2011 Real People In Review

Now that we covered the celebrities and in the news reviews, I thought I would now cover the Real People 2011 Review. As we are watching television just before New Year's Day, we get slammed with the celebrity stars year in review, greatest sports moments and so on. But, they never mention what happened to the average every day person. I will start with the bad and finish with the good. What about?

How Eddie and Jan's house was
foreclosed on last month.

How many homeless families and people
there are in the United States now.

Or how Frank next door lost his job last week.

And his wife lost her job 2 years ago
and they had to file for bankruptcy.

Johny had his car repossessed after his....

unemployment benefits were cut.

Cousin Sally's school got shut down.

Police officers were cut from the force. So, the next time you call
911 when someone is breaking into your house,
they may not have one available and your wife will have
to drive you to the hospital after you've just been shot!

Urrrrrrrr....

That may not be interesting enough.

But, I'm going to tell you anyway. Because, we want to know when....

When Maggie turns six.

That Jimmy returns home to his family in time for
Christmas.

Nick and Alison just got married and
still believe in the American Dream and.....  

a year later they gave birth to triplets. Then....

Alison's little brother recovered from cancer.

And many more sad and happy stories of the everyday Americans people. But, we watch them. We kick back on our sofa watching TMZ and show after show of celebrities year in review or sports in review. By far I am not making fun at all the happy and sad moments in the lives of the everyday American. I am poking fun at all those who don't believe we are important enough to talk about.

Where Do They Go?

After doing the post the other day on The American People Are Getting The Boot. I started thinking, where are all these families going now that are getting foreclosed on? I know one of my daughters friends, her family was forced to go live with her Grandmother. But, not everyone is fortunate enough to have a family member to move in with if they can't afford an apartment. Sometimes renting somewhere big enough to accommodate children is more costly than the home they were living in. So, what do they do? Where do they go?

Everyone thinks, it can't happen to them. They have owned their home for 5, 10 or even 20 years. They have been at their job for several years. Then one day, they get laid off and can't find another job. Along comes the foreclosure notice and they are out, they are left to find a new home for their family to live. God help them if they are one of the millions, the bank foreclosed on for one late payment or one those who had a mortgage through Bank of America and their home was foreclosed on them for no apparent reason just so the banks could get their hands on some of the 700 billion dollars bail out money Bush decided to hand out to mortgage companies.

So, where do they go from here? Michigan ranks in 8th place nationwide for foreclosures. I started calling the Housing Authority in Wayne County yesterday to ask questions about Section 8 or low income housing. Wayne County won't be accepting applications for Section 8 for almost 5 years, the cities offering low rent has a waiting list of at least two years, one city in Wayne County has one bedroom apartments available, but won't rent a one bedroom to families with children. Which is understandable, but what if you have no where else to go other than a one bedroom for the mean time? After making several calls, I told one women "I'm a single woman with two kids and my house is in foreclosure. What can I do?" Her solution, was to look for a shelter. What about the women or families this is a reality? Where will they go?

You can't really blame it on Section 8 for the list being so long and not having available funds for Section 8. They do what they can. To add to the mess, Michigan has now put a 4 year cap on Welfare funds. If you live in Michigan and have been receiving benefits for at least 4 years, you benefits are now cut. There are a lot of people that abuse the system, but there are also single parents and low income families that depend on their benefits for survival because they have not been fortunate enough to fall into that small percentage of Americans with jobs paying enough for their family to survive on.

The blame falls on the United States Government. It is time for the Government to say, we can no longer offer aide to other countries, our own American People are living in a crisis every day. I don't know about you, but I am very tired of hearing about this country or that country needing help from the United States Government. They talk crap about us and imprison our citizens, but when they need help they come running to our government to help them.

ABC World News, has made a commitment to Made In America Products. Running show after show on buying American Made Products to help Americans get back to work. Below is a clip, if you haven't seen the segments before.

46.2 million Americans are living in poverty. Some of these people and families are forced out on the street, living out of their cars, tents or where ever they can. Even though our government isn't doing enough, they can only do so much. Part of the responsibility falls on the American Companies that have moved their manufacturing jobs overseas or the companies that have moved their call centers over seas, it is time to bring them back and the American Government needs to step in and put a plan in place to do so. But, the American people need to do their part also. Seek out products made in the United States, the more American made products we buy, the more jobs will be created for Americans.

The American People Are Getting The Boot

The President Elections are just around the corner. I usually look forward to the Presidential Elections, but this time around I am having a hard time getting motivated about one particular candidate. Bush put us in this economic pit and Obama has done little to take us out of it. On October 3, 2008, Bush's bill was signed by the House and signed into law to bail out $700 billion of mortgage related assets. By the end of 2008, banks had 850,000 homes in foreclosure as apposed to in 404,000 homes were in foreclosure in 2007. In 2009, home foreclosures were reported at 937,840. That means 1 in every 136 homes were in foreclosure in the United States. Banks were abusing the law, to receive the bail out money. In 2009, 2.9 million homes received a foreclosure notice. By May of 2011, 2.5 million homes have hit foreclosure, and it is expected to see 5.5 million homes in foreclosure by the end of 2011. These figures do not include those who were evicted from their apartments.


Not only does this effect the millions of home owners who have lost their homes, it effects the current home owners equity in their home. The mortgage companies may be foreclosing on all these homes to get the bail out money, but they are not going to win in the end. Not only has home values dropped dramatically, the mortgage applications are at a 13 year low. It is a shame, Bush sold out the American home owners and gave the mortgage companies the opportunity to make a profit off of throwing American Families out of their homes.

Millions of Americans are out of work and loosing their homes. According to the 2011 Census Bureau reports for 2010, 15.1 percent of Americans are living in poverty. That translates to 46.2 million Americans living in poverty. Nearly 1 and 6 Americans were living in poverty in 2010. What is 2011 going to look like?

With an economy like this, everyone loses. No one wins in the end. It is a disgrace the American people have to pay for Bush's big ideas and Obama has done very little to help the situation either. So, who do we vote for. This election coming up, stands to be one of the most detrimental elections since the Great Depression. The Republics dug the whole and the Democrats sat by and watched us fall in. So, who do we vote for? This election determines whether or not we fall in deeper or begin to crawl out of this economic disaster the politicians have created. So, if you haven't been interested in politics yet, it is time to start. You may be next to fall in to the 46.2 million Americans living in poverty or one of the 5.5 million Americans losing their homes.

The Foreclosure Rate Is Killing Home Owners

The recession has really hit Michigan hard. Almost every neighborhood you drive through there are homes up for forclosure. When I briefly did some work for a real estate agent, I realized that 95% of the homes they had for sale, were foreclosure homes. They had several homes listed for under $20,000. I was shocked to see a home sell for $1,900. During my time there, I found out that the banks get a kick back from the United States government when they foreclose on a home. Making it profitable for them to foreclose on homes. That is one of the reasons some of banks are getting in trouble for foreclosing on homes that shouldn't have been foreclosed on. They are quick to foreclose on homes to get government money. It almost makes you feel betrayed by the government. The put all this talk out there about how they are trying to help Americans get back to work, but it's all a smoke screan. They are making it more difficult for Americans to survive during a recession. They raise our taxes, cut unemployment benefits, give the banks kick backs for foreclosures, the states have cut funding on non-profit organizations helping the needy, cut school funding, and God only knows what else they have done that we don't know about yet.

Melvindale is one of the cities that has been hit really hard. Friday, I was really disappointed when I tried to find  new home owners insurance for my home. I quickly found out that either the insurance companies refused to give me insurance or the insurance was twice as much for my home than it was for my car. My home value had dropped by almost half in the past ten years. When I did a refinance in 2004 my home was valued at $120,000, now it is only valued at 63,500. I know owe more on my home than it is worth.

Not only are home owners being stuck with not being able to sell their home, because their value of their home is less than they owe, they can't even get new home owners insurance because the value of their home is worth less than what they owe on their home. The recession is exhausting, I'm beginning to feel like things are not going to get better anytime soon or in the near future. I am beginning to think this is a new way of life in America.