Suicide Spreading as one Solution to Dept Crisis, page 1

Suicide Spreading as one Solution to Dept Crisis

www.alternet.org

Suicide Spreads as One Solution to the Debt Crisis

By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com. Posted July 29, 2008.

In a culture where credit rating is the key measure of self-worth, the increasing response to huge debts is "Just shoot me!" A few days before Congress passed its Housing Bill, Carlene Balderrama of Taunton MA found her own solution to the housing crisis. Just a little over two hours in advance of the time her mortgage company, PHH Mortgage Corporation -- may its name live in infamy -- was to auction off her home, Balderrama killed herself with her husband's rifle.

This is not the kind of response to hard times that James Grant had in mind when he wrote his July 19 Wall Street Journal essay entitled "Why No Outrage?" "One might infer from the lack of popular anger," the famed Wall Street contrarian wrote, "that the credit crisis was God's fault rather than the doing of the bankers and the rating agencies and the government's snoozing watchdogs." For contrast, he cites the spirited response to the depression of the 1890s, when lawyer/agitator Mary Lease stirred crowds with the message that "We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out .... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if

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Mod Edit: To clean up the source.

[edit on 30-7-2008 by MemoryShock]