More Dreary Economic News

Things are bad ... and getting worse, and worse, and worse.

Economic news today tells us that there are layoffs across the spectrum of types of businesses. Jobs are evaporating. Times are bad. We are speeding headlong into a depression. Headline in the New York Times, today: "Layoffs spread to more sectors of the economy" -- with a link to a related article first printed/posted ten days ago, "Your money: Preparing your budget for disaster." An AP report, today, tells us Consumer Confidence is down to its lowest levels in the history of that measurement, which began monthly polling in 1967.

The "Layoffs ..." article tells us Home Depot, Caterpillar and Sprint Nextel have announced major layoffs. Caterpillar is cutting its payroll by 16%. Texas Instruments is cutting 12% of its workforce. Microsoft has "announced its first significant job cuts ever." And there is more, and more, and more news like that as everything swiftly spirals in an escalating speed toward disaster.

Rather ironically, bad times with more people in need means that there will be less government money for the poor.

As hopeful as many of us are that having put fresh, vital blood into the White House things can be turned around, our national government may simply not have enough it can do to stop the meltdown.

Be prepared to greet many, many confused and disoriented people, refugees from the middle class, into Homeless World Sacramento.

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Loaves & Fishes implicates Buddhism and Jack Kornfield in its June Donations Plea.

The Sukhothai Traimit Golden Buddha was found in a clay-and-plaster overlaid buddha statue in 1959, after laying in wait for 500 years. It's huge and heavy: just under 10 feet tall and weighs 5 1/2 tons. At the beginning of their June newsletter , Loaves and Fishes relates a story, taken from the beginning of renowned Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield's 2008 book The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology . The first part and first chapter in Kornfield's book is "Part I: Who are you really?" and chapter 1 is called "Nobility: Our Original Goodness," which ought to serve as a clue to what the beginning of the book is about, not that that sentiment isn't strewn through-out the chapter, section and book such that what Kornfield is telling us should be crystal clear. Somehow, the not-ready-for-primetime management at Loaves & Fishes have managed to use Kornfield's wise and kindly words in a way that mangles th...

In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day

Calvin [a "green hat" in Unfriendly Park] makes the argument for continued incompetent management. Hobbes represents me — only, in real life, I don't have that good a coat . In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day In one respect — and only one — that I can think of, Loaves & Fishes is NOT hypocritical: The management hates the way America is run and wants to turn it into a backward communist country . Consistent with that, Loaves & Fishes’ management runs its facility like a backward communist country. The People’s Republic of Loaves & Fishes. A seemingly minor thing happened on New Year’s Day. A couple of people smoked a joint in Loaves & Fishes’ Friendship Park and one of the park directors, or both of them, determined, at about 10am, that, in retribution, they would punish all the homeless there by closing the park for the day. This is something the managers of the park do all the ...

Common ground on safe ground. Common sense, not communism.

Mayor Kevin Johnson at Safe Ground campground. [ twitpic : share photos on Twitter] For the second week in a row, I attended the Tuesday meeting of the SHOC Homeless Leadership Project effort to achieve safe ground , at the Delaney Center at the Loaves & Fishes facility. [ Here , my account of the prior week's mtg, which provides much the same news that was today's Top Story in the Bee .] I was reluctant to attend. Though I endorse core objectives of the group – support for a currently existant encampment of homeless people, called Safe Ground; and the mayor's effort, with Stepping Stone, to create a legal homeless encampment in Sacramento – the group evidences a lot of troubling Leftist attitudes and practices. Nonetheless, I was encouraged to attend and it became known to me that people were fully aware I was a blogger. [Both the prior week and today I introduced myself as being with Sacramento Homeless blog. Today, Paula Lomazzi of SHOC commended my article " A...

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