Caveat emptor

Twill, I absolutely sympathise with the spirit of your post- I really do- but the reality of the situation keeps getting in my way. I will give you an example: A couple years ago, I was swamped with work-and as winter came to a close I looked around for a young man to help me out- no experience needed and an excellent chance to begin learning a REALLY lucrative trade. A minister pointed me in the direction of one particular 19 year old-and his former football coach gave him an excellent reference

Keep in mind that I had plenty of work available-at a time the economy was in a death spiral. The young man in question had a job of sorts- he did some warehouse work- but his hours were being cut and cut and cut- he was down to about 2 shifts of 4 hours each /week-at about $7/hour

A physically fit young man-but no experience- I started him at $12/hour AND took him out and set him up with his basic work belt/pouch/hand tools etc.

He had no car- but since he only lived a few minutes from me- no problem- I would just pick him up each morning

] first couple of mornings- he was waiting for me on his front porch-after that I ALWAYS had to wait for him- usually just a moment or so- but EVERY day I was waiting for him

After a month or so- he called me up one morning and said he was at the hospital with his girlfriend who was giving birth to his baby- first I heard of it!

From that day forward- he could not get out of bed in the morning-EVERY morning a different hassle- he just couldn't get up and get to work

I raised 2 sons of my own- I know what having a baby in the house is like- but I also know- when you are a man your FIRST and most important responsibility is to provide for your children-and that means getting your butt out of bed and getting to work- Jerome just couldn't do it

you,me-everybody else on this board?- I imagine at age 19,starting out in life and a chance like this kid had-we would ALL be out there on that porch 5 minutes/10 minutes early every morning waiting for the boss to arrive- but not Jerome(BTW- Jerome lived withy his father-AND the father had a job working for the city street department)

I would LIKE to give a young man a chance- but I simply can't afford to take 19 year olds-and teach them the MOST basic things they should have learned when they were4-5 years old-like get out of bed at a decent hour!

Across the street fro my home- is a large and rather nice city park-it could be even nicer. currently the level of maintenace by the city is-every 4-6 weeks a couple guys arrive with tractors and mow

Federal stimulus dollars- city bulldoses some old and decrepit tennis courts and basketball courts and is building 5 spectacular new tennis courts and a pavilion- it's a parade of bulldozers,front end loaders dump trucks etc.

I gotta believe- for the same money-we could have hired a grounds staff of 3( 2 at $10/hour,1 at $12/hour-and they could have jobs for years and years and years and years keeping the grass cut, the paths edged, the beds maintained, the benches repaired, the lights changed, the trash picked up, the walks clear of snow in the winter etc.

there is so much work that COULD be done- but as a society we concentrate on allowing old white guys spend their days on idling Cat's belching diesel fumes into the air- than getting actual work done by young people.

all i know is- that I don't have any answers, LOL stephen

I'm with you Jim it's a natural observation psychic and intuitive perception ( gut feeling.) God given and natural to us when we are born. But what happens to this ability as humans grow and develop? What distorted the truth and dulled the senses. "idunno" I'm just a stupid roofer. Just a gut feeling. B) ;) :blush: B) :woohoo: :woohoo:

I posted many, many advertisements in the help wanted section of the Detroit News. Often, I would include "no experience necessary, will train, EOE". Even though I was working less than 20 miles from the Detroit border, I rarely had anyone apply from Detroit. There were times I was working alone, framing 3000 sf homes and the unemployment rate for young Detroit males was close to 50%.

The Mexicans managed to walk 1000 miles to find jobs in our subdivisions but the young Detroit males couldn't drive, or take the bus, 20 miles.

None of this means anything. I'm just making an observation. I'm pretty sure the nanny state has a lot to do with it but I can't prove anything. I'm just a dumb carpenter.

2.Stephen DeLucaPhiladelphiaAugust 21st, 20102:07 am

I can't but think that if we as a nation truly cared about our American citizens we would address the needs of these Americans, whose ancestors have been in this country longer than the majority of all Americans, outside of the native peoples. Rather than spending nearly a trillion a year on a military that has no enemy that requires a response at this high level (our Navy is larger than the next 13 largest navies combined, and 11 of these countries are our allies), we could invest in jobs rebuilding our infrastructure and communities. Just showing we care about all of our citizens would go a long way towards offering an alternative to self-destruction. I was working with a 14 year old African American adolescent. We were talking about work, and who he knew who could mentor him into work. He could think of no adult men with jobs (we live in Philadelphia). His grandmother could think of two, one in his twenties who had a job through a friend, and another in his 40's. The boy had not much hope of graduation, and none of going to college. His high school offered vocational programs - culinary arts, and secretarial - that were not going to work for him.

A teacher I met who had been there for 30+ years recalled that there had once been 13 vocational programs, including metal working, mechanics, woodworking, etc. Now, nothing, in a city that is desperate for young men who can do real work for real money, repairing and rebuilding crumbling homes, sewers, roads, etc. We have young men who see no real opportunities for a gainfully employed future.

This is going to take a lot of effort, but it is either possible with effort, or we have no real future as a country of opportunity, peace, and happiness

Tico, it is happening anyway. Detroit would fade to about 250,000 people quickly without the support of the reSt of the state of Michigan and the Federal government. When all of those that can't work and won't work have finally left, the rest that are trying to be productive citizens would gather and the area would again take off. WE here in Michigan and especially Detroit have an excellent location on the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and all the water we will ever need. That cannot be replaced. Over there right now, they are paying too many people to do nothing except to vote themselves more and more and the rest are "TIRED" OF IT.

Why not farm? The best thing they could do is burn all of the trash down. The utilities could remain beneath the street areas, but nature would soon take over. It was all farms at one time!

May 31st, 2010

So just how bad is the U.S. economy? Well, the truth is that sometimes it is hard to put into words. We have squandered the great wealth left to us by our forefathers, we have almost totally dismantled the world's greatest manufacturing base, we have shipped millions of good jobs overseas and we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of mankind. We have taken the greatest free enterprise economy that was ever created and have turned it into a gigantic house of cards delicately balanced on a never-ending spiral of paper money and debt. For decades, all of this paper money and debt has enabled us to enjoy the greatest party in the history of the world, but now the bills are coming due and the party is nearly over.

In fact, things are already so bad that you can pick almost every number and find a corresponding statistic that shows just how bad the economy is getting.

You doubt it?

Well, check this out....

20 - Gallup's measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th. That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year.

19 - According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005.

18 - According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March the national rate of unemployment in the United States was 9.7%, but for Americans younger than 25 it was well above 18 percent.

17 - The FDIC's list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high.

16 - During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.

15 - The Spanish government has just approved a 15 billion euro austerity plan.

14 - The U.S. Congress recently approved an increase in the debt cap of the U.S. government to over 14 trillion dollars.

13 - The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke. In fact, the FDIC's deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it, which actually represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.

12 - The U.S. national debt soared from the $12 trillion mark to the $13 trillion mark in a frighteningly short period of time.

11- It is being reported that a massive network of big banks and financial institutions have been involved in blatant bid-rigging fraud that cost taxpayers across the U.S. billions of dollars. The U.S. Justice Department is charging that financial advisers to municipalities colluded with Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Wachovia and 11 other banks in a conspiracy to rig bids on municipal financial instruments.

10 - The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that more than 10 percent of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment during the January-March time period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.

9 - The official U.S. unemployment number is 9.9%, although the truth is that many economists consider the true unemployment rate to be much, much higher than that.

8 - The French government says that its deficit will increase to 8 percent of GDP in 2010, but by implementing substantial budget cuts they hope that they can get it to within the European Union's 3 percent limit by the year 2013.

7 - The biggest banks in the U.S. cut their collective small business lending balance by another $1 billion in November. That drop was the seventh monthly decline in a row.

6 - The six biggest banks in the United States now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America's gross national product.

5 - That is the number of U.S. banks that federal regulators closed on Friday. That brings that total number of banks that have been shut down this year in the United States to a total of 78.

4 - According to a study published by Texas A&M University Press, the four biggest industries in the Gulf of Mexico region are oil, tourism, fishing and shipping. Together, those four industries account for approximately $234 billion in economic activity each year. Now those four industries have been absolutely decimated by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and will probably not fully recover for years, if not decades.

3 - Decent three bedroom homes in the city of Detroit can be bought for $10,000, but no one wants to buy them.

2 - A massive "second wave" of adjustable rate mortgages is scheduled to reset over the next two to three years. If this second wave is anything like the first wave, the U.S. housing market is about to be absolutely crushed.

1 - The bottom 40 percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. But of course many on Wall Street and in the government would argue that there is nothing wrong with an economy where nearly half the people are dividing up 1 percent of the benefits

Plow it and plant it. Even tho we've been doing it for thousands of years, I doubt if the Gooberm$nt is up to it

old school,what do you think of the idea?

The whole city looks like a bomb went off in it. We used to do a lot of work over there, but in the three counties around the city where all of the white people moved when they left. There is still a lot of money over on the Easwt side of the State, but it isn't in Detroit proper.

this is top notch. the first step to any good rehab,is fresh earth! thanks Jim for putting A live fixed feeling to it. often we don't get the touchy feely,and our,at least my opinion gets in the way.

I grew up in a suburb contiguous to Detroit. I've read the Detroit News for most of my life. I still read it every day online at detnews.com.

The idea of creating farms inside the city limits isn't as farfetched as it sounds. If you'd like to get a better understanding of the situation, take a tour on Google Earth. Also, take a street level tour using Google Maps Streetview. You'll be shocked at how much vacant property there is in the city. You will find block after block of weedy fields with only a couple of ramshackle homes left. The value of the houses are very low. You would not have any trouble finding houses for 5k. I can't vouch for the value of them. They probably are worth far less than 5k!

The city has been plagued by unionism, cronyism, corruption, in addition to the normal challenges of any economy heading South. Dave Bing, the current mayor has extensive business experience and I believe he is the first mayor in my lifetime (57 years) that has truly had Detroit's best interests in mind.

One interesting fact about Detroit: the last major food store moved out many years ago. The entire 800k population has to shop at small food markets or travel outside the city limits to get to a major food chain store. The major food stores got tired of losing money because of greedy corrupt inspectors, high taxes, high rates of shoplifting etc.