Who’s Building the Do-It-Ourselves Economy?

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:




Who’s Building the Do-It-Ourselves Economy?
Corporations aren’t hiring, and Washington is gridlocked. Here’s how we take charge of our own livelihoods.

by Sarah van Gelder, Doug Pibel
posted Sep 07, 2011


Corbyn Hightower was doing everything right. She worked long hours selling natural skin care products, flying between cities to meet customers, staying in posh hotels. She pulled down a salary that provided her family of five with a comfortable home in a planned community, a Honda SUV, health insurance, and regular shopping trips for the best natural foods, clothes, shoes, and toys.

Then the recession hit. Her commissions dried up, and the layoff soon followed. Life for Corbyn, her stay-at-home husband, and three children changed quickly.

First the family moved to a low-rent house down the street from a homeless shelter. They dropped cable TV, Wi-Fi, gym membership, and most of the shopping. Giving up health insurance was the most difficult step—it seemed to Corbyn that she was failing to provide for her young daughters. Giving up the car was nearly as difficult.

As our economy goes through tectonic shifts, this sort of adaptation is becoming the new normal. Security for our families will increasingly depend on rebuilding our local and regional economies and on our own adaptability and skills at working together. At the same time, we need government to work on behalf of struggling families and to make the investments that create jobs now and opportunities for coming generations. That will require popular movements of ordinary people, willing to push back against powerful moneyed interests. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/new-livelihoods/whos-building-the-do-it-ourselves-economy

[Shagbark Hickory]

1. It is because of stories like this that underscores the importance of ..

saving money and not getting into huge mortgage debt.

[fasttense]

4. Stories like these underscore the importance of our government providing a safety net.

Since we pay huge amounts of taxes during the good years, our government should help out during the lean years. We pay the same price for a government that is there to provide a safety net for us or a government that is there to give welfare to the idle rich. Either way we pay, we might as well get something for the millions in taxes we pay.

[customerserviceguy]

7. It also underscores the folly of expecting to make your living forever

on selling luxuries. As soon as the recession/depression hit, people did not have money for overpriced skin creams. In turn, this family started figuring out what luxuries and frills it didn't need, either.

The whole bloated economy was built on the house of cards that people would forever continue to overpay for underperforming crap that they didn't need in the first place. We shouldn't seem surprised that this economic model was bound to fail eventually.

[madokie]

2. I am

I'm not buying new tools anymore as I don't like the fact they're pretty much all made in china so I've been buying old american made tools and cleaning them up and repairing any problems and have been quite happy with doing this too.

[izquierdista]

3. Salvation Army or Wal-Mart?

For a host of reasons, I prefer to shop at the local thrift stores over Wal-Mart. The products may not be packaged as nice, but chances are better they will work when you get them home.

[enlightenment]

5. Conceptually interesting premise, but

unrealistic for many, many people.

For example; buying locally assumes living in a region that produces locally - not everyone lives in such a region. Building windmills is an expensive proposition - tell a farmer who is scraping together the cash to pay bills and taxes that he/she should build a windmill or two. I'm sure they would see the benefit, but it would go on a wish-list - not a to-do list. The ideas are great, but the reality isn't so rosy.

Same for the rest of the article. It is a great idea overall, but it depends on situations that actually exist for few people. It also sounds like a GOP dream-world; a land where government programs are unnecessary because people are living in a 21st century version of the Middle Ages.

[Warpy]

6. At least she and her kids had those advantages for a while

even though she was likely putting them all on plastic, thinking her job was going to last forever.

One thing we who were raised by Depression survivors were taught from the cradle is that income is sporadic but debt is forever.

It never mattered whether I was working steadily and flush with cash. I knew there would be a time I'd be too sick and the cash would dry up, so there was no gym membership, no traveling, no cable, no restaurants and no debts. I did everything right, too, and remained debt free and with a shabby but consistent lifestyle.

However, I do envy her those wonderful memories.

Oh, and good luck to her on rebuilding the economy from the ground up with no seed money available. As long as money is allowed to collect at the top and do nothing, the economy will continue to be crippled.