A Letter to My Mother

Recently my mother sent me an e-mail asking me how I was getting on here in Ireland, and how my job search was going (It's been difficult). It should be noted that she is a staunch Republican. The following is the response I sent my mother:

I signed you up for a mailing list.

You're going to hate me for it, but think of it as payback for all the spam you've sent me over the years about "support our troops" or whatever. It starts on October 5th and you'll get one e-mail every day until November 5th.

I am trying to stay positive but it is really hard mom. I had a lady from an employment agency call me today and basically tell me that there was no way I was ever going to get a job in this market. She was a sinister bitch. But other people have been more positive, I e-mailed this guy from RTE simply to ask if he knew of anything and although he didn't have any work for me he was very positive and tried to give me information. A few people at employment agencies have shown some interest in me, and that is reassuring. The American lady at the first employment agency I met said she got the go ahead to send my CV to O2, the cell phone company, but I haven't heard from them yet. I was hoping they would want to see me for an interview but now I am not sure. I am meeting with another employment agency tomorrow at 12 so hopefully that goes well.

There just aren't good jobs mom. Like honestly, I think it's just the way it is now. Just because you have a college degree it's no longer this one way ticket to the middle class like it used to be. If you want a job right out of college you just have to take one in a restaurant or something. It's like depressing. There isn't enough room in the middle class anymore for someone with no experience. I wish I had just skipped college and gone to work straight away, I would of been better off and I would have savings instead of debt. No one cares about a degree. I've never had anyone even ask me about my studies. No one asks me what I learned; they all just want to know what experience I have. It is honestly and truly a hard struggle, I know you and Dad don't understand, you're both established with careers, and probably don't feel the effects of this market. But for me, things are a world of difference.

Let's look at what is going on in the market right now; we all know there is a recession, but does anyone know why all these banks are failing? It's because of a lack of regulation on the part of our government, and the current administration. And the policies of the United States reach to all of our allies and the rest of the world. We have more influence than anyone else. What we do, resonates around the world.

So, why the banks are failing. It's simply because they were allowed to take on too much risk. Say you're an investment bank. What you do, is you take $1 to the bank and give it to the teller and you say:
"OK you take this $1 as collateral and I'm going to borrow $30"
Then you take your $30 and you buy something; anything. Let's say you buy a soccer ball, just to keep in the theme of our family. Now if tomorrow you go and sell that soccer ball for $40 - great, you just made $9. Remember the $30 you borrowed from the bank, and the $1 you put down. That's $31. You sold it for $40. You made $9. This is all great if you always make money off your investments, and for the most part the investment banks did. But every once and a while, the soccer ball is only going to make $20. In which case you now lost $11. They have extremely intelligent math wizards working at the top calculating the ratios of success to failure. And for the most part they know that they will make more money then they will lose. However, this time they were wrong. They invested in markets like real estate where people can't pay their loans, no money is coming in, and now it's blowing up on them.

Before Bush, investment banks could only borrow about $15 for every $1 down. Now it's gone up to about $30 for $1 like in our scenario (except of course it's actually billions and billions of US dollars, not just $15, or $30, or $1). It's way too much risk, and with more risk you have a higher chance for failure. Our banks weren't regulated and they got too greedy. If there had been proper regulations in place from stopping them to take on that much risk a lot of those banks could of been saved.

There are countless arguments against the Bush, and current GOP, economic policy, but this is my favorite one. You can't just let the markets run wild and expect things to go fine. We've seen about a 180% increase in the earnings of CEOs compared with their third in command over the past 40 years. The old CEO of home depot got a $210 million leaving bonus when he retired. $210,000,000. And under him, Home Depot's stock didn't even improve. He wasn't even good. We're watching the top dogs take advantage of the system and the average citizen getting squeezed out of decent paying wages.

The United States is supposed to be the land of opportunity, and all of our allies that adopt democracy are supposed to reap the rewards of that opportunity. That opportunity means the ability for all people to be able to live comfortably with a roof over their head and food for their children - and maybe even a BMW if you work really hard. It doesn't mean the opportunity to make $210,000,000 while the employees of your company struggle with the minimum wage.

Henry Ford once said that he knew for his company to be a success his employees had to earn enough money to buy his product. Everyone in America with a Model T, that was his dream.

I know that you think I'm just a young naive liberal that's blindly in love with Barack Obama. But I know my stuff. I do my research and I'm very passionate about the United States. I love that country, and that's why I want to see it continue to succeed. If it does, places like Ireland will also continue to succeed and that's a great thing as well. It's not about the war in Iraq, I don't agree with it, and with the money we spent on it we could probably bail out the economy, but that's neither here nor there. It's not about social issues, I could care less if gays get married or women get abortions, it doesn't affect me. There are more pressing issues facing the United States. And I earnestly believe we need to take a hard look at some of the policies of this past administration that McCain shares.

So I guess that sums up how I'm doing. Frustrated. Frustrated because when I'm out on the street handing my resume to any business that will take it, and thinking about how hard it is to get a job, what always enters my mind is that George Bush never had to deal with this. He grew up with entitlement and money. His father was a president, his grandfather an international banker that made a fortune off the Great Depression, and later a Senator. Our President has never felt the struggles of a working person in hard times, and so I suppose that's why he doesn't understand it. Remember we fought for our independence from Britain to get away from being ruled by a King - an entitled heir only fit to rule by his bloodline. 232 years later, I wonder how better off we really are.

Love, and God Bless America,
Shane