they were done with layoffs.”
Albert was one of 25 people laid off a couple of weeks ago. Earlier this month, the company also laid off about 25 people.
“I just called my daughter and cried,” Albert said.
Since she drove her own car, she didn’t have to wait until her shift was over for the shuttle to arrive and ride home with her former co-workers.
“That was lucky,” she said. “I’m trying to find the blessings in all of this.”
She drove home and cleaned the house.
“And then I went online and applied for unemployment benefits,” she said.
Albert worked for the tire company — Central Oregon’s second-largest private employer — for five years.
A single mom with no other income, Albert immediately thought of her two children, ages 21 and 19. Her daughter, the oldest, has rheumatoid arthritis. And her youngest, a son, is a wrestler in college.
On Wednesday, Albert sat in the Prineville office filling out an application for the Oregon Health Plan.
“Amy can’t go without medical coverage, and my son is on the wrestling team,” she said. “If I don’t have coverage, I don’t care, but they need to be covered.”
Albert said she’s hoping the insurance coverage will be the only assistance she needs.
“I was raised in a family where you don’t ask for help. You take care of yourself,” Albert said. “So it’s rather humiliating. But you do what you have to do to take care of your family.”
Mona Meeds
Mona Meeds didn’t want her children to know.
But she mentioned food stamps while speaking to her husband, and her children heard.
“I didn’t want them to be embarrassed,” said the 31-year-old mother of four.
“If I hadn’t mentioned the Oregon Trail card, they wouldn’t know,” she said.
The Oregon Trail card is a debit-like card that makes food stamps available electronically.
When it became harder and harder for her husband, who owns his own heating and cooling business, to find work, Meeds knew she had to apply for help.
“The work just isn’t there,” she said. “During the housing boom, there was so much work.”
She applied for food stamps and signed her children up for the free and reduced-lunch program.
Without the aid, she’s not sure what would happen. Savings are gone, and her husband continues to take jobs farther and farther away from Prineville.
Even though she is constantly on the move, picking up and dropping off her children, ages 5, 11, 14 and 15, she applied for a job at Rite-Aid.
“It’s the only job I’ve seen posted,” Meeds said. “But they didn’t call.”
Four years ago, the family built a home and had money in the bank.
“Now, I try not to think about it,” she said.
Her children took the news well.
“I told them Dad doesn’t have much work and we’re getting assistance. When it gets better, we’ll get off of it,” she said.
With Crook County’s unemployment rate recently reaching 14 percent, Meeds said her children took it well, in part because they are familiar with tough times.
“They took it better than I thought,” she said. “They have a lot of friends that are having hard times too.”
Keshia Yaw
Keshia Yaw sat in the Department of Human Services office in Madras on Wednesday, waiting for her mother to pick her up.
“I know what I’m going to do,” said the 18-year-old single mom from Warm Springs. “I’m going to find a job, work on scholarship forms, get re-accepted to COCC (Central Oregon Community College) and transfer to Portland State.”
Maybe, she said, she would study something in the medical field.
Although, she doesn’t like asking for help, Wednesday was the first step in realizing her goals.
A blue folder, full of information, was on the table in front of her. Inside was information on how to receive cash assistance from a program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The cash grants are $647 a month for families of four that earn less than $795 a month and have less than $2,500 in assets.
More than money, she’s hoping the program will help her get a job. The goal of the temporary assistance program is to create self-sufficiency for participants. To receive benefits, job searches are mandatory. And the individual must participate in the services available — such as job training classes that help with résumés.
Yaw lives with her mom, who receives food stamps and disability. She doesn’t have her driver’s license. It was too expensive, so any job needs to be near home.
“I don’t like it, depending on other people,” she said.
Yaw wasn’t the only young face at the Madras DHS office on Wednesday. Vicky Higgins, the operations manager, said her office serves a large teenage population.
In 2007, the office helped nearly 40 homeless teenagers.
“The biggest increase is those people who have never asked before,” Higgins said. “But the teen population is really increasing, too.”
Basilio Gomez
For the past 12 years, Basilio Gomez has worked at Bright Wood, in Madras.
He’s no stranger to the economy impacting the hours he works.
When times are good, the forklift driver is guaranteed 40-hour workweeks at the wood remanufacturing company. But lately it’s impossible to work enough hours to support his wife and four children.
On Wednesday, the 44-year-old applied for more food stamps and filled out the paperwork to put his two older children, ages 12 and 11, on the Oregon Health Plan.
The younger two children are already covered through the plan.
He has insurance through the wood manufacturing company, but the deductible is too high.
“It’s bad this year,” Gomez said.
Jaimie and Dave Crockett
Since September, Jaimie Crockett, 25, of Jefferson County, has been taking her résumé to any grocery store and gas station she can drive to.
“I’m trying to find anything,” she said.
Her husband, Dave, 36, was demoted from a salaried to hourly position at Bright Wood, Central Oregon’s third-largest private employer. During a recent week, he only worked 16 hours. He’s been with the company for 14 years.
The couple waited Wednesday in the lobby of the DHS office in Madras for an appointment with a caseworker, who will explain how to apply for food stamps.
Dave never imagined it would come to this point.
“A couple of years we went through this at Bright Wood,” he said. “But that was for a month.”
The couple has two daughters, ages 7 and 2.
“This is horrible,” Dave said. “I’ve never had to ask for help for anything.”
In September, Dave was bringing home about $3,000 a month. The money went to house payments and groceries. Last month, his income was $1,000.
Although Jaimie doesn’t like it, she has an easier time asking for help.
“I’m willing to do whatever to put a roof over our kids’ heads,” she said.
Dave is also studying accounting at Central Oregon Community College, so there are student loans to pay. He’s hoping it’s a recession-proof job.
As the mortgage payments pile up, the hardest part, Jaimie said, is not knowing if they will be able to stay in their house.
“We need to have a safe, comfortable place for our kids,” Jaimie said. “And that’s in jeopardy. If I didn’t have kids, it would be different.”
They are hoping the food stamps can alleviate some of the grocery bill costs so they can put more money toward paying off their house.
“I just kept thinking we could do this on our own,” Dave said.
But they couldn’t.
“We tried to put it off, but it caught up with us,” Jaimie said. “We couldn’t think about it anymore; we just had to do it. So here we are.”
(Kudos to The Bully for running this piece. Credit where it's due.)
Post over.
Post over.
8 comments:
First off, that's a mighty long post...
And I'm surprised no one pointed out that what youtuberefer to as Moore's Law ("whatever can go wrong, will") is actually Murphy's Law. Moore's Law says that the huge HDTVs people have paid $1000+ for will be half their current price before the year's out.
Sory about the Youtube reference -- I typed that message (and this one) on my phone, and the stupid AutoComplete got in the way.
awesome shot
she got such a lovely boobs
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The swaddle wrap is an essential tool for new parents, offering comfort and security to newborns by mimicking the snug feeling of the womb. swaddle wrap
Efficient and reliable aerospace delivery services are paramount in today's global economy, enabling swift transport of crucial supplies, equipment, and personnel across vast distances. aerospace delivery
Educational apps are invaluable tools for modern learners of all ages. With their interactive features and diverse content, these apps make learning accessible anytime, anywhere. educational apps
Bright & Rise Pest Control & Cleaning in Abu Dhabi is a reputable service provider offering comprehensive solutions for pest control and cleaning needs. Specializing in both residential and commercial properties, they employ effective techniques to eliminate pests while ensuring a clean and hygienic environment. With a team of skilled professionals and a commitment to customer satisfaction, Bright & Rise is known for its reliability, efficiency, and dedication to maintaining pest-free and pristine spaces in Abu Dhabi. Anti termite Abu dhabi
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