Chapter 5: It BeginsA Chapter by DGordon This chapter is where the changes of the Economic Freedom Act take effect, thus starting the collapse of the global economy It Begins Economic Developments in April 2017:
It was a warm, beautiful Saturday morning. The first day of April. It was around six a.m. when I was jolted awake. I had just had another nightmare, this one involved me falling endlessly, with a bunch of things falling alongside me. I saw numbers falling, like the numbers on a stock market board, and a line on a chart went crashing down with an explosive thud below me. I saw images that many people would associate with an economic crash. A long bread line, a business owner closing the doors of his shop for good, people jumping out of windows of skyscrapers, a homeless man holding a jar of change in front of a 7-Eleven, a news anchor giving a report on the horrible things happening all around. After what was probably a few minutes of that, even though it felt like hours, I awoke in a cold sweat, with a horrified look on my face. I rubbed my eyes, and put on my glasses to check my cell phone to see what time it was, and at that point I realized that I probably shouldn’t fall back asleep, lest the nightmare continue. The day had come. A terrible feeling came over me, a cold chill ran down my spine. It was the day I, as well as many others, was dreading. I checked the news, hoping that maybe, just maybe, all that EFA stuff was just an elaborate and horribly cruel April Fool’s joke, that the news anchor was gonna scream out “gotcha!” to the audience. No such luck, as the new reality of the Economic Freedom Act has set in. As I normally do on Saturday mornings after I wake up, I get dressed, brush my teeth, put on my deodorant and head out for my weekly errands. This trip would be different in one regard, I was going to take it upon myself to find out how the EFA would be affecting the people I encounter during my trip. As for myself, I have to make some changes to my life. For food, I’m going to change out the fast food and the more expensive grocery items, so no more steaks or Hot Pockets for me. I was going to swap that out with more bread and cheap lunch meat for sandwiches. Maybe I could mix in peanut butter and jelly if they were on sale. Also, no more nights out for drinks with the guys at work, which shouldn’t be a big deal, since all of them have to cut back too. At home, I had tried to get my landlord Sanjay, a sixty-ish, balding man of Indian descent, to reduce my monthly rent, since I was making over 500 dollars less per month than before. That didn’t work out for me, as he said that he had no wiggle room on the rent amount. There were still property taxes and a mortgage on the complex, Sanjay said in his fluent but difficult to understand accent, and he couldn’t reduce the rent for any of the tenants, unless we were willing to bear some of the cost for water and trash service, which would defeat the purpose of paying less rent. That sucks, but at least my rent is still a relatively affordable 850 dollars a month, which is rather cheap for Ontario, where most comparable apartments fetch about a thousand a month or more. As for changes I made in the home. I am getting rid of the cable TV and Internet service to save some money, like millions of others were also doing. I didn’t watch that much TV anyways, and I have internet on my cell phone, which I was keeping on, at least for now, since I still need to communicate with the outside world. If I get another pay cut, I’ll get rid of the phone. My expenses will be pared back to food, my phone, rent and utilities. For entertainment, no more trips to the movies with my family, no more trips to Dodger Stadium to catch a baseball game, no more bowling, no more trips to the aquarium or to museums. I didn’t get to go out all that much on my income, but now I wouldn’t get to at all anymore. I’ll just stay at home and play my Playstation. Video games can be my escape, something to make me forget that everything is going to Hell, at least for a couple of hours. Well anyways, I headed out on that warm and sun-soaked spring morning to do my weekly grocery shopping. After leaving the house around 9 A.M., my first stop was going to be the Stater Brothers supermarket, located on Holt Boulevard and San Antonio Avenue in west Ontario, about a mile and a half from my house. After parking my car in a near-empty parking lot, I walk inside to a store that is emptier than usual. Usually the place is packed on Saturday mornings, but not today. There are a few housewife-types milling around the food aisles, scoping out the items that are for sale, and some kids following them around, asking their parents for their favorite candy or cereals or whatever else. Some of the adults have their calculators out, trying to make every last penny count, since those pennies are scarcer for many now. I have my revised weekly shopping list, and am looking for cheaper alternatives to the items I would customarily buy. I have to buckle down, if I’m going to be making 140 dollars a week less than I had been before. After letting out a big sigh while looking at my list, lamenting the things I will give up, I briskly go down the aisles, picking up the macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles, the can of beans and bag of rice, the cheapest spaghetti noodles and the cheap spaghetti sauce that comes in the can, the loaves of bread and the cheapest cuts of lunch meat I can find. I don’t care for the brand of lunch meat that I picked, the cheap store brand that came in a little plastic pouch, but it was the cheapest, so it will have to do. I’ll have to choke it down for now, until another brand has a sale here. I’m even swapping out the soda, which I admittedly would drink too much of, for a case of bottled water. Once I’m done, I push my cart up to the checkout line where I would pay for my goods. The cashier today is a pretty young lady named Sandra, who has helped me several times before. I think she might have flirted with me before, but my sense is terrible when it comes to that kind of stuff. I would definitely consider dating her if the opportunity arose. Sandra is in her mid-twenties, with long brown hair that’s put up in a ponytail for work, nice blue eyes and she normally flashes a very beautiful smile. Today is a different story, however, as she has a despondent, defeated look on her face today. “What’s wrong? You seem down today” I question her as to what the problem is, despite the fact that I already knew damn well what the problem is. “I shouldn’t say, but yes, I’m having a bad day. Feeling really down” She replied with a sigh, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone else can hear her. “You got your pay cut, didn’t you? This is April 1st, after all.” I whispered to Sandra after leaning in, so her bosses don’t hear. The employees are probably being ordered to not say anything. She is now close to done with scanning my items, when her manager, a forty-ish man named Chris (my neighbor and friend Franklin Jackson was also a manager at this store, but he was off on weekends) walked by, heading to the back of the store. Once he was completely out of sight, Sandra leaned in towards me. “My pay got cut almost in half, I went from thirteen bucks an hour to seven, and my health insurance got cut big time” I noticed a tear now streaming down her cheek, and her voice starting to quiver. “I don’t know how I’m gonna feed my son, or buy him new clothes. He’s three and he’s growing fast. I don’t know what to do. His dad won’t pitch in unless I get back together with him, and I can’t do that, not after he cheated on me with my so-called best friend. I don’t wanna go back to that” Sandra was now sniffling in between her sentences. I was heartbroken while hearing Sandra’s story, which sounded so much like the other stories I had been hearing daily on the Renee Meadows show. This story hit much closer to home since I’m seeing it unfold before my very eyes, not to say that the other stories don’t hit close to home. For a split second, before remembering that I too am having my struggles, I wanted to offer my place as a home for Sandra and her son, whose name is Aiden. Sandra and I continued to talk for a little while, perhaps ten to fifteen minutes, since the manager Chris was still gone, and there weren’t very many customers this morning, a strange sight, as Sandra told me that the lines were usually pretty long at this time of day on Saturdays. Sandra told me that once her and Aiden’s father broke up, she moved in with her parents, but they too were struggling. Sandra’s mom had a job as a social worker at the San Bernardino County Social Services office, but since those social programs got axed, she lost her job. Friday, March 31st was her last day, which consisted of checking up on her cases to see if they were going to be too badly hurt by losing their benefits (of course, many of them were going to be badly hurt). Her father actually was lucky that he didn’t get a pay cut at his job at a computer store. His boss was adamant about not cutting the pay of any of his workers. I wished that more bosses were like that. Since Sandra couldn’t afford any daycare for little Aiden anymore, her mom would have to step in and watch him. Between her and her father’s earnings, it would be a struggle to afford food and pay the mortgage on their nice three-bedroom house in the northern end of Ontario, in a much nicer neighborhood than the neighborhood I call home. Despite these struggles, Sandra actually considered herself lucky in a way. Some of her coworkers were talking about starting to skip meals, and she said at least one of them was having suicidal thoughts. Adriana, one of the other cashiers, and a personal friend of Sandra’s, was preparing to sleep in her van once the month was over and she didn’t have the money for the May rent. And that was just the employees that kept their jobs. Several of the store’s workers were now laid-off, a move that was supposed to be temporary, and many of the remaining workers, on top of getting a pay cut, also are now working fewer hours, as well as losing their health insurance, which became too expensive for most of the workers. According to what Chris had told Sandra a few days earlier, those workers who were laid off were to get their jobs back once business picked back up. “I hope that it does pick up, eventually. I fear it may not, though.” I told Sandra, with a resigned tone to my voice. “It looks like so many people are going to sink under the waves because of these new changes, and I think it will be a long, LONG time before it gets better…..if it ever does get better.” Once we saw Chris’ portly figure reappear in the distance, we concluded our conversation. Sandra and I said our goodbyes and I went to push my shopping cart out to my car, a beat-up grey 2002 Toyota Corolla that I got from my father, which needed some repairs to the brake system that I couldn’t afford now. I actually wish that the brake system had started faltering a few months ago, so I could have fixed it. I guess I should consider myself lucky, since my car still ran, but if it stopped working, I would be in a world of trouble, as my work is fifteen miles from home. Speaking of my car troubles, the next stop on my itinerary for the morning was the local AutoZone, located about a mile and a half down Holt Boulevard in Montclair, to get a bottle of brake fluid. Since my car started leaking brake fluid a week and a half ago, this was the second time I had to put more in, and I had used up my previous bottle. I saw this as another opportunity to see how regular working people were coping with the EFA. I walked into the AutoZone, and guess what, it was also emptier than usual. In fact, I was the only customer in the whole store. I grabbed my bottle of fluid and hastily proceeded to the checkout counter, where a tall, thin, bearded gentleman named Todd helped me. Todd, who looked to be around thirty, was also on the grumpy side, no smile and a downbeat voice as he scanned my brake fluid. I was hesitant to ask, but I was just too curious. I looked both ways to see if there was any sign of management, and asked. “So, Todd, did you get a pay cut today?” “Yeah, from twelve to eight bucks an hour. I’m so pissed, I’ve been here for two years, and this is what they do to me”. He somberly replied. “How are you gonna manage? I mean, will you still be able to make ends meet?” I ask him, curious as to how he will cope with the loss of income. He also tells me that his wife of ten years got a pay cut as well, even steeper than his. She apparently works as a nursing assistant in a convalescent home in Glendora, and her pay dropped from twelve dollars an hour all the way to six, a fifty percent drop. So now, their pay combined will be only slightly more than what they were each making before the pay cuts. Despite his disappointment at his new pay rate, and the lack of loyalty that his employer of two years showed him, Todd seemed cautiously optimistic. “Thank God we don’t have any kids, ‘cuz I wouldn’t wanna raise them in these tough times. Anyways, I think me and the wife will manage”. His voice lowered and he let out a deep sigh. “That’s all we really can do, I guess. I guess I can say that me and my wife have our health, and we do both have jobs. I have a few friends and family members who are getting laid off. Even my dad, who has been at his job for twenty-two years, got his pay cut, and his company stopped offering health insurance. He has diabetes, and that insulin is expensive! Him and my mom are looking to sell their house and move into something cheaper, like a little apartment. It’s gonna be tough for everyone.” My mind now racing after my errand run, I go home to drop off my groceries at my apartment. Once that is complete, I decide to head over and give my family a visit, to kick back and perhaps have a laugh, but also to see how they are holding up. Knowing that they miss their fast food, I swing by to grab some cheap burgers from the McDonald’s a couple of blocks from their house. While waiting for my food inside the restaurant, I overhear the clerks asking each other what they were now getting paid. I hadn’t gone in there to inquire about the workers, but I couldn’t help but eavesdrop in on this conversation. Normally, talking about such things at the workplace is a big no-no, but apparently even the manager, a thirty-ish Latino man named Jorge, was chiming in, not caring to discipline his fellow workers since he too, got his pay cut to just six dollars an hour. The workers at McDonald’s, who were already among the lowest paid around even before the EFA took effect, got the biggest cuts in their wages that I had heard up to that point. Many of these workers saw their pay fall to between a horrid three and five dollars per hour, depending on the experience level of the worker. Opponents of the minimum wage always asserted that these minimum-wage jobs were “for teenagers and people just entering the workforce to gain job experience, or to have a little spending money”. What one would actually see at the workplaces went to the contrary of that thinking. To be sure, there were a couple workers at that McDonald’s that looked to be in their late teens, but many of them were older. Jessica, the short Latina woman who took my order, looked to be in her late twenties. Her pay fell to four dollars and fifty cents per hour, and now her struggles to feed her three small children would be even worse than before. On top of that, she lost her WIC, which was a social program that helped many women with small children to provide food, milk, and juice for those children. The man grilling the food, whose name I heard to be Dante, was a balding, middle-aged African-American man. His pay fell to five dollars an hour, which was the highest figure I heard other than the manager’s wage. “Seven years I’ve been here, and this is how I get treated!” Dante hollered to anyone who would hear. Moreover, several of the employees in the McDonald’s that day also lost the SNAP benefits they had previously received so they would have enough to eat, as well as the Medicaid insurance they used for health insurance. A large portion of fast food workers used SNAP benefits and Medicaid insurance since their employers paid them so little, so losing their benefits and getting their already meager pay reduced made their existence extra tough now. I was riveted by all this information, so I stayed to hear them talk for a few minutes after my food was prepared. Other customers who were eating or in line to order listened in as well, as many of them can also relate to what the employees were discussing. After the discussion died down, I grabbed my bags of burgers and fries, and left. I pulled up to my family’s new house, a mobile home that my parents got the year before, not long after I moved out of the house in Montclair. This mobile home was located in the city of Chino (which was located to the south of both Montclair and Ontario), on the corner of Ramona Avenue and Philadelphia Street. It was a nice mobile home complex, with rows and rows of similar looking mobile homes. The mobile home was smaller than their previous place, but it was nicer, and the area seemed safer than the old neighborhood. I pulled up, with bags of McDonald’s food in tow, and went to knock on the door. My mom, who looked kind of sickly that day, opened up the door and let me in. “Will, what’s up buddy?”, my mom hollered as she lets me in. I give her a big hug and give her the bag of food. “Why thank you so much, I didn’t know when I was gonna have McDonald’s again! The girls are gonna be so excited to see you and the food. They were going crazy. They’re worried sick wondering what is going to happen to us!” She told me, before letting out a big, deep cough. She has been doing that lately, which deeply worried me because she has smoked cigarettes for a long time. It seemed that nearly four decades of smoking was now finally catching up to her. “You really need to get that checked out, since you guys are paying more for the insurance, you might as well use it. I really hope it’s not cancer or emphysema or anything like that” I told her. My mom was always close to me. She was now now fifty-two years of age, with shoulder-length and slightly graying hair, and a face that looked like a female version of my face. I always went to her when I had a dilemma, she often gave me good advice, whether it was about money, or school, or my job, or even dating. I don’t know how I would take losing her, it would just crush me. While my mom, Leann and Briana were devouring their double cheeseburgers and their fries, my mom started to tell me some more details of their situation. See, not only did my dad see a cut in the pay he received by three cents per mile, he also found out that the route he has been driving for close to five years will become less regular, at least for now. Since the volume of goods trucking companies were transporting is decreasing sharply for the time being, drivers will be getting less regular assignments, and therefore, much smaller paychecks. Some drivers were hit more than others. Luckily, my dad, who had been recognized by Covenant Transport as one of the top drivers in the whole company, will keep his route, he just will run the route a bit less than before. Hopefully, if he loses the route for a couple of days, he can make a smaller run in the interim. “Man, that’s rough!” I said, obviously concerned for my family’s situation. “I can move back in with you guys and help if that is ever needed. Everybody is getting hit hard by these new changes. Me, my neighbor, my coworkers, everyone I have been coming across today. Those poor McDonald’s workers are all getting like four or five bucks an hour now! I hope people can get through this”. Once the meal was over, my mom turned the volume back up on the TV, where she was watching the local news. Of course, one of the first stories was about the extent of the pay cuts that were happening to large segments of the workforce, as well as those who lost their jobs to “temporary layoffs” such as what Sandra had told me about while at Stater Bros. I had reached a point where I didn’t want to hear about it, this story was just further depressing me. The reporter, a small Asian woman named Susan Takahashi, had traveled to several businesses, talking to anyone who would talk to her, since doing this could mean the worker lost the job, and whatever income they had left. The stories we heard on the TV were much like the stories I had already heard from family, from coworkers, from neighbors, and even from other people I had heard from. It turned out that tipped workers, such as waiters and waitresses, were the hardest hit of anybody pay-wise. They already were paid far below the normal minimum wage (the tipped minimum wage was a pitiful two dollars and thirteen cents an hour), and the tips were supposed to make up the difference. Well, many restaurant owners saw an opportunity to reduce costs when the EFA took effect, and decided to not pay their tipped employees anything at all. These workers would now receive paychecks of zero dollars and zero cents. Yes, tips would now make up the entirety of the income of these employees, who worked at places that were seeing noticeable decreases in the number of customers. In a mix of sadness and full-on rage, I turned to my mom. “See, exactly what I said would happen. Exactly the way I have been describing it to everybody. Everyone will be harmed by this in the long run. If it keeps going this way, we are totally fucked! It’s over for us” I said, with my voice getting louder with each sentence. “You think that we are really going to collapse?” My mom said back to me, remembering that I told her that these things in the story would happen. “I hope it doesn’t end this way, I hope your prediction is wrong. People are gonna freak out and lose their minds once everyone starves and is homeless or whatever”. “Mom, for the sake of us all, I hope I’m wrong too”. I replied, with an exasperated look on my face. That was followed by an awkward silence, as I sat there, just thinking, and getting more depressed by the second. We sat and continued to watch TV for a couple of hours, watching various programs ranging from the local news to some lighter reality fare. The conversation turned to lighter topics, like how Briana was doing in school. Now thirteen years old, Briana looked much like her older sister Leann, with similar interests and taste in music, but was much more personable, but also a bit more of a troublemaker at times. She was to complete middle school next month, and she was doing quite well in her studies. She had her struggles in recent years, but was now really hitting her stride, she even stopped getting into trouble at school as much. I was so proud of her when I found out she made the honor roll the previous semester, getting all A’s and B’s in her classes. We also talked about the weather, or what such and such celebrity did, you know, the typical small talk. I needed the small talk at this point, it was something to shut my brain off for a bit, to keep me from thinking about what was going on in the world. Sometime after 3 P.M., I bid my family farewell for the day. I told them I would visit more often, these visits always helped me reconnect with the family, and it was nice not sitting in my apartment all alone, as that did get annoying at times. I walked out the door and got back in my car to head home. Once I was back at my apartment, I just lounged around, playing video games or watching TV, but my mind would inevitably drift back towards the major economic predicament we were all now mired in. Once the weekend ended, it was time to get back to work. Monday, April 3rd was my first day at work since the EFA took effect, so it was my first day at my new, reduced pay rate. One could tell that morale at the office had taken a hit. Reggie wasn’t his usual talkative self, and Hannah wasn’t twirling her hair and flirting with the guys in the other departments like she usually would (I think she had a thing going with Jim from Marketing). The office at Milton Plastics felt like a morgue, as the employees just jumped right into their work. Hell, even Mr. Milton himself didn’t seem too happy, as he snapped at Reggie for a lack of timeliness with a report. I hope he pulled the stick out of his a*s before he snapped at me, because I was in no mood to deal with any of it. I tried to keep up with my work, just processing our payables, like any other day. However, I couldn’t keep the thoughts of doom from consuming my mental capacity. I would just drift off into a trance-like state for a couple of minutes at a time, just thinking, even though I was in the middle of making a payment with the company credit card. Despite that, I still finished my work quicker than usual, as there was less of it. I finished my work for the time being at about eleven in the morning, and took a break. Before long, everyone else joined me. Why did many of my coworkers join me? Well I caught something on the news, the big news story of the day. Contrary to the claims by right-wing pundits that the markets would love the EFA, the stock market cratered throughout the morning hours, a bloodbath which continued all the way until the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, the nerve center of the world’s financial markets. See, one thing investors in stocks don’t like is uncertainty, and the Economic Freedom Act definitely produced uncertainty. There were large selloffs throughout all industries and sectors. This selloff was a global one, starting with the Asian stock markets hours earlier, during the late night and wee morning hours in the U.S. That was followed by a mass selloff in European markets, which finally cascaded into a mass selloff here in the United States. I knew this would happen, as it was part of my big prediction, and I did hear about the market crashes in Asia and Europe on the morning news as I was getting ready for work. All told, tens of trillions of wealth from all corners of the globe evaporated in just one day, the largest single-day loss of wealth in history. “It looks like the rich will be joining the rest of us in the bread lines soon enough” I told Reggie as we nervously watched everything unfold on a TV set in the office. By the closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the primary barometer of the stock market, had fallen a record 2,372 points. The previous biggest point drop for one day was 777 points, so this was certainly a historic development. The Dow, as many liked to call it, fell by an astonishing thirteen percent, similar to the percentage drop of October 24th, 1929, the first day of the stock market crash that signified the start of the Great Depression, and the second largest percentage drop in history. The other stock indexes, including the NASDAQ and the S&P 500, reported similar percentage drops. Indeed, even the mostly wealthy investor class was now feeling the pain along with the rest of us. Me and my coworkers were now glued to the break room TV, hanging on every development as they came in. We could do this, since there wasn’t a whole lot of work to be done that day. We watched the numbers sink lower and lower and lower as the day went on, and the markets were not improving, as they often do after a big selloff. Due to the events of Monday, April 3rd, now known as “Black Monday”, the world economy was shaken to its core. The stock losses did not stop that day, as the markets continued lower as uncertainty reigned, and the job losses started to pile up in record numbers. All told, the markets finished the month of April more than twenty-five percent lower than at the beginning of the month. Occasionally, the markets would tick up a bit, but then the slide downward began once again. Wealthy investors, as well as regular workers who had their retirement funds in 401(k) funds (a fund where employees put a portion of their paychecks, with some money matched by their employers, into securities such as stocks), were hard-hit by the stock losses. In a feeble attempt to calm everyone’s nerves, President Harris made a press conference in front of the White House on the afternoon of April 3rd. This was actually his first speech since he unveiled the EFA, and it was about the events that were caused by the fateful act. In his speech, President Harris, in his usual calm, understated style, admitted that his policy was going to cause some economic pain, the first such admission from him, or anyone else in is administration. There was to be a mild-to-moderate recession, lasting for no longer than six months, he said. He also downplayed the mounting concerns of his ever-growing cadre of critics about the negative effects of the Economic Freedom Act, calling the reports of massive wage cuts overblown. Relatively few workers saw pay cuts, his advisors had told him, completely ignorant of what was actually happening. Despite the developments since the EFA was implemented, Harris continued to insist that this was the right course of action, and that “the economy would emerge from the recession, stronger than ever as a result of this policy”. After Harris’ six-minute speech was over, he retreated back into the White House on that chilly, wind-swept afternoon in Washington D.C., and the markets continued to plunge, falling even faster than they were before the press conference. Another little quip that the President made during the speech that was telling came when he mentioned the pay cuts. He had said that “people just aren’t telling me that these supposed massive cuts in people’s wages are happening”. People didn’t take too kindly to his assertion, as social media blew up immediately upon the ending of the speech. In a genius move, the Democratic National Committee made a new topic on Twitter (a social media site where people can express their thoughts in small, bite-size pieces) called #TellPresidentHarris. Within minutes, responses were flooding in from all over the country, making the topic the number one Twitter topic in the world within just a few hours. The responses came quickly and fiercely, as folks from all walks of life aired their grievances with President Harris and the EFA. Comments ranged from “I got my pay cut in half”, to “I lost my job and health benefits”, to “I got my pay cut and I don’t get food stamps no more, does Harris expect us to starve?”, to “Harris ended financial aid for college students, so I have to quit school once this semester ends”. The people were telling President Harris, all right. The number of comments reached into the millions, and people from other countries were chiming in with their struggles caused by the sweeping economic changes. The topic became a true global phenomenon. Unfortunately, the pain and misery caused by the EFA and similar policies was also a global phenomenon. Like I mentioned before, stock markets worldwide crashed along with the U.S. stock market. Many countries, such as France and Germany fell even harder than the U.S., France’s main stock index fell a whopping 29 percent in just one day, while Germany’s fell 24.5 percent, with most other European markets falling between 15 and 25 percent. When President Harris proposed the EFA, and his counterparts in other nations followed suit, either willingly or otherwise, they timed their changes to all take effect on April 1st. The whole world jumped into the abyss at the same time, marching right off the cliff together. Despite the mass global protests all throughout the months of February and March, and continuing into April, the new policies went into effect as planned. All the economies of the wealthier nations (the developed world, as they were called) fell victim to similar forces as what was transpiring in the U.S., with millions losing their jobs, and many of those who remained getting their incomes slashed. Seniors in those countries also lost their government retirement pensions, and had to enter the job markets once again in their old age. Furthermore, every other developed nation other than the United States had universal health coverage, with everyone covered using tax dollars. Every nation made wholesale changes to their healthcare systems, as they dismantled or drastically pared back their single-payer systems. This caused the protests across those nations to intensify, as this was, quite literally, a life-or-death situation for many, many people. Rich and poor countries alike were hit hard by the sharp economic downturn starting in April 2017. In fact, poorer countries (also called the developing world), whose economies were often based on manufacturing or the procurement of raw materials for goods, were hit the hardest of all. Since demand in rich countries fell hard, the need for workers in poor countries’ main industries also went down. There was far less demand for the exports of these nations, and firms had far less access to credit, far less foreign investment as firms everywhere mostly stopped investing, and even far less money sent back from people who emigrated to wealthier countries, who could not afford to send as much of the money they made back to their home countries. All of these factors had a devastating impact on the economies of developing countries. Countless factories and mines throughout the world were shuttered, throwing untold millions out of work. Economic ministers of countries all over the world spoke of dire consequences in their home countries. On top of all that, the poorest individuals all over the world often relied on food aid from foreign governments to eat, and that aid was ended, causing mass food shortages, especially once small farms all over the world started failing in large numbers. News stories from international new sources showed the mass starvation being experienced in the poorest parts of the world. Food riots broke out in several countries throughout the month of April, with more to follow. Experts with the World Bank estimated that the number of people who fell into poverty worldwide on April 1st, 2017 may exceed two, or even three billion. Those who were already in poverty fell into even worse poverty, and the amount of people facing starvation rose sharply. Several nations were already in famine-like conditions before April 2017, and their suffering was exacerbated by economic events. Furthermore, they were surely joined by millions of others in their horrific suffering. There was no way to accurately measure that quickly. Needless to say, misery abounded everywhere. There wasn’t as much attention or news airtime given to the struggles of the developing world, but they were feeling the pain much the same as their wealthier counterparts, and in many cases, much worse. In fact, a UNICEF report in late April stated that the sharpest drops in income, and the sharpest increases in unemployment, were occurring in the nations of Latin America, Africa, and central and southern Asia, the poorest nations in the world. The economic downturn spread like a virus quickly to all corners of the globe. That’s not to say that people took this new reality sitting down. As I mentioned before, there were mass protests against these austerity measures in cities all over the world. The largest took place in large cities and national capitals, the protest in London alone involved over three million people. Protests in Vancouver, London, Berlin, and Beijing, among others topped one million each. These were mostly seniors, college students who would now have to pay tuition to continue their studies, and people who were thrown out of work, but many people who remained employed risked getting fired to join in as well. These protests weren’t suppressed in all cases either, as police officers would join in at times. After all, many of them saw cuts in their pay and benefits as well. The protests did die down somewhat as the weeks passed, as many workers were told by their employers they would lose their jobs, and what little income they had, if they protested in any way. There were protests in the United States too, to be sure, but they weren’t nearly on the scope of what was occurring elsewhere. There were fairly large protests in places such as Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, among others, these protests were more muted, and were much more short-lived than their international counterparts. Despite the concerns of the people, and the fact that the protests were heavily promoted, and organized in some cases by the Democratic Party, there were still many others that were apathetic, to the point that some didn’t seem to know what was going on, and how much they were being harmed. Another factor that contributed to the seeming lack of fervor on the part of Americans was the fact that many employers told their workers beforehand that any participation in protests would not be tolerated, and would result in immediate termination. Many employed individuals wouldn’t risk losing what little they had left to demonstrate, even if they were fired up by images of protests flaring up everywhere that were showing up on the news everyday. Furthermore, many states and localities, especially areas dominated by Republicans, were making it illegal to protest, implementing heavy fines and even jail time for protesters. A couple of states even made it legal to run over protesters if they were blocking a roadway, which was a common method of protest. Between the threats from their bosses and the possible legal troubles, there was plenty to deter people from standing up for what they believed in. Indeed, as I predicted and told people repeatedly over the last several months, the EFA wreaked absolute havoc on the economy. Starting on April 1st, over two and a half million federal and state employees lost their jobs, due to the closure of dozens of federal departments and the ending of social programs. Most of the social programs were administered by the states, so states saw declines of their workforces as well. The reductions of consumer spending by the job losses, as well as the mass pay cuts received by tens of millions of workers, decimated the retail sector of the economy. Before the collapse, consumer spending made up a whole seventy percent of the U.S. economy. Once the EFA knocked the legs out from under consumers, the retail sector was bound to topple right over. As the month wore on, business conditions deteriorated further, and businesses started to really feel the pinch caused by the appalling lack of buying power that many consumers now had. Businesses big and small, many of which were profitable before April, or at least breaking even, were now headed towards massive losses. Business owners, who were initially ecstatic with the changes brought about by the EFA, were now cursing its existence now that their businesses were hemorrhaging money. To counter the loss of revenues, companies everywhere had to cut their expenses somehow, whether by another round of wage cuts on top of the ones they may have already given out, or letting go of workers whose services were no longer needed due to the lack of customers. Watching the news everyday, it seems like the top story most days starting in mid-to-late April was that this company or that company was conducting mass layoffs. Twenty thousand here, fifty thousand there, or such and such number of store locations were closing, the onslaught was relentless. Walmart dropped the biggest bomb of them all that month, announcing that over one hundred and fifty thousand of their associates, one-tenth of their workforce, were to receive “temporary layoffs”. Each mass layoff shook the business world to its core, as talk turned to exactly which company would make an layoff announcement next. On top of the mass job losses, talk of further pay reductions abounded, and now some workers who were unscathed at the beginning of the month felt the pain of the pay cuts. By the end of April, businesses, especially small businesses, were beginning to close. Furthermore, the number of new business startups cratered, falling to almost nothing, as nobody was insane enough to try to start up a business in this climate. A late-April edition of Newsweek magazine had a headline called “What Happened to the Entrepreneur?”, with a lengthy article dedicated to the new obstacles facing would-be entrepreneurs, ranging from the incredibly uncertainty of the business climate, to the lack of customers caused by the downturn, to the lack of capital available to startup companies, caused by a severe tightening of credit, which banks said would last until there were signs of recovery. Indeed, experts believed that now was definitely not the time for new firms to enter the market. For job seekers, many of whom had just lost their jobs, the job market was, by far, the worst that anyone had ever seen. The want ads of the newspapers were largely empty of job openings, as were job-hunting websites like Indeed and Monster and CareerBuilder. The unemployed were not only competing with each other, they were competing with millions of seniors who lost their Social Security benefits and needed to reenter the workforce. To worsen matters, those who remained employed quickly realized that, after their pay and/or hour reductions, they were not making enough to make ends meet, meaning that they would need another job to go with the job, or jobs in some cases, that they already had. Due to the convergence of these factors, the ratio of job seekers to open jobs shot up to over fifty to one, and even over one hundred to one in some locales. In comparison, the ratio during the depths of the Great Recession of the previous decade was five to one. The unprecedented glut of job seekers only served to create further downward pressure on wages, wages that were already in freefall. Employers were eager to hold that fact over the heads over their workers, as it allowed them to cut pay and benefits further. If the employee balked at the crummier pay, then there were plenty of people who could replace them who were more willing to take the lower wage. Those who were unemployed became increasingly desperate, and depression (and sometimes suicidal thoughts) set in among many individuals once they realized the seriousness of their situations. Those who had income still were increasingly frugal with their money. They cut back on their food purchases, buying cheaper foods, not eating out nearly as much, and they held off on any spending that wasn’t completely necessary. They weren’t about to buy a new appliance or a new automobile, and they were also reducing their household expenses, so no new shoes or books or toys for the kids, or really anything else for that matter. Even household essentials saw a big hit in their sales. Relative luxuries like cable TV and cell phones were cut by millions of people, and people were buying far fewer articles of clothing. The cable companies lost over half of their customers in just one month. Most households also cut out trips to sporting events, movies, and any sort of travel, such as vacations or trips to see friends or family. Despite all this cutting back, the drastic drop of discretionary incomes (the amount households have leftover after necessities such as food and shelter) led many households to take on ever more debt, running up large credit card bills and resorting to predatory payday lenders, who were little more than legal loan sharks, with their sky-high interest rates. The level of indebtedness was sure to rise even further, and many households wouldn’t have the money to pay it back. Surely, we were seeing a new bubble that was sure to burst soon, and once it did, it would not be pretty. Like I said before, the retail sector was hardest hit immediately, well other than perhaps the government employees. Stores from supermarkets to small boutique shops to Walmart stores, serving customers from all socioeconomic classes, began to dramatically reduce employment, since there weren’t enough customers to justify keeping the employees around at that time, and the customers that did come in spent less, as they tried to scrimp and save wherever they could, to stretch fewer dollars. Restaurants started letting workers go as well, as restaurants became increasingly empty. Most families responded to the loss of income by eating at home more in order to save money, which immediately proved to be catastrophic to most restaurants, big and small. Retail stores coped in various ways to the reduction of customers. As I said before, many started to lay off workers, such as cashiers and stockers, once it became apparent that business was going to drop drastically. A late April survey of retail managers from across the U.S. showed that 98 percent of the managers felt that business was slower at the end of the month than it was at the beginning (the other 2 percent were probably lying), and that 75 percent felt compelled to lay off staff within a month if there was no improvement. Worst of all, 42 percent felt that their stores would not last a year in these conditions. This survey made national headlines, right as more folks were waking up to the catastrophic effects of the EFA. See, not even the most negative forecasts of the effect of the Economic Freedom Act expected the retail sector to fall this hard, this fast. Another common measure retailers took was to put in place more aggressive discounts for their items. Stores routinely had specials where they marked down items in order to turn over the inventory faster. Most retailers also began reducing the amount of inventory that they purchased from wholesalers at the beginning of the month in response to the uncertainty gripping the economy. Furthermore, some larger and mid-size retail chains decided to hold off on plans to add or renovate stores, and many had put in place by the end of the month plans to close some of their more underperforming locations, a move that contributed to the mass job losses in the month of April. The troubles in the retail sector set off a domino effect that threatened to take other sectors of the economy down as well. Before long, wholesalers, those firms who buy merchandise from manufacturers and are the primary suppliers of goods bought by retailers, felt the pinch of the decrease in consumer spending. Within weeks, these wholesalers noticed that economic conditions were hitting retailers much harder than expected, and that the orders were coming in much slower than before. On top of that, they also noticed that some of their retail customers were paying later and later, which led to fears that a number of retailers wouldn’t pay at all. This led to cash flow problems for suppliers, and led them to cut back on their expenses. Of course, this meant laying off some of their employees, continuing the vicious cycle in employment that the EFA set in motion, as every sector of the economy shed jobs in April. Many wholesalers also decided to tighten up their credit terms for their customers, with some even cutting back the amount of business they conducted with customers who paid late. Customers who they would have been lenient with in better times would get no such slack now. Conversely, they also added discounts and incentives to their customers who paid early. Some wholesaler companies made the decision to stretch out the payment schedules, or attempted to negotiate new payment terms, for payments they made to their own suppliers, the manufacturers who actually produced the goods. As you can see, the effects of the downturn quickly spread all the way up and down the supply chain, negatively affecting every single link on the chain. Another especially hard-hit sector was the healthcare industry. The repeal of Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the fact that many employers were now shedding their health coverage for their workers, meant that most people now couldn’t see a doctor. On April 1st, over one-hundred million Americans lost their healthcare coverage. Tens of millions more lost the insurance they received from their employers, as companies everywhere decided to retrench in order to cut costs. In many cases, health insurance was the first thing they cut, as they would either move to cheaper plans, or end the coverage completely, leaving their workers in the lurch. As a result of this upheaval, medical offices in all fields and specialties began laying off nurses, assistants, front desk workers, and in some cases, even doctors. It was kind of hard to keep them around if there weren’t very many patients. Some hospitals in various parts of the country even had to close, causing people to have to travel further and further to receive any kind of medical treatment, if they had the means to seek out treatment at all. Healthcare was now a luxury that only the well-off can afford. Most people in America, and all over the world, had to go without needed treatments and medications, meaning their risk of death skyrocketed as time went on. Furthermore, those in nursing homes, as well as individuals with disabilities, lost their Medicaid insurance, leaving them completely unable to receive any treatment. Families, many of whom had just seen a reduction, or even complete loss of income, had to take in their elderly relatives who were being removed from nursing homes, or taking on an extra burden in treating their disabled loved ones. The effects of the EFA not only increased physical pain, but affected the mental state of countless people as well. The effects of this new economic downturn often had an effect on the mental health of those who lost a job, or got a cut in their pay, leading to far higher levels of stress and depression, which was sure to manifest itself in negative ways. Before long, the shock suffered by the retail and wholesale sectors spread to manufacturing, as well as to transportation and warehousing. The lack of demand for goods caused inventory stocks to rise quickly. Since store shelves were now staying full, there was no need to produce more inventory. Factories all over the country starting reducing, or even halting, production, laying off workers in the process. Warehouses were now fuller than ever, and there were fewer workers to load goods and move them around. Transportation, the sector my dad was in, needed fewer drivers, since there were fewer goods to transport. As you can see, one sector tumbling leads to other parts of the intricate web of the economy coming down as well. Every sector of the economy saw job losses in the month of April, some more than others, but every part of the economy felt the pain. There were far fewer people and companies who had the means to obtain goods and services, and the providers of those goods and services had to cut back of production and lay off workers, thus reducing the demand even more. The contagion was soon to spread and take out the rest of the economy. Indeed, every aspect of our lives was affected by the EFA, from important aspects such as our livelihoods and our health, to trivial ones such as entertainment and sports. People often turned to things such as TV, movies, music or sports to get an escape from their everyday lives, and to be entertained. This was seemingly more true than ever during times of economic duress. A big thing that the Great Depression of the 1930’s was remembered for, other than the massive economic decline of course, was the movies, music, literature and art that were produced. People during that decade flocked to movie theaters in unprecedented numbers, to watch a movie that would provide escape from the hardships they were facing, at least for a little while. People produced great literary works and pieces of art, capturing the pain and the suffering of the times. Would people do the same now? Well, it seemed from the early returns of the box office figures, that the answer was a resounding “no”. The first weekend the big talk on the entertainment shows was just how poorly the movies released in recent weeks did that first weekend of April. The release schedule leading up to the start of April was the mishmash of sequels, remakes and reboots that had characterized that era of filmmaking. When all was said and done, the top movie of the weekend of March 31st-April 2nd was a live-action remake of a classic animated film called Beauty and the Beast. The movie, which was actually in its second weekend of release, made a seemingly pitiful sixteen million dollars, a jaw-dropping fall from its opening weekend, which saw it earn close to sixty-four million dollars. For comparison, the box office champ the first weekend of April the year before made a whopping sixty-eight million dollars, also in its second weekend. When all was said and done, the box office was down a hideous 67 percent from the same weekend the year before, the largest year-to-year drop for a weekend ever recorded. Simply put, people just didn’t have the money to go to the theater, even at the slightly lower prices now being offered, which were no doubt created by wage cuts to the employees who sold the tickets, made the popcorn, filled the drinks and cleaned the theaters. As the weeks went on, no movie, even big-budget films that racked up hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars in years past put up numbers that were even close to what the studio executives anticipated when the script was approved and shooting began, which often took place a year or two in advance of the release of the movie. Within weeks, shooting on other big-budget films was starting to be halted until further notice. The movie world began to grind to a screeching halt due to the economic downturn. A similar phenomenon was also happening in other areas of the entertainment world. In music, current and upcoming tours, including tours of the biggest artists around, were starting to report difficulties selling the tour dates, all throughout the country, and all over the world. This was to be expected, given the lack of movie tickets that were being sold, and surely other forms of entertainment would see similar struggles. The new grim economic realities were expected to hit the music world even harder, as concert tickets tended to be much more pricey than movie tickets, even in the cheaper seating areas. By mid-April, many artists were simply cancelling tour dates, and in some cases, even entire tours, due to lack of ticket sales. And of course, the same thing happened in the sports world. April marked the end of regular season play for both basketball and hockey, as well as the beginning of baseball season. It was jarring to see so many empty seats in arenas all over the country, even for teams that weren’t very good and saw no hope for postseason play. Much of the talk on sports radio and TV shows focused not on the action on the field, but the lack of fans in the stands, as even many good, competitive teams were now struggling to sell out their games, when many of them were packing the house just a few short months ago. A few days into April, a controversy flared up that stretched into the political world, and hit home for millions of Americans. It was on April 3th, the first full day of the regular season for baseball. The talk among the commentators turned to the subject of Major League Baseball attendance for Opening Day. Opening Day games would usually sell out, as fans packed the stadiums to mark the start of their favorite team’s season. This year, as expected by some, was completely different. A majority of the Opening Day games did not sell out, and some teams had to resort to deeply discounting their tickets, which were usually somewhat more expensive for Opening Day, just to get people into the stadium. One of the announcers on the ESPN team, a former ballplayer named Tim Jackson who had been announcing games for the sports network for several years, decided to make his statement, which I saw the next morning on the Internet, since I no longer have cable TV, and couldn’t watch the game. “Looking around the big leagues, between today and yesterday, twelve of fifteen Opening Day games didn’t sell out, that is just crazy!” “Yeah it is, it seems to be happening all around the world of sports, the Tampa Bay Rays didn’t even reach fifteen thousand fans for their Opening Day game yesterday. The fans just aren’t coming now. There’s a lot of speculation as to why that is happening” Replied John Willis, the other guy in the broadcast booth for that game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Oakland Athletics, by all accounts a close contest which the Athletics won by a score of 4-2, in front of a small crowd of just nineteen thousand. The A’s, as they were commonly called, usually struggled to draw fans to their aging, dilapidated stadium, but that was an incredibly low figure for an Opening Day game. “You know why that is John? It’s the actions of President Harris. His policies are causing immense harm to everyone. Yeah, we see it in the sports world, but it’s happening everywhere, man! This damn EFA, of whatever it’s called, it’s ruining us John!” Tim shot back, apparently seeing this to be the right time to make a political statement. “Now Tim, are we sure we should be injecting politics into this? This is a baseball broadcast, after all” John tried cutting off Jackson’s statement. “Yeah, I’m sure John. This may be a baseball game, but this issue goes far beyond the world of baseball. People need to see that, many people do see that. Harris was booed mercilessly when he threw out the first pitch at the Nationals game in Washington earlier today. They know what’s up. It’s important to know what’s up. I know what I’m saying right now is controversial, but the truth is far more important than a game, and it’s far more important than the feelings of some of those watching this game right now. You can look all around you, all around the world. People are hurting, they suffering, they are even dying due to the newly implemented policies!” Tim probably would have continued, but there were “technical difficulties” with the network feed at that point. Nevertheless, the remarks caused a firestorm of controversy, even if they were full of truth. Predictably, conservatives were livid, calling for Jackson to be fired, and threatening to boycott ESPN if he wasn’t. I mean, how dare he call out their horrific economic policies? Jackson was suspended for a week, at which point he returned to calling Major League Baseball games. As the month wore on, much of the focus was on the attendance figures, which had continued to drop, going lower and lower as time went on. This obscured a mighty fine start to the new season, in which my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers got off to a great start, as well as the emergence of a wave of incredible young star players who were poised to make their mark on the sport. Too bad many people simply did not have the money to see sporting events, or even watch them on TV, as more teams had moved most, if not all of their games to cable TV in recent years. When one looked all around and saw the big picture during the month of April 2017, most of us saw a world descending into chaos. One didn’t need to turn on the TV or log into Facebook or Twitter to see the writing on the wall. I surely saw it every single day, everywhere I went. I saw increasingly empty stores and businesses, desperate for customers to spend the money they no longer had. I saw the exasperation of my neighbors who had to turn to charity for help, or who had to see their elderly mother go without the medications that keep her alive. I see it in my coworker who is skipping lunch most days to make sure that his kids go to school with a lunch. Tom Wilson, a kindly, balding, glasses-wearing gentleman who also works in the sales department handling some of our sales accounts, got a bigger pay cut than I did for some reason, despite having more experience there. Combined with the fact that his wife lost her job as an assistant at a dental office, where she had worked for eight years, money was now incredibly tight. The Wilsons made it a point to make sure that their three kids, ages ten, seven and five, never missed a meal, even if it meant they were going to be missing many meals. I never talked much to Tom, despite the fact that we worked some fifty feet from each other, until one Wednesday morning in mid-April, when I heard a weird rumbling coming from his direction. The sound of his stomach grumbling, which I heard all the way from my workstation. I caught up with him at lunch time, and noticing that he didn’t have anything to eat with him, I gave him one of the two ham sandwiches with mustard on the cheap store brand of bread that I had brought with me that day. “Hey Tom, the pay cuts getting to you?” I asked, concerned as I handed the sandwich to him. He looked at me like I saved his life. “Are you sure Will? I, I, I can’t” He stuttered to me, seeming embarrassed that someone would offer him food. “No, take it, it sounds like you need it more than I do” I replied to him, as he grabbed the sandwich out of my hand and started to take a small bite. “You been hearing the stomach growling. I have only been eating once a day lately, gotta make sure my kids have enough. My oldest already has holes in one of his shoes, and the youngest is outgrowing her clothes, and there’s no money to get her any new clothes, so the least I could do is make sure they don’t go hungry” He said, as he took a few more bites, savoring the ham. “ Oh, and my car is acting up, the transmission is on the fritz or something. If it keeps up, I gotta grab my bike and start pedaling to work every day.” “Man, I’m sorry you gotta go through this. I’ll make an extra sandwich everyday and bring it so you can have something. It takes a real man to put himself through something like this to make sure his kids don’t go without” I said, trying to reassure him. “Since the pay cut, and my wife getting laid off, it’s been hard. We’re bringing in a little over one-quarter the money we used to. We are gonna burn through all of our savings just to make the May rent. After that, I don’t know. I looked into moving into a cheaper house or an apartment complex, but even then, I don’t think we can pull it off. Me and the wife have been talking about moving out to Maryland with her sister. They can take us in for a while, apparently.” Tom said, with a defeated tone in his voice. “I hope it works out for you guys, you seem like a good guy, you don’t deserve this. Nobody deserves what is going on right now. So many lives have been ruined by the changes our so-called President has made.” I said, before shaking my head. “I just ask myself how could it all go so wrong, so fast? I have been so depressed, so has my wife. I’m gonna be honest with you, I’ve had thoughts of ending my life, but then my children would have nothing at all. Is this the future they are gonna have?” Tom said, as he finished the sandwich. “Thank you for the sandwich, and for listening to me. Your generosity will get me through this day, it gives me just a bit of hope for humanity”. The rest of my day went like usual, just going through my reports, and making my payments to the vendors who supplied us with the materials and products, though I’ve noticed there are less of them. Surely our business has gone down as well, like countless others have dealt with. I did hear later in the day that our orders did indeed drop, our products were not selling, which of course was no surprise. I imagined that layoffs were possible, not just here in the Brea headquarters, but also at a distant factory in China, where our plastic containers were made. I did hear on the news the other day that Chinese factories were laying off workers by the tens of millions, perhaps as many as one hundred million through the next couple of months. I imagined that millions more through the developing world were to experience similar fates. I mean, those workers were most likely already treated badly, making products for pitiful wages, but now they would have nothing at all. Similar fates awaited workers toiling in factories all over the world. Countless individuals who would have no money for shelter or food or anything else. It just showed the truly global scope of the disaster we were all careening towards. Well anyways, once I got home from work, I looked for any sort of charities that could help my new friend Tom Wilson. I went on the Internet on my phone, to look for charities, such as food banks, or clothing drives, that can help people. Not surprisingly, I learned that all the local food banks are overloaded now. Their demand has shot up between five and tenfold, while their donations have fallen dramatically. They give less food to each family to make sure more people at least give something, but they still have to turn dozens of hungry families away everyday. One food bank director, a sweet, squeaky-voiced woman named Mia Lopez, sounded like she was in tears as she admitted to turning families away. “It breaks my heart that those people are going hungry. Many of these people just got their pay reduced, or they lost their job. There are more needy people than I have ever seen, and I have been here over twenty years. I cried when I turned away a family of seven this afternoon. I ran out of food for the day. Different charities and individuals are trying their best to donate as much food as they can, and I thank God every single day for their help, but there are simply too many people who need our help. I have an extensive network of colleagues who work in food banks and other charities all over the country, and every one of them is experiencing the same exact thing right now. And most of us agree, things are only going to get worse. I talk to the people who come in here everyday, and their stories are mostly the same. One or both parents got their pay reduced, or one of them got laid off because business is slow. A lot of them had been getting cash assistance or food stamps, but those aren’t there anymore. I even had one mother a few days ago, who told me her son has autism, and they lost their SSI and their state medical insurance, the new law eliminated these programs that helped so many people, and now they’re scrambling. The mom of the autistic child said that they will probably end up on the street within a month or two, and she isn’t the only one who has told me that. There is suddenly so much pain all over. It’s all because of the changes Harris made. I mean, I want to support the President of the United States, but I simply can’t. He claims to be Christian, he claims to be a man of God, but he is not following the teachings of Jesus. Jesus said to help the poor and the sick, and Harris turned his back on them. He turned his back on the people he is supposed to lead. He simply is not presidential. He has ruined so many lives, and I am seeing the effects of that, every single day, and it kills me inside.” she told me over the phone, in a tone that oscillated between sadness and anger. I thanked her for her time, and dialed the number for a group that was to be conducting a clothes drive. No such luck. I also learned that the homeless shelters were all full too, some of them were housing fifteen families when they only had capacity for eight. The shelters were having to turn away people to go live on the streets, or perhaps in their vehicles. I grew slightly more depressed with each phone call, and I started to weep for what was becoming of our society. Now, one didn’t need to turn on the news to see that something was clearly amiss. Anyone can see by just looking around them that things had gone horribly, horribly wrong. Even if a particular person wasn’t struggling to make ends meet, surely they had a family member, a friend, a coworker who was. As the month of April progressed, the situation continued to deteriorate. I saw more people begging for change in front of every business I walked into, there were several homeless folks living in the park several blocks from my work, I drove by them every morning, and every afternoon as I headed home. They had pitched tents, and the city of Ontario, which normally cracked down on the homeless, decided not to intervene this time, maybe due to the fact that they, like other cities everywhere, were now more strapped for cash than usual, or perhaps they saw the plight of the less fortunate among their residents. I spoke to my neighbors, especially to my friends Juan and Franklin, just to see how they were holding up. Juan was especially down, he got his pay reduced twice in the month of April alone, as the construction industry was starting to get hit very hard. He told me that by the end of the month, construction projects had largely grinded to a halt, something Juan hoped and prayed was temporary. Thank goodness he was a frugal spender, as he didn’t have anything extravagant in his home. Heck, he still had the same TV set he had when he lived with his parents fifteen years earlier. Another function of his frugality, the most important of all, was that he had built up a nice savings account, something that can help the Morales family weather the hard times. He was still hurt by the fact that he had to pull his boys out of soccer, as well as cut their cable TV, but there was a silver lining to it all. The family was spending more time together. I even brought over a couple of board games I had laying around for them to play, and I often joined in their game nights. Too bad there were no more delicious plates of enchiladas, as they had cut that out of the budget. It was now lots of rice and beans and tortillas for the Morales’, but they still invited me over for dinner. The rice and beans was a nice change from the Hamburger Helper that I kept making for dinner, since it was cheap, and my cooking skills were rather limited (I generally had limited my meals to spaghetti, sandwiches, Hamburger Helper, or anything that can be thrown in the microwave). After one rousing game night, where Juan Jr. and Marcos won seemingly every game, me and Juan were talking outside of his front door. Juan was clearly stressed, like all of us were then. Juan wasn’t a particularly emotional man, but I guess the stress got the best of him that night. He was trying his best not to weep, but I saw a tear or two streaming down his cheek. “I feel like a failure, Will. I don’t know how much longer I can support Lucia and the boys. My paychecks barely cover the rent, nothing else. I have to dip in the savings for food, or gas, or to pay the utilities. Marcos needed new shoes, and I had to dip in the savings for that. I don’t know how long that savings will last. What happens if my truck breaks down? Or if the boys grow out of their clothes, or if one of them gets hurt?”. Juan rubbed his hand across his thinning, slightly graying hair, his voice trembling. “Don’t blame yourself for this. So many people are blaming themselves, like somehow their boss cutting their pay was their fault, or losing their job was their fault. It’s not your fault, man.” I replied, trying to reassure Juan that this, all of this, is not his fault. He was the fourth person that week alone who blamed himself or herself for their predicament while speaking to me. “Thanks Will. You’re a good man. A good, honorable man. We can get through this, right? Will things get better?” Juan questioned me, trying to assure himself that this wasn’t a permanent state of affairs. “I hope so Juan, we don’t deserve this, your family don’t deserve this, or any other family. You’re a good man too, a good family man. I’ve always aspired to be that as well. And whatever happens, we gotta stick together, and help each other in any way we can. That’s what friends do.” “Well anyways, I gotta get back into the house, the boys want me to tuck them into bed tonight, they told me that earlier.” Juan said before giving me a hug, and retreating into his apartment. Indeed, financial struggles abounded everywhere I looked. At least three of the tenants of the apartment complex were planning to move out at the end of the month. I heard that the Rojas family, who lived on the opposite corner of the building and who I didn’t talk to much, were going to move in with Mr. Rojas’ parents in L.A., even though ten people were already living in the two-bedroom house as is. The Warrens from two doors down couldn’t withstand the pay cut of Phil Warren, the head of the household, as well as his son’s job loss. They were going to stay, but not pay rent, in hopes of finding something cheaper. If not, then they would just get evicted. The Clarks, who lived next to the Warrens, saw both parents get pay cuts at their respective jobs, and had nowhere to go at all. All of my neighbors were in some sort of dire straits. The Jacksons were struggling as well, despite Frank’s job as a manager at the Stater Bros. His mom was forced to pick and choose which medications she would take, phasing out the ones she found to be “less important”, the first of which turned out to be her blood pressure medication. Frank was upset at this, of course, but his hands were tied. The family food budget was already stretched thin, but they didn’t have to worry much about clothes, as Frank’s wife Jackie had took it upon herself to learn how to sew. So now the Jackson kids may be seen running around in front of the building in clothes with sewed-up tears and patches. She did the same for Juan’s son Marco when he tore a pair of his jeans. She offered to sew up a pair of my pants, but I kindly refused. I saw families trying to adapt to the new reality anyway they knew how, whether it was learning to sew, or growing their own gardens for food, or scrounging up money in any way they could, by recycling or doing odd jobs. I heard it at work too. I was still bringing a sandwich for poor Tom Wilson to eat everyday, and now Reggie was bringing him stuff too. A bag of chips one day, or maybe some cookies the next. Hannah, the Accounts Receivable clerk who sat next to me, gave him a few cans of Spaghetti O’s, and some beans. Tom was immensely grateful that his coworkers, who had their own struggles to deal with, were so giving to him. It was a shame that us here in the office had to run a food drive for our distressed coworker, but we all felt good that we can help a friend. One day towards the end of the month, Reggie invited me to have dinner with his family. Before all this began, I ate with them every couple of weeks, somewhere decent, but not too fancy, such as one of the corporate chain restaurants that lined the main streets of cities and towns everywhere, places with names like Applebee’s or TGI Friday’s. This was the first time this month that I was invited, and it was to be at Reggie and Melissa’s home. It was a nice dinner, Melissa made some delicious chicken with barbecue sauce, coupled with some mashed potatoes and gravy and corn. Melissa’s sister Laura had joined us for dinner as well, as we had a nice conversation and shared some laughs. I learned that Laura was a teacher at an elementary school in Anaheim. Laura, who was around thirty, really tall and thin, with her hair put up in a ponytail, told us how the unfolding economic crisis was hitting education. I knew that many college students were now having to quit due to the lack of financial aid, but I learned that grade schools were going to be hit hard too, which came as no surprise to me. Laura said that once the school year ended, in May or June, depending on the district, that thousands of California teachers were getting laid off. Laura told us how nervous she was that she would be one of the unlucky ones. Those who weren’t laid off, the lucky ones, if they can even be called that, were to receive pay cuts of upwards of one-third of their current pay. This was happening all over the country, as receipts from the local sales and property taxes were cratering, and districts were feeling the pinch in ways rarely seen before. Some states were getting hit even harder by these cuts, which not only went to education, but also the state services that remained after the EFA cuts. Schools were already paring back their budgets for the next school year, whether by laying off teachers, or support staff. Many school districts were even talking about closing entire schools, or stopping bus service, or even shortening the length of the school year. Laura was already seeing students being affected by it. She saw kids in tattered clothes, and kids talking about overhearing their parents fighting about money. Kids openly talked in class about their parent who lost their job, or that there was no food in the house. The most heartbreaking story I heard from Laura that night was when she described hearing stomach rumbles from her spot in the front of the classroom, and seeing kids weak from hunger, slumped over in their desks with grimaces on their faces. She also told us stories where kids whose parents had not seen pay cuts bringing food from their homes to share with the hungry kids, stories that gave me a fleeting hope that things would be okay in the long run. It was sickening to hear the stories of the hungry kids. You see, for some poorer kids, the school lunch program that had been administered by the government was a significant source of food before the collapse. Of course, the school lunch program, which had provided free and low-cost meals at school for millions of kids nationwide, got axed by the Economic Freedom Act. The loss of free school lunches, combined with the pay cuts and job losses of the parents, proved to be a devastating blow for our nation’s children. I would try to listen to anyone who would talk about their hardships, as though I were some snooping journalist looking for a scoop. As I said, I heard from neighbors, coworkers, people I would encounter while going about my day, and most importantly, my family members. I watched the news everyday, voraciously consuming every story related to the unfolding economic calamity. Every story about overrun food banks, or free medical or dental clinics with lines that stretched as far as the eye can see. Every story about a new economic report or a company announcing it was shedding employees. Every story about personal hardship. I wanted to see as many perspectives as I could, I wanted to see both the little picture and the big picture of the catastrophe that was happening before our very eyes. All of the bad news I heard depressed me, but I needed to know, just like many others needed to. People started paying attention to economic news, when they probably didn’t give a damn before. They probably didn’t know the unemployment rate, or what the Dow Jones finished at that day, but they sure as hell knew now. Too bad they didn’t pay attention until it was too late. Maybe if we were more informed before, we would have not elected a complete idiot the previous fall. Nevertheless, what I heard, what I watched, what I read, what I saw with my own eyes, all painted a disturbing picture. The horrible, horrible things I had been predicting for several months were coming true, one by one. I saw the crushing job losses, the massive stock losses, the increased hunger and homelessness coming from a mile away, and now it was here, and it hit everyone like a ton of bricks. I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of dread and despair, a feeling shared by most people that I encountered. As bad as it was in April, I feared that things would still get much, much worse. © 2017 DGordonAuthor's Note
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Author
DGordonMontclair, CAAboutI'm an aspiring author, like everyone else on here. I have been working on a novel on and off for the last year and a half. It is my first try at fiction. It isn't done yet, and I'm not sure how long.. more..Writing
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