The Rising Body Count on Main Street

The Rising Body Count on Main Street

www.tomdispatch.com

The fallout from the current subprime mortgage debacle and the economic one that followed has thrown lives into turmoil across the country. In recent days, the Associated Press, ABC News, and others have begun to address the burgeoning body count, especially suicides attributed to the financial crisis. (Note that, months ago, Barbara Ehrenreich raised the issue in the Nation.)

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This article makes me absolutely sick, in the sense that we live in a country where the banks now determine who lives and who dies. And when someone does die due to their actions, they simply don't care, unless it becomes national news. All of these people killed themselves because they were losing their homes. What kind of person can sleep at night knowing that their greed caused someone to end their life? And the police officers who enable these greedy bankers, shame on you. When the bullet comes for you, at least you'll know you deserved it for being the right arm of injustice. Absolutely disgusting. I think the world would be better off without Humanity. We simply don't deserve to exist.

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The bottom line here is really the bottom line. That's all that matters.

I know quite a few people living on the edge right now . . . and I worry quite often what will happen to them if something isn't done to give the 'little guy' a break.

Jobs are disappearing, prices for everything have increased at a pace above that of the average wage increase and there are a lot more people than you think teetering on the brink of losing everything.

Where do they turn, and who is there to ease some of the frustration they feel when they see story after story of the corporate elite raiding the coffers of the companies they run only to be bailed out by the government using tax dollars collected from the very people who now face losing everything?

It comes as no surprise that people have had enough and despair to the point they take their own lives.

The sad thing is, these numbers will rise exponentially in the next little while, as will the horrific details of their deaths.

It is sickening.

I'd love to hear what either of the presidential candidates have to say about those who've taken their own lives due to economic hardship.

Let them dance around those questions for a while instead of fielding cushy questions with pre ordained answers that are designed for nothing more than a quick cost-free sound campaign sound bite on network television news.

reply to post by Oreyeon


You say humanity doesn't deserve to exist

I've said the same myself in the past, but mostly after learning how a child had been tortured and murdered. Or in regard to the way animals are treated.

Personally, I don't think it's a matter of whether or not we deserve to exist. We aren't responsible for our existence .. it's not something we consciously chose to do.

And once we're here, we struggle through it, always hoping it will improve .. and learning to find joy in simple things -- the sight of a rose as we walk past someone's garden, or a moment's watching someone's small child as we stand in a supermarket queue.

We exist because we accept that basically, we have no choice but to exist. If we decide to exit, we leave behind others who'll suffer guilt, regret, sense of responsibility. If we have children, we have a duty to exist.

We can understand the desperation, anger, sense of injustice felt by those who choose to take their lives rather than walk away from their homes, their refuge, their sense of identity.

As to the banks and lenders, they're immune. They make themselves immune. They pass the buck, say they were only doing their job, had no choice, wasn't their decision .. etc.

The police ? If they refuse to evict, they lose their jobs and then fall behind in their own mortgage payments. So again, they say if it were up to them .. they say it's not up to them .. they say they have to follow orders .. say they have no choice ... say they wish it were otherwise.

Humans don't count for much apparently, in the overall scheme. If humans were prize-winning race-horses or dairy cattle, they'd be worth X-number of dollars each on the hoof. But humans .. gee, the powers that be have 6.6 billion of them. They can afford to waste millions. Humans breed like rabbits in any case, as far as the PTB are concerned. Fifteen years and they're ready to breed again .. self-renewing resource .. billions of consumers there for the picking. One drops dead and is replaced by two more consumers.

A house on the other hand might still be standing in 150 years.
So a house is regarded as having more worth than a mere human.
A dead human is worth nothing to them
An old house can be remortgaged, resold, over and over again.

If you choose to worship money, when you have none, you will feel despair and things like this happen. Too many people out there think that in order to have meaning in this world you need money, houses, cars, etc... Once that is taken away, they feel useless and meaningless.

Are the banks to blame? The cops who evict people? No. We are all to blame for putting money first in our lives. Material things are just that. To go on a killing spree of your family members then yourself shows nothing but cowardice. Merely a slave to the system who cant understand that life is about living, and not acquiring.

You say the world is better off without humans. Maybe if humans stopped trying to own the world, we would figure out why we are here and all of us would be better off.

reply to post by Oreyeon


Well lets take a look at our wars...
History says go to war to save the economy, how many innocents die?
How many of our own military die?
I am disgusted, disillusioned and completely ill over all this death and destruction for what? MONEY, GREED and POWER
Money is the root of all evil.

Originally posted by GoalPoster
The bottom line here is really the bottom line. That's all that matters.

I know quite a few people living on the edge right now . . . and I worry quite often what will happen to them if something isn't done to give the 'little guy' a break.

Jobs are disappearing, prices for everything have increased at a pace above that of the average wage increase and there are a lot more people than you think teetering on the brink of losing everything.

Where do they turn, and who is there to ease some of the frustration they feel when they see story after story of the corporate elite raiding the coffers of the companies they run only to be bailed out by the government using tax dollars collected from the very people who now face losing everything?

I am one of those individuals. My parents are in the same boat. My brother is in the same boat as well. I have been on disability for 4 years due to a work related accident. A settlement has yet to be reached because in the first year, when I was on disability leave, my employer fired me. My lawyer made them pay me TTD up until earlier this year, around July. They ceased paying it. They ordered an evaluation of my condition, and because money buys results, the doctor that they chose sided with them and said that I could return to work on light duty restrictions. So, they ceased to pay me, and they refuse to give me my job back. And no one will hire me with the restrictions I have. Nor will they hire me due to the fact that I'm in litigation with another employer fearing that the same could happen to them. So, now I have no money coming in. I am unable to qualify for unemployment. Food stamps will not pay my mortgage. Where is my bailout from the Government? I've paid my taxes all of these years. WHERE'S MY HELP WHEN I NEED IT!?!?!?! You can rest assured though, that when and if I'm able to return to work, I'll be expected to continue on my taxes to help bailout the criminals that are taking our homes away.


[edit on 22-10-2008 by Oreyeon]

Originally posted by Dock6
reply to post by Oreyeon

 

You say humanity doesn't deserve to exist

I've said the same myself in the past, but mostly after learning how a child had been tortured and murdered. Or in regard to the way animals are treated.

Personally, I don't think it's a matter of whether or not we deserve to exist. We aren't responsible for our existence .. it's not something we consciously chose to do.

And once we're here, we struggle through it, always hoping it will improve .. and learning to find joy in simple things -- the sight of a rose as we walk past someone's garden, or a moment's watching someone's small child as we stand in a supermarket queue.

We exist because we accept that basically, we have no choice but to exist. If we decide to exit, we leave behind others who'll suffer guilt, regret, sense of responsibility. If we have children, we have a duty to exist.

We can understand the desperation, anger, sense of injustice felt by those who choose to take their lives rather than walk away from their homes, their refuge, their sense of identity.

As to the banks and lenders, they're immune. They make themselves immune. They pass the buck, say they were only doing their job, had no choice, wasn't their decision .. etc.

The police ? If they refuse to evict, they lose their jobs and then fall behind in their own mortgage payments. So again, they say if it were up to them .. they say it's not up to them .. they say they have to follow orders .. say they have no choice ... say they wish it were otherwise.

Humans don't count for much apparently, in the overall scheme. If humans were prize-winning race-horses or dairy cattle, they'd be worth X-number of dollars each on the hoof. But humans .. gee, the powers that be have 6.6 billion of them. They can afford to waste millions. Humans breed like rabbits in any case, as far as the PTB are concerned. Fifteen years and they're ready to breed again .. self-renewing resource .. billions of consumers there for the picking. One drops dead and is replaced by two more consumers.

A house on the other hand might still be standing in 150 years.
So a house is regarded as having more worth than a mere human.
A dead human is worth nothing to them
An old house can be remortgaged, resold, over and over again.

Star for you, because you speak the truth.

On July 23d, about 90 minutes before her foreclosed Taunton, Massachusetts home was scheduled to be sold at auction, Carlene Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company, letting them know that "by the time they foreclosed on the house today she'd be dead." She continued, "I hope you're more compassionate with my husband and son than you were with me." After that, she took a high-powered rifle and, according to the Boston Globe, shot herself. In an interview with the Associated Press, Balderrama's husband John said, "I had no clue." His wife handled the finances and had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company for months. "She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," he said. In the letter, she wrote, "take the [life] insurance money and pay for the house."

omg god, this is so sad.... I know that many of these people have got themselves into the trouble, but really is there no help? can't someone set up some kind of prefab housing for foreclosure victims?

oh, forget we need all the money for the war

No, that is a lie that is perpetuated by the ignorant and hateful, sir.

The LOVE of money is the root of all evil : that's the saying. A monetary system is needful and to be admired in a technological society - however, covetous greed and self-righteous excusing of crime committed for the gaining of money is where the "evil" enters into it. That is my opinion, of course.

An economic system that generates debt (via central banks or the like) merely by existing is a toxic form of control that peoples allow to be inflicted upon themselves. Materialist living leads to personal generation of debt for those who do not have the wherewithal to garner for themselves an appropriate means of sustaining their self-imposed need basis. This also applies to family planning wherein feeding another human and oneself causes a need for more income and expenditure.

These people are victims of themselves, ultimately. If I were thinking more emotionally right now I would probably tear up for them. But I am too mad at the swiftness that force is applied...

reply to post by salchanra



Most of us have said something similar to what you've written at some point.

But let's put it on the table and really look at this.

Many of the homes which are being repossessed aren't luxurious. Their owners don't drive flashy cars or take expensive holidays or have closets filled with designer clothing

Many of those who've been backed into a corner have lived modestly, frugally even, lifelong. They're battlers. They've raised children with the same values. They haven't had unrealistic expectations of themselves, life or lenders. They live in homes that they've made comfortable but which often need new wiring, new plumbing, new appliances, new floor coverings. But the money isn't there.

They've paid their bills, mowed their lawns, lived within their means.

Then came outsourcing, illegal immigrants prepared to work for peanuts, and downsizing. Suddenly, men who've worked and paid tax for 25 to 30 years .. have no job to go to. And they can't find another, for the same reasons as theirs disappeared from under them.

So they dig into their savings and tell themselves to keep their chin up .. something will come along. But it doesn't. So they take a loan so they can keep paying the mortgage until a job .. any job .. comes along. But it doesn't.

What did they do wrong ? Their tv is ten years old, like the washing machine and refrigerator and heater and car. They need dental work. They need medical care. But they patch and mend, patch and mend, always hoping tomorrow's paper will have a job they can apply for. They attend interviews. No matter how much they tell themselves not to get their hopes up .. of course they do ! Then the disappointment, lack of confidence, hurt pride, desperation, depression. But they smile for the neighbours and don't bother anyone with their problems.

Then the final indignity .. the letter from the bank, cold and impersonal, telling them they have to vacate the property by such and such a date.

It's like a nightmare. For weeks they can't grasp it. They know the pattern on their worn carpet better than their own face. They look out onto their bit of garden and remember planting those trees years ago, when life seemed safe and sane and when if you were prepared to work, you could afford to live. What happened, they ask themselves. What did they do wrong ?

They're 50. Where do they go ? How can they afford to rent a place when rents are higher than the mortgage on their house ? How will they explain it to their kids, family, friends and neighbours ? Their faces burn in mortification as they imagine all those people .. many of them in the same boat .. offering them use of spare room for a week or so, or a loan of a few dollars.

It's like the stages of death. Disbelief. Denial. Despair. Anger. And they're struggling to accept.

They're good people. Never been in trouble with the law. But now the law is threatening to throw them out of their home .. the same home they've been making payments on for 23 years. All being taken off them. Left with nothing. Treated like lepers, like scum. Everything lost. Nothing left. Nowhere to go. Unwanted. Scorned. Left for dead. Spat on by men in suits, men in uniform. Their belongings being carted off like so much junk into moving vans. Worse than homeless animals. Out on the street. A nightmare that won't stop. No help in sight. No mercy or compassion. Worse than death.

And that's when the blackness descends and hope vanishes. This is it. It's real. It's happening.

People stop wanting to live. Have no reason to keep on going.

Not all those who lose their homes lose their will to continue, but some .. like those listed in the OP .. do. Especially older generations who have been raised with different values, who don't know how to turn for help or where to turn .. who have too much pride to accept charity and who don't want to be a burden to their children.

They hide their grief and fear .. turn it into anger. They end their lives in protest, in despair -- out of feelings of betrayal and injustice. They are heartbroken, literally. Their hearts have broken. They have been negated .. made invisible, worthless.

Taking their own lives is the one thing they have left .. is the one and only thing they believe they have any control over ... is the last desperate remnant of their pride .. is the only way they can protest and the only way they can stop the bank from having the last laugh. ' You will not throw me out of my own home and laugh in my face. I will not live and see you do that to me and mine '.

If you'd suggested to them forty, twenty, ten or even two years ago that they would kiss each other goodbye in the kitchen they once painted so proudly before blowing their heads off, they would have told you that you were crazy. They would have told you that they don't believe in doing that sort of thing, that nothing in life is so bad that you should kill yourself .. that there's always a silver lining to every black cloud.

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel only compassion for people placed in that position. Nothing could ever persuade me to judge or condemn them. Every single one of those in the OP was pushed beyond their limits by circumstances beyond their control.

It should be mandatory for lenders, banks, to provide -- at very least --- counselling and assistance for those being forced out of their homes. Stuff the bottom-line mentality. And stuff the vile politicians with their plastic smiles and veins of ice. THAT is where my anger, judgement, condemnation are focused.

reply to post by Dock6


Amazing, bubba.

Great post and it mirrors all the things I was thinking when I first read this thread.

Big old star for you.

reply to post by Dock6


Thats quite a post. Starred. I know people are losing their homes, their worlds are being torn apart, everyone can see this. If it were happening to me or my parents maybe my views would be different, but I doubt it. Our system, or society is based on greed. Not just our corrupt politicians or our horrible banking structure, but each one of us, if we admit it or not. Even John Doe who has been making his payments for 23 years, and painted his kitchen two years back. All of us want more and more. We constantly consume everything around us. And for what? To have more than the guy down the block, to make our lives easier?

Maybe that the problem. We are simply too accustomed to an easy life. Think back 20 years ago, did you reheat your leftovers in the stove or zap them in the microwave? Everything is easier now. Buying a home with 0 down, having 2 or more cars, fast food, everything is on demand.

When a hardship comes along, like losing your house, people go nuts, hence the suicides.

I have little to no compassion for these people who are faced with tough times. They did this. Not you, not me, not the banks. Yes, the banks lied to them, the politicians told them to spend spend spend, all will be well. But at the end of the day, you were the one who took that 2nd mortgage, or bought that new suv.

We can sit at our computers and debate if the banks or politicians or whoever is to blame for this, it will accomplish nothing. We need to look at ourselves and the world as a whole and find something we all lost long ago. Personal Accountability. Take responsibility for our actions and stop blaming the world.

I wont be losing my house in this mess, I saved for years and paid cash, I wont lose my job, I wont resort to fear and kill myself. I planned ahead, used common sense and sacrificed. If more people were willing to do that instead of constant instant gratification, we would all be a whole lot better off.

Originally posted by salchanra
reply to post by Dock6

 

I wont be losing my house in this mess, I saved for years and paid cash, I wont lose my job, I wont resort to fear and kill myself. I planned ahead, used common sense and sacrificed. If more people were willing to do that instead of constant instant gratification, we would all be a whole lot better off.

How do you know you won't be losing your house. These people that run this country write the rules as they go. If your house sits on a piece of land that someone with money wants for development, you're going to lose your house, like it or not. Then what will your opinion be? You would never know the feeling of despair that comes with this until it happens to you. I hope that it doesn't. I wouldn't wish it on anyone except for the people that get their rocks off by doing this to other people.

Point taken. Yes, if someone for some bizarre reason can claim "eminent domain " over my property, I lose. Its a house. Ill build/buy another one. If that meant I lived in the woods in a tent/tipi, so be it. My fault for not having the resources to defend my property.

Would I be upset, yes. Would I resort to violence? Maybe. But not directed at myself. The guy driving the bulldozer probably wont be going home that night. My anger would be at me. I didnt do enough to defend my property. I didnt elect better leaders. I didnt run for office myself to ensure that just laws were on the books so things like this didnt happen.

Honestly, I hope the only people who are hurt by this are those profiting off of the laziness of others, but that wont be the case unfortunately.

We all make choices, good or bad depending on the information available to us. The banks pushed bad loans on people, however, common sense should tell people that they simply shouldnt buy something they cant afford. I briefly worked in the real estate field, I left because I couldnt be part of what people were doing to themselves financially. We cant blame anyone but ourselves when things go bad, all we can do is take care of ourselves and protect what we have the best we can.

Originally posted by sobolwolf

His wife handled the finances and had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company for months. "She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," he said. In the letter, she wrote, "take the [life] insurance money and pay for the house."

omg god, this is so sad....

The sad part is, they most likely won't be getting any life insurance, as suicide disqualifies the client.