Barbara Ehrenreich: The Suicide Solution

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Barbara Ehrenreich
The Suicide Solution
Posted July 28, 2008 | 11:18 AM (EST)




A few days before Congress passed its Housing Bill, Carlene Balderrama of Taunton MA found her own solution to the housing crisis. Just a little over two hours in advance of the time her mortgage company, PHH Mortgage Corporation -- may its name live in infamy -- was to auction off her home, Balderrama killed herself with her husband's rifle.

This is not the kind of response to hard times that James Grant had in mind when he wrote his July 19 Wall Street Journal essay entitled "Why No Outrage?" "One might infer from the lack of popular anger," the famed Wall Street contrarian wrote, "that the credit crisis was God's fault rather than the doing of the bankers and the rating agencies and the government's snoozing watchdogs." For contrast, he cites the spirited response to the depression of the 1890s, when lawyer/agitator Mary Lease stirred crowds with the message that "We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out.... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary..."

Grant could have found even more bracing examples of resistance in the 1930s, when farmers and tenants used mob power -- and sometimes firearms -- to fight foreclosures and evictions. For more on that, I consulted Frances Fox Piven, co-author of the classic text Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, who told me that in the early 30s, a number of cities were so shaken by the resistance that they declared moratoriums on further evictions. A 1931 riot by Chicago tenants who had fallen behind on their rent, for example, had left three dead and three police officers injured.

According to Piven, these actions were often spontaneous. A group of unemployed men would get word of a scheduled eviction and march through the streets, gathering crowds as they went. Arriving at the site of the eviction, they would move the furniture back into the apartment and stay around to protect the threatened tenants. In one instance in Detroit, it took 100 cops to evict a single family. Also in Detroit, Piven said, "two families protected their apartments by shooting their landlord and were acquitted by a sympathetic jury." .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/the-suicide-solution_b_115351.html

[Joanne98]

1. We weren't living in a police state in the 1930's..

It was easier to fight back then.

[Demeter]

2. If You Think the Police Won't Join Us

Then you aren't paying attention to your municipal budget and layoffs.

[Truth4Justice]

7. Wrong. The police will be there with guns, dogs and SWAT teams to protect thier jobs.

[Demeter]

8. Killing off the Taxpayers and Voters? I Don't Think So

We're talking civilians, not Blackwater.

[Truth4Justice]

9. Law enforcement dropped a bomb in Phihladelphia, burned the church in Waco to the ground...........

It goes on and on with all the Tazering which has killed close to 200 people already.

How about the police officers who came after law-abiding gun owners and other non-criminals in New Orleans/Hurricane Katrina disaster?

Sure they will run like hell if a huge mass of armed people stood up against them and they were outnumbered and out-gunned, but that wont ever happen, will it?

People just stood by and did nothing, time after time. I wonder why that is?

MOVE bombing by police officers in 1985:

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/MOVE-Phihladelphia-BombNYT14may85.htm

[Demeter]

10. Waco Was the Feds, Not Locals

Philly was always like that. Katrina was also Feds and Blackwater.

And as for huge masses of armed people, I greatly fear that we are rapidly coming to just that. It's a hell of a time.

[Truth4Justice]

11. The Second amendment was included so that the People could put themselves, not thugs, at the helm...

again. We are a police state at all levels of LE now. and yes, it will be hell to pay, if and when the time comes.

[SoCalDem]

3. The woman who killed herself had a LOT of problems..not just her mortgage

That family had serious communication problems, for her to be able to "hide" the fact that they were 2 YEARS behind..

She either felt that she COULD not tell her husband & family or she deliberately deceived them.. Either way shows some serious mental health issues in that family..

I'm the bill-payer in our family, and I know the pressure of trying to keep all the plates spinning.

There is always "the math".. Either there was a lot of money being spent on stuff they could not afford, or they bought a house they coulf not afford, and a husband & kids could surely pick up on that....so some of the blame has to fall on the people she lived with too..

[truedelphi]

4. In the 1930's people lived in communities.

People felt that they were part of a cohesive unit. But nowadays, people are removed from one another.

We have spent decades inside our own housing units, watching the boob tube. And so we ahve lost what is most vaulauble - the notion of looking out for each other.

[Wednesdays]

5. Agreed. Plus, any single person or small group taking action

would be vilified as "nutcases" by the M$M. Therefore, anyone contemplating doing something unorthodox would feel like they're "nuts" already anyway, so what would be the use of calling on others to help? :(

[checks-n-balances]

6. You hit the nail on the head - I've been saying that forever

That's one of the main things that makes this recession/depression vastly different from The Great Depression.

Even if our economy were good, we have so little understanding of what the concept of "community" means. Some feel no sense of loss because they never had it in the first place. Kind of like half of our population has no collective memory of it, something that's dying out with each successive generation.

[jmowreader]

12. Normally I like Ehrenreich's work, but this is ridiculous

Check this out, it's probably the best compilation of the Balderramas' financial woes I've seen so far:

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view/2008_07_24_Husband_filed_for_bankruptcy_three_times_in_five_years/

They bought the house in 2002 and, eight months later, were in foreclosure proceedings which they managed to avoid.

Their first bankruptcy (2004) was dismissed after John Balderrama missed a creditors' meeting. Their second (2005) was dismissed when they failed to keep up with the repayment plan and the third (2006) was dismissed when John missed a payment AND a creditors' meeting.

In 2004, his income was $3857 per month with about $500 left over after living expenses. In 2006, it was $6932 per month with $3358 left over after expenses. If his business increased at a constant rate, he probably earns over $9000 per month now.

In the ARM-created financial disasters we've typically seen, the couple bought a house they could barely make the payments on at the introductory rate, then the interest rate reset to a point where their non-rising income can't cover the payments. This guy's income more than doubled--if assumptions are correct it almost tripled--over the life of their mortgage. If Carlene was paying the mortgage, she would have easily been able to handle an ARM reset with all the money John was making.

I REALLY want to know what these people's home life was like. Something definitely looks screwy here.

[truedelphi]

13. I think she really blew it with this one. There were plenty of families that

probably were more legit in terms of despair, anguish and having been talked into a foul deal.

On the other hand, the reporter might have gotten it wrong when he or she discussed the alleged
$ 6K in income per month. Many reporters do not know how to even look at a bank statement. I know of one reporter in Marin who added up the daily balances as proof of the person's income!! So if on day one of the month, you have $ 300 in checking, and you add ten dollars a day, according to them, by day five, you have a cozy 1600 bucks!!