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In Memoriam:

Born:    December 29, 1939
Died:    September 23, 2006, Dasmariñas, Cavite.

Robert Ramos, Journalist, Katapat newspaper, Laguna, Philippines.
Born:        November 24, 1965
Died:        November 20, 2005,  at the public market at Cabuyao, Laguna.

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Our economy...
How bad can it get?

Mass layoffs are now beginning to dominate the news, along with talk of the Big Three automakers threatening to declare bankruptcy and sink, taking millions of jobs along with them; not just their own jobs, but jobs in other industries that rely on them. This is unprecedented; a situation I have not seen an equal to in my lifetime. This would be a rather serious turn in an economy that is now suffering in multiple sectors, from a number of occurrences that have now come together to produce trouble of an unprecedented degree that this country has not seen since at least the 1930s, during the Great Depression.

Our stock market has seen steady declines on the order of between 200-400 points a session; today was the exception, when the Dow gained more then 494.13 points. That only makes up a part of what the stock market has lost during the past month or two. Since December 11, 2007, when the Dow closed at 13,780.11, the Dow has lost almost 42% of its value; 39% since the beginning of the year (source, http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=DJI&fq=D&ezd=1Q&index=4).

The availability of credit...or rather the lack thereof, has affected our economy. People can't buy what they could before; they are deep in debt. Their stock portfolios have taken hits on the order of 30% and more. They now have no more money to spend; record high gasoline prices insured that situation over the summer. Falling real estate prices kept the consumer at bay, by preventing them to tap into home equity loans. Couple that with stagnant wages, and you have the current business climate, where consumers are curtailing spending in order to pay for basic necessities.

Now...we are losing jobs at a neat clip; at last count, over 5 million Americans were unemployed. The fun begins for them when the unemployment check runs out...along with the money. The abolition of Welfare, as we knew it, insures an impending disaster for millions of Americans. Homelessness was already bad enough; I predict the situation will only get worse in the months ahead...unless our President-elect takes decisive action to alleviate the suffering as soon as he takes office.

We implore President-elect Obama to use all the resources available to him to alleviate the plight of the average American worker...before the situation gets any worse for them. At the same time, we urge him to avoid the temptation to hold of on spending to help the situation; we contend this would only make the situation far worse then it actually is. The auto makers might need a bailout...but we Americans need it, too, and have needed it for quite some time. It's not fair that big business should command a 700 billion dollar bailout, without help being offered to the average American. The situation is particular acute for low-wage earners, who work in low-paying jobs, sometimes because they were the only ones to be had.

As a citizen who voted for Obama...we ask now that you, along with the newly elected Congress, move to raise the minimum wage to a true living wage—at least $17.00 an hour, and limit executive compensation to no more then 30 times that of the lowest-paid worker in the organization. If the lowest paid worker makes no more then $8.00 an hour, the highest-paid worker shouldn't make more then $240.00 an hour. Period, for the sake of equity on the job, and to force big business to pay a fair wage. For far too long, a fair wage has been denied to millions of American workers. This can, and must, end. We implore you, Obama, to work toward that end...