Get used to jobs that pay next to nothing. Good paying manufacturing jobs are still virtually dead in North America and likely to remain so, and the dying middle class just has nowhere to go, even with a college "education" (not an education to most, but a meal ticket to better pay, or social standing). Learning the skills to survive in a ruined economy will no longer be an option. For your children, you're better off having them become an electrician, plumber or other skilled tradesman, than saddling them and/or yourself with massive debt to pay for that increasingly irrelevant and worthless college degree.
Whether you should leave the big cities is another question. I think land in smaller, rural communities, especially ranch/farm land, even a few acres, is likely to hold its value and be a better long-term investment than a house in the city, where prices for property continue their precipitous decline. Plus, you can be more self-sufficient, with well water, solar power to generate electricity, and raising your own animals and growing your own crops for food. But even in town, you can start a garden, store seeds, have at least a few months supply of food and water stocked up, and have extra cash on hand (not in the bank). You can also learn to be more frugal with the dollars you do have. Don't buy anything that's not necessary (except possibly the occasional splurge as a treat, but be wise about it) and try to save whenever you can. With low-paying jobs that's not easy, but there is always a dollar a two you can put away, even living paycheck to paycheck. Don't look to buy a house, unless it's really to your advantage. I'm guessing for most people in this housing market, it's not, so don't get sucked/suckered into that "American Dream" baloney. Renting looks increasing the better option (when an anarchist society finally comes, you'll "own" the home you use and occupy, anyway, and landlords and rent will be done away with) for most of us. That could change if hyperinflation takes hold, and then anything real may be a better store of value, even devalued housing, than those Federal Reserve Notes in your pocket. But for now, I myself wouldn't even think about buying a house, even if I could "afford" it.
McDonalds is hiring, and why? Because it is relentlessly entrepreneurial, reinventing itself with every change of season
They gloss over the failure of the "free market" (which they conflate, when it's convenient to do so, as when they heap praise upon an exploitative capitalist monstrosity such as McDonald's, with the current statist-capitalist system) to create any real employment opportunities, creating only 54,000 jobs last month, half of which apparently were McDonald's burger-flipping jobs. But that's great news to celebrate, because, hallelujah, praise Jesus, it shows how "entrepreneurial" the state-subsidized, would-not-exist-without-government McDonalds corporation is.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a million souls flocked to McDonald's hoping for a steady paycheck, when nearly 14 million Americans are out of work and nearly a million more are too discouraged even to look for a job. At this point, it apparently made no difference to them that the fast-food industry pays some of the lowest wages around: on average, $8.89 an hour, or barely half the $15.95 hourly average across all American industries.
On an annual basis, the average fast-food worker takes home $20,800, less than half the national average of $43,400. McDonald's appears to pay even worse, at least with its newest hires. In the press release for its national hiring day, the multi-billion-dollar company said it would spend $518 million on the newest round of hires, or $8,354 a head.-McEconomy: Is America's Middle Class Doomed to Low-Wage Jobs and a Poor Standard of Living?
So, we've got an increasing gap between rich and poor, with a fast disappearing middle class. High-paying jobs/careers and wealth for the few, low-paying or non-existent jobs for everyone else, with an economy and society that will start to resemble that of old school Latin America banana republics, with the rich few owning and controlling most everything, while the vast majority of the population is reduced to living in poverty and subjugation.
At least until the revolution comes...
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