Suicidal America.

Well ATS. I'm back at the point of suicide. Last year, I unsuccessfully tried to kill myself in the middle of being homeless. That's right, right after a milestone birthday, and I'm not that old either.

I've looked at some of my colleagues and friends the world over, and they too have been there and done this. And we are no means just idiots running around facebook all day. We all went to college, got the highest achievable degrees, and never quite got in as 80s kids. The economy tanked as soon as we got our PhDs. But we just never could either make enough teaching to make ends meet enough and/or we were OVERLY too qualified to take side jobs, any side job, any paying job because of our education.

I was the last one out of my associates and colleagues to lose their car, apartment, and career. I held on as long as I possibly could, but when you get laid off, and denied your unemployment, when you don't have tenure and can't pull any money from your pension until you're at least 55, you catch hell. None of our families supported us and turned on us as if it were our fault. None of us have children, and live a very modest lifestyle.

But all the baby boomers called our family could think of was, here they are late 60s early 70s working so it must be us. We must be lazy and don't want to work.

This country has a serious problem. It nit picks too much. You have to be 10+ years experience but you can't be over 30. You have to have degrees and now I see for higher academia positions they want 2 PhDs now just for classroom instruction. Regular minimum wage jobs don't want smart people because we know the law, and yes, we know about labor laws. Most jobs where I'm at won't hire once they trick you into questions to divulge if you have pre-existing medical conditions, or children as they don't want to pay the premium. Even if you refuse and take a paycut, its still No.

I have actually been fired from taking the Chair position of a university department after a week because I tried to make more consignments for the students, which wasn't "cost effective" to at least have resource material.

Some people on here are always yapping about being grateful and taking what you can get. Some money is better than no money. That's bull#. Working myself to death, going beyond the call of duty to be #ted on by some jerkwad who got the gig out of nepotism who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground is not worth making enough to only being able to eat out of the dollar general after taxes.

People think this economy will get better but it will not. It's getting worse. The depressing part is that America isn't rising to the occasion and getting mad as hell about it. Most are asleep at the wheel, and the rest are mindless sheeple on facebook.

In the city I live in for every minimum wage worker there are 25 homeless people. And in my travels I've seen homeless people with full time jobs who are unable to make it with an apartment, or utilities, or even a phone. I don't have any of these things right now. Haven't had them for quite a while. But how do you dally somebody making 8 bucks an hour being able to pay 1200 a month for a #hole garden apartment? Upstairs apartments are a lot more, to the tune of 1350-1800. Landlord is being taxed by the city, so he's now making the tenant pay his taxes. Think not. And these are not nice apartments. These are in the hood where the bullets are flying.

So....as v1rtu0s0 said "The problem is that the middle class is shrinking and allot of jobless people have worked for their degrees or invested blood sweat and tears in their trades and they're not going to settle for McDonalds. Most people aren't just trying to survive, they are trying to live, and perhaps have a chance at 'thriving.' If the job can't even meet basic needs, what's the point? "

You are correct on all points. The situation brought upon us by pigs riding the corporate, predatory capitalism wave, is reaching critical mass. You can feel it. No religious controversy or deflection issue such as gay marriage and abortion will put a roof over our heads and food on our kids' plates. Even deep sleepers are now waking up by sheer survivability to the disaster and fraud that corporatocracy has created.

Generations X and Y have been lied to since grade school, fleeced as young adults and cheated of a future by past generation's greedy, murderous elite and their brainwashed, uncritical peasantry. The time for left-right, woo believing, dog-eat-dog zealots is coming to an end. There is so much pressure than can build up before something cracks.

Though wishing you the best, I wont give you bs advice like "hang in there". I wont patronize you as most of us are an accident or paycheck away from being in a situation such as yours.

Sadly, the "I got mine, so F-You" bootstrap brigade are surely on their way.

America would be better off brining forth a better form of slavery than the one ago.

Then we'd all be taken great care of to keep in top condition toward those of us who became the slave masters.

Just saying.

reply to post by WarJohn


At least massahs were supposed to clothe, feed, provide healthcare and shelter their slaves. Now we are tased and harrassed by house slaves, expected to provide our own food/shelter and robbed blind in the health department or left to die if there's nothing to take. All this while expected to work until old age, lugging an oxygen tank while greeting fellow slaves at some walmart entrance.

At least people were bought and sold before. Now we PAY to be slaves.

Sure this may sound like an exaggerated position, but aren't we supposed to be living in a first-world, democratic, FREE nation? If we look at current affairs objectively and actually read the constitution and bill of rights, these points may not seem so far "out there", imo.

They can do all that because there is an oversupply of workers. Apparently they are filling their positions with 10 years of work experience, but not over 30 and 2 PHDs. Maybe you are looking in the wrong state or in the wrong country for work. I am amazed how some Americans would rather consider joining the army or suicide before looking for work outside their comfort zone.

Canada has a population about twice as big as New York and bouroughs, they advertised in Mexico to get their hands on Mexican workers. Surely they have a need for educated or skilled Americans too and you dont even have to leave the continent.

reply to post by Cassius666


First of all, the Army is not for everyone and people who have went to the armed services have come back worse off than the educated. Why would I sign up to be a slave for 250 a month, because the other 200 bucks will be garnished by them for my basic needs and clothes. Don't believe me, ask some servicemen and women how they are being taxed for being in that corporation's tenure.

Canada....I have explored that option since my Bachelors. Canada is on the same crash course. Case in point - Canada lures people from other countries, mostly African and Spanish based to come over there under the premise of using their education and expertise in their countries and contribute to their society. Not Americans with education though. When they get there, the bottom falls out and it puts them in their own form of peonage enetitled "survival jobs" where people's education has not merit, and they have to go back to a Canadian University to get "accredidated" in order to work in their system. Once going into debt to do this, under the premise of getting ahead, they wind up with no work, or only working survivalist jobs.

www.straight.com...

The link above will give you a more pronounced explanation.

Canada's system is an all white good ol' boys system. I have colleagues up there that have been there their whole lives and cannot get their daughters or friends there a job, let alone anyone from the states. No one is going to spend the money sponsoring Americans with all this willing house and field slave labor flipping their own bill coming from Africa. They too have a self entitled baby boomer generation up there, but its even worse because they have their own system of racism that is still accepted and prevalent today.

Both of your options do not apply in the real America.