Chapter 8: The Summer of Our DiscontentA Chapter by DGordon We now move into the month of July, and evidence that this is no ordinary economic downturn is piling up. I explore trends that develop during that month. The Summer of Our Discontent Economic Developments in July 2017:
On July 4th, 2017, the United States of America celebrated its 241st birthday. Needless to say, due to the events of the last few months, that the American people were in no mood to celebrate. The Independence Day parades that dotted the American landscape every year were much more muted, and many were cancelled completely, including the one in Ontario. Most years, me and my family would attend the parade, which went down Euclid Avenue into downtown Ontario, but this year it was announced that there would be no Independence Day festivities, due to budget constraints, as well as the fact that far fewer organizations were going to participate. One Independence Day parade that everyone would end up talking about happened in Knoxville, Tennessee, the hometown of David Harris. President Harris decided to participate in the festivities, his first public appearance since getting booed at Nationals Park on the opening day of the baseball season back in April. It went poorly from the outset, as Harris and his wife and two daughters were booed mercilessly from the moment he showed up, and many individuals cursed out the President whose policies ruined the economy. Despite the parade taking place in his hometown, hundreds of parade attendees started a chorus of “F**k you Harris!” as President Harris walked by. It would only get worse from there, as shots rang out about ten minutes after the Harris family started along the parade route. The President was hit once, in the arm. A Secret Service member was also hit in the abdomen, a non-life threatening wound. However, a twelve-year old girl named Madison Crowley, who was marching in the parade with her middle school cheerleading squad, was hit in the head with one of the shots, and died on the way to the hospital. The shooter was Michael Winston, a 27-year old resident of Knoxville and father of two who had lost his job as a welder three weeks earlier. Winston was promptly tackled by Secret Service agents and taken into federal custody, and at his arraignment, wept profusely at the fact that he had taken a young girl’s life. During his statement, he turned to Madison Crowley’s crying parents. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart for what I did. I truly am sorry for killing your daughter. I didn’t want to kill her, I only wanted to kill Harris!”, exclaimed Winston, a tall, thin white man with a receding hairline and a huge overbite. “That son of a b***h ruined my life, he ruined everyone’s life! All of the stuff that he got passed, it all fucked us! I had a good job, a good life. I was able to provide for my daughter and son. Then that all came to an end. I found out a few days before that we would be evicted from our home. That night, I watched over my children as they slept, and I just lost it. I was so blind with rage that I had to do something. I knew that Harris would come to town, and I saw that as my best way to restore my life”. There was a mystery as to how exactly Winston was able to get so close to the President, as the Secret Service (the President’s team of bodyguards) typically would have the area secure. Rumors abounded that one or more Secret Service agents intentionally let Michael Winston in to carry out his act. To most Americans, this sounded completely plausible. Furthermore, there surely were more than a few Americans who would have liked to take their own shots at President Harris. So many people were experiencing similar circumstances as what drove Michael Winston over the edge. How many would have reacted in the same way if given the chance? The widespread anger at President Harris, was, of course, due to the state of the economy. The U.S. economy, as well as the world economy, was rapidly deteriorating. Things were seemingly getting worse by the day, as every economic sector was now a shell of its former self. The economy was crumbling, and world leaders were now powerless to stop it. Even those nations who had tried measures to stem the tide failed miserably, as the monster that the Economic Freedom Act (and its international equivalents) unleashed was now unstoppable. One trend which had started at the outset of the downturn, but was now accelerating, was the fact that many Americans were now packing their bags and moving. Many moved so as to be closer to family members in order to weather the economic storm (now the economic equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane), while many others moved in order to find work that didn’t exist where they were currently living. It was reminiscent of what occurred during the Great Depression, when people moved around to wherever there were jobs to be had. These efforts, while daring, were typically fruitless, as there were no job openings virtually anywhere, and those who had jobs were hanging on for dear life to what was left of their livelihoods. Furthermore, most cities and towns were openly hostile to newcomers, and several dozen would be murdered just during July alone, while many others had to flee. Many locales put up signs at their city limits warning outsiders to keep away, that there was a risk to entering. With unemployment now at Depression-era levels, people had become antsy at the prospect of someone, anyone, trying to take their jobs away. Another form in which the anger of the American people showed was in the scapegoating of immigrants. For many years, many Americans (mainly conservatives) spoke out against immigrants who came into the country without going through the extensive legal immigration process. Undocumented immigrants, who were referred to as illegal immigrants by most conservatives, came under fire frequently, and were often scapegoated for America’s ills. Now more than ever, many Americans were looking for a scapegoat. As a result, the United States saw a sharp increase in hate crimes towards all types of immigrants, legal or otherwise. Much of the hostile behavior was directed towards those who were actually citizens. In many cases, the victim’s family had lived in this country for generations. The legal status of the victim was irrelevant to the attackers, whose attacks ranged from vandalism and racial slurs, to arson and even a spate of murders, which occurred in every state but had a large concentration in the southern states. The attacks went hand-in-hand with a rise in the membership in various far-right groups, such as white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups. This rapid increase in hostility, as well as the deteriorating economic prospects in the U.S., led to a mass outflow of immigrants, as many decided to return to their homelands. This development pleased conservative commentators. “Good! Hopefully they stay in their hellholes!” claimed one right-wing radio host from Florida. No matter how it was manifested, Americans by this time had given up hope. From the start of April to the end of July, around 27 million Americans lost their jobs, the poverty rate jumped from 15 to 66 percent, and household incomes dropped by around 60 percent. Millions of households now had a standard of living not seen in the U.S. in generations. Even necessities such as electricity and running water were increasingly becoming luxuries. All it took was a pay cut, the loss of a job, the onset of an illness, or any other setback to send a household spiraling into the abyss of despair. Virtually all Americans were on edge, knowing that the hammer can come down anyday. They saw their friends, family members, coworkers and neighbors fall beneath the waves. They saw parks filling up with homeless and boarded businesses everywhere. As I can attest, this was a very harrowing experience. Nobody was immune to the immense pressures that living during this time entailed, and the mood of the nation soured accordingly. The morning of July 8th proved to be the day that the Collins family was sent into that abyss. It began like any other Saturday morning, as I made my morning rounds, heading to the grocery store to pick up my groceries, my spending habits growing ever stingier with each passing week. I had just gotten home and put my food, mostly macaroni and cheese and Top Ramen, with some chicken I found on a great deal thrown in there. The slightly more expensive staples of my diet, such as spaghetti, homemade hamburgers and Hamburger Helper were growing more and more sparse, and if I got one more pay cut, they would likely vanish entirely. I had been cutting back anywhere I possibly could. I had dropped the Internet service from my phone at the end of June. I cancelled any plans to go out anywhere, whether it be out for drinks with some pals, or the movies, or any sporting events like baseball games. I stopped using laundry soap to wash my clothes, using a little bit of dish detergent instead. My clothes wouldn’t smell as fresh afterwards, but it saved a few bucks. I also stopped paying to dry my clothes in the electric dryer downstairs, to save that whole one dollar a week. Instead, I started hanging them on a clothesline that Lucia Morales put out in the courtyard of the apartment complex. Also, like many people had been doing, I had even taken to skipping the occasional meal, often getting by on just two meals a day. Some days, I would skip breakfast, while others I would skip lunch, and I would bring food to work instead of frequenting the diminishing number of fast food restaurants like before. All in the name of having enough to survive. I had to scrimp and save in any way possible, to make sure I can have money to get by. After putting my food into my increasingly empty pantry and fridge and freezer, I had retired to my couch to relax and possibly take a nap, since the lack of caffeine and lack of food of any real substance had made me tired and sick all the time (I had been battling headaches for weeks, and I had a cough that didn’t seem to want to go away). Not long after laying down, right as I was beginning to drift off to sleep, my phone rang, it was my mom. From the outset, it didn’t sound good: “Son, I got some terrible news…..your dad lost his job. He just got the call from his fleet manager. They let almost half of their drivers go this morning.” my mom told me with a resigned tone in her voice. It sounded like she was about to start crying, as she paused to regain her composure. “Well, we all saw this coming. It doesn’t make it any easier though.” I sighed. “how are you guys gonna hold up? Do you guys still have any savings still? I know you have been using some of the savings when Dad wasn’t getting any loads to drive. How about Leann? Is Leann gonna lose her job anytime soon?” “Well, we haven’t paid rent for this month, I was gonna send the check to the realty people, good thing I haven’t yet. We will live off of that money, and the money from his last check. Hopefully your dad can get another job quickly. He’s going to go talk to all the different trucking companies. We don’t know if that will work, as he heard that every company is letting go a lot of their drivers. There is not as much cargo to drive around as there used to be.” she replied, knowing full well that there were no jobs out there, for anyone. “Well, if worse comes to worse, you guys can come live with me. There’s not much room here, but you and Dad can have my bed, I’ll sleep on the couch, just like before I moved out. I’ll even move to the floor so the girls can have the couch. It will wreck my back, but I’ll do it. You know I’m here for you guys.” I told her. I was definitely willing to help, and Leann’s income from her job, despite the pay cuts she has suffered, would help me with the rent. My mom ended the call once my dad walked into the front door. She would tell me later that night that he was incredibly distraught, as one would figure would happen immediately after losing their job. My mother was also incredibly worried about the family now not having health insurance, as my dad needed several medications for his heart, and my mom took medication for her high blood pressure as well. Furthermore, Leann had recently broke her glasses, and didn’t have the money or insurance to get another pair. She had to buy superglue to glue the arm back to the rest of the frame. She also told that my dad was telling the family about what a failure he felt like all day. She was frightened that he might possibly commit suicide soon. I felt that, despite the crummy situation the family was now in, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t put my mom and sisters through that, they were already going through enough as it is. Despite my father’s crassness and occasional belligerence, he was a very selfless man. He sacrificed a lot for his family, I know he had helped me out on countless occasions. He also knew that I would now return the favor in any way necessary. My family proceeded to respond by cutting back their expenses to the bone. FIrst of all, as my mom already mentioned to me, they did not pay their rent for the month of July. They felt very bad to do that to the landlord of the mobile home park, who already had lost a quarter of their tenants, with another quarter of them behind on their rent. The landlords were surely losing a lot of money, and they responded by not doing repairs that were required by law to do. It was a well-known fact that most landlords were now not doing the required maintenance in their rental properties. News stories abounded of renters having all kinds of problems with their houses, even renters who were keeping up with their rent payments. Tenants told horror stories of roof leaks, busted water heaters, broken tiles, plumbing issues, rodent or roach infestations, and a myriad of other problems. Many tenants had multiple problems at once, and when it came time to fix the issues, the landlords often pleaded poverty. Tenants would either file a formal complaint to the appropriate agency, which was most likely badly understaffed or swamped with other calls, or they decided to fix things themselves. Well anyways, my parents did feel terrible about not paying the rent, but it was either pay the rent or have food and electricity, and my family chose the latter. My family had already cut out non-vital expenses like eating out and cell phones, so all that was left was food and utilities. They knew that by not paying rent, they faced imminent eviction, expected to be put in motion by the end of the month. Once that process started, they would likely have a month or two to move out. Perhaps even more, due to the massive backlog in cases the eviction courts and Sheriff’s Department faced. Another cut in expenses, one which absolutely devastated the family the most, was that they gave up the beloved family pets. Their dog, an adorable terrier-chihuahua mix whom they had for a decade, as well as their three cats, whom the family took care of and loved for several years, were given up to the nearby animal shelter, where they faced certain death. I thought of offering to take the pets in, but Sanjay had a strict no pets policy, and I wasn’t really much up for risking getting kicked out. Leann bawled her eyes out when she told me they gave the pets up, especially Missy, the tiny orange tabby cat who she loved more than anything, perhaps even her human family. Heck, I even had tears in my eyes, as I was pretty attached to them as well. I’ve always been an animal lover (especially cats), so I went over to go with my family take the pets to the shelter, crying the whole way. That was another common news story during this time, as families everywhere were forced to give up their pets. Most gave them to shelters, which quickly became overwhelmed with animals. Most shelters had to resort to euthanizing the new arrivals within hours, as more beloved family pets kept pouring in, and the shelters had far fewer resources than before. Other families didn’t want to give up their pets, knowing that they would immediately die, so they just released them to run free. Most cities actually advised against this, as the streets were starting to become overrun with dogs and cats and rabbits and whatever other pets families set free. It created a strain on city resources, so they couldn’t round up the animals. Many of the former pets would get run over by cars, and in some cases, hungry people would catch these animals and eat them in the absence of other food. I suppose that there were now some people desperate enough to eat a cat or dog. It was disturbing, to say the least. It was an incredibly difficult decision to give up the family pets, as families often treated their pets like members of the family. My family was no exception to that. The loss of a pet or multiple pets was just another devastating blow to millions of families who were already battered by the downturn, and contributed to the sense of hopelessness and despair that people felt. Not that the Harris Administration seemed to care one bit about the situation unfolding all across America. Sticking to his guns, Harris did not respond in any way to the worsening economy. After the jobs report was released, showing the worst month for jobs in American history occurred in June (a loss of close to seven million), President Harris, freshly released from The University of Tennessee Hospital in Knoxville where he was treated for the injuries sustained in the Independence Day Parade shooting, once again insisted that we must stay the course, that the massive job losses were simply the economy correcting itself after decades of mismanagement. He did, however, finally admit that the “initial effects of the Economic Freedom Act were much harsher than anticipated”. Despite this admission, there were to be no changes in our economic plans. “The U.S. economy will emerge from this downturn stronger than ever, as we return to bedrock economic principles, the principles taught in economics textbooks. We have strayed from that for a long time, distorting how an economy should work. Once the inefficiencies are corrected, we will have a period of incredible growth.” He said to close out his press conference at the White House. The following week, President Harris did actually propose a new law. It wasn’t what most Americans were hoping for, however. On Monday, July 17th, President Harris, along with a contingent of Tea Party members of Congress, introduced the second sweeping bill or his presidency. Borrowing from the name of the first sweeping bill, as well as the underlying theme of Harris’ presidential campaign, Harris introduced to the American people the Religious Freedom Act. Harris announced the new bill with a bunch of evangelical Christian leaders, as well as some well-known conservative Catholic leaders, in the background. I feared what would be in the bill from the moment he got up on stage and announced “What I have here is a bill that will end the war on religion being conducted in this country. For too long, secular forces have prohibited the faithful from exercising their freedom of religion. It is time to restore God to his rightful place in this great country, as we are a Christian nation.” The Religious Freedom Act would allow, on a nationwide basis, discrimination in providing any kind of services “in a manner which goes against an individual’s deeply held religious beliefs”. The RFA would enshrine discrimination on religious grounds, which was seen by most as an attack on the homosexual community. Business owners would be able to turn away customers based on their sexual orientation, or if they have beliefs that the business owner dislikes, and medical professionals such as doctors and paramedics could now refuse life-saving treatments, among other changes. Other religious groups such as Muslims, Jews and atheists, as well as unmarried people with children also feared that they too would be discriminated against. Despite opinion polls showing that most Americans opposed this new bill, conservatives in Congress pushed it through anyways. It passed the House of Representatives 235-200, with some Republicans joining the Democrats in opposition. The next day, it passed the Senate 52-48, with a few Republicans once again joining the Democrats. Less than an hour after the Senate vote, President Harris gleefully signed the bill into law, with some of those same religious leaders standing behind him and applauding. These individuals included people like George Lonegan, a Catholic priest who would condemn gays and lesbians on a weekly basis in his fiery sermons, as well as Tim Williams, a prominent Southern Baptist leader who once openly called the gay community “a bunch of sick, twisted pedophiles, who need to be killed off for the good of the nation”. Abhorrent beliefs such as theirs were prominent in that room, as they cheered for entire classes of people being downgraded to second-class citizenship. While much of the debate on the bill focused on businesses denying service, there was more insidious stuff in the Religious Freedom Act. For one, the RFA reinstituted a nationwide ban on same-sex marriage. Marriage between two people of the same sex was legalized on a nationwide basis in June of 2015, after most states had already legalized it in the years preceding that landmark Supreme Court ruling. After that ruling was handed down, it was largely accepted after much conservative hand-wringing and some isolated bits of resistance (one county clerk in Kentucky famously refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples for months afterwards, while the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court vowed to disobey the ruling), to where few people outside of religious conservatives even spoke of it. America was not harmed by same-sex marriage in any way, as some right-wingers insisted would happen. The laws and court rulings allowing same-sex marriage in individual states were also declared void, something considered odd coming from the political party that harped on about “small government” and “state’s rights”. I guess the Republicans only cared about state’s rights when the states did things that they personally liked. Despite the fact that this part of the law flew in the face of a Supreme Court ruling, meaning it may get overturned sometime in the near future, conservative Republicans pushed forward and added it, since it was high on the wish list for many religious conservatives. Another highly contentious provision allowed for people to inject religion back into public spaces, most notably allowing public schools to require prayer in classrooms. Prayer had been allowed in schools on a voluntary basis, and could not be required by the school, which had long rankled conservatives. Many religious individuals liked to lament that “God wasn’t allowed in schools.” Religious conservatives had never cared that not all students and school employees were of the same faith, as many had a different fith, or no faith at all. They never cared that requiring prayer was unfair to those who believed differently from themselves. Conservatives had always cared about religious freedom, but only for their own religion. Furthermore, the Religious Freedom Act allowed states to institute their own state laws, even if they too went against legal precedents. Laws that protected the LGBT community were not allowed, but laws hurting them sure were. Within weeks, over two dozen U.S. states, mostly in the South and Midwest, reinstituted laws banning homosexual acts, as well as overturning any protections against discrimination the RFA didn’t already overturn. These laws outlawed sodomy (anal or oral sex), which was meant to stop homosexual activity, but could be used against straight people as well. These state laws also removed attacks against the LGBT community from the list of hate crimes, lowering the punishment for these kinds of attacks. LGBT people everywhere now felt the need to go back into hiding, as many parts of the country were now set to return to the days of discrimination, arresting people for being who they were, and quite possibly beating and even killing people for their sexual orientation. People of other religions, or those who had no religion at all also worried they would be turned away by businesses, but that fear was somewhat dampened by the business climate. With the economy the way it was, business owners were in no position to turn any customers away, whether or not they wanted them in their place of business. Well anyways, the Religious Freedom Act was applauded by religious conservatives everywhere. The talking heads on Fox News and right-wing talk radio were positively ecstatic with the new changes. Many said they felt “freer than before” because in their minds, being free depended on keeping others down. I suspect that they many of these blowhards would have been even happier if the law included removing protections based on race, gender, or national origin, so they could reinstate Jim Crow laws (which were 20th century laws allowing for segregation based on race, these laws were prevalent in the Southern states) and treat women like legal property once again. With the RFA, I haven’t seen conservatives this happy since the Economic Freedom Act was passed. In fact, the passage of the RFA led to President Harris’ approval ratings to jump up several points, from 11 to 18 percent. Several evangelical leaders, including some of those present at the bill signing, proclaimed that the new law would “bring America back into God’s good graces”. William Franks, a Southern Baptist pastor from Atlanta exclaimed that “this law will put the gays back in their place. Now we can beat some sense into them!”. Another prominent evengelical pastor, James Brandon from Birmingham, Alabama stated that “America will flourish, now that we are returning to obeying God’s laws. Maybe the economy will start to improve as a result. Maybe or punishment will be lifted”. One radio host from Texas named Lee Norton actually did say that economy will improve as a result of the RFA’s passage. Norton, as well as some other conservatives, deemed that the economic downturn to be “God’s punishment for America’s acceptance of the gay community”. Norton didn’t stop there, however. The day that the RFA was passed, Norton commented on his show that President Harris should have gone even further in the name of “religious liberty”, and criminalized homosexuality altogether. Right there, for all of the nation to hear (Norton’s show was syndicated nationwide out of his Dallas studio), Norton spewed out the following sentence in response to a question from one of his loyal listeners: “We should start putting these gays, these lesbians, these transexuals, we should put them all to death, just like God commanded. Let’s just kill ‘em all!”. As the listener, who described himself in a Texas drawl as a recently unemployed truck driver named Larry, started chuckling, Norton then exclaimed “I wasn’t joking!”. If one paid attention to all the dire economic news over the last several months, they knew that things were going from bad to worse really quick. In July, more people were learning just how bad it was getting. In a pure nightmare scenario, the economy disintegrated right before our very eyes, and we were helpless to stop it. We just had to act in self-preservation to make it to the next day. No matter what one did for a living, no job, no sector of the economy was immune. July was not only the worst month yet for the job market, it was also the worst month yet for the financial markets. During the month of July, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by a staggering 52.5 percent. The NASDAQ fell by 52.4 percent, and the S&P 500 tumbled 56.8 percent. The bleeding didn’t stop there. Britain’s main stock index fell 59.2 percent, Germany’s dropped 62.2 percent, France’s lost 66.7 percent, Japan’s lost 70.1 percent, as all global indices fell 43 percent or more. China’s stock markets fared worst of all the major markets, their main index losing an astounding 81 percent in just one calendar month. The reason for the hemorrhaging markets? It was time for companies all over the world to report their financial performance for the second quarter of 2017. The reports encompassed the time since the Economic Freedom Act took effect, so the people got to see, in numerical terms, just how bad businesses were doing under the new law. The quarterly reports were more hotly anticipated than any other time in history, as observers everywhere wanted to fully quantify the damage of the Economic Freedom Act. As July dragged on, the numbers started coming in, and they were far worse than even the most pessimistic projections were expecting. Economists from all over the spectrum had been projecting sour numbers, but their projections varied widely, usually depending on their ideology. As could be expected, supporters of the EFA were expecting more mild losses, while opponents were projecting far more dire numbers. The actual figures were much, much worse than anything they said. For decades, it was customary for companies, especially companies that were publicly traded on stock exchanges, to report their results for the previous three-month period, stating how much in revenues they made, and whether they made a profit or a loss for the quarter. Even though the Economic Freedom Act repealed the requirement that companies do quarterly reports, there was very intense pressure to report the numbers anyway. For instance, Alcoa, a manufacturing company specializing in aluminum which was traditionally the first company to report, made waves by deciding that it would not report its results, since it no longer had to. The reaction to Alcoa’s announcement was swift and fierce, as the stock price for the company was hammered immediately. The announcement spooked investors, who wanted to know exactly how the company they were part-owners of was doing. Alcoa had to have been hiding just how bad their performance was, and they sold the stock accordingly. Alcoa’s stock fell a whopping 98 percent just that day, and was set to fall to just a penny (from the 3 or so dollars it was trading at before) before their board of directors reversed course and released their numbers after all. They showed a loss of close to three billion dollars for the second quarter of 2017, the worst quarterly figure in the history of the company, which led to a mass selloff all across the markets. Investors of firms, big and small, were now terrified to hear just how awful their companies did. Every single day, as more companies reported results, the markets dropped more, as every company got hammered. Every day, each company somberly reported their numbers, the pictures from the news of agonized faces watching the numbers fall lower and lower, these numbers and faces were seared into the public conscious. The New York Times was making the economic reports the front page story every day. The photo on the front page was the exasperated face of a different stock trader or investor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Alongside that picture was the dollar amount of the loss for each company, as well as the final stock market figures for the previous day. Before long, the other major American newspapers, such as the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune, were doing the same. Depending on the size of the firm, the losses were always well into the millions, or the billions for bigger companies. Walmart, the once highly profitable retail giant, lost a staggering six and a half billion dollars in just three months, leading to another announcement a couple of days later stating they would be eliminating another three hundred thousand positions and closing hundreds of stores, on top of the hundreds of thousands of layoffs they already did in recent months. Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company in the world, lost six billion dollars, as world oil prices plunged, and far fewer people were driving cars. Hundreds of other companies reported losses in excess of one billion dollars, meaning more layoffs added to the already fragile economy. Every time a financial report came out, every new job report, or retail sales report, or manufacturing report, all of which showed horrifying results, the markets acted accordingly, with huge selloffs of the offending firm’s stock, leading to the carnage seen. In all, a total of over eleven trillion dollars evaporated during the month of July, not the largest raw total (May held that distinction), but it was the largest percentage drop ever seen in the United States. At the end of March, total market capitalization of the world’s stock markets sat just shy of eighty trillion dollars. By the end of July, it was now around ten trillion. Seven-eighths of the world’s stock market value had disappeared in just four months. People’s stock portfolios and retirement funds were getting wiped out on a scale never before seen. The wealthy, who had largely made their wealth from the stock markets, were now quickly joining the swelling ranks of the poor. The investor and owner classes were getting wiped out, losing everything, or close to it. Observers were now openly wondering how much longer before the financial sector of the economy gave out completely. With business failures and personal loan defaults and bankruptcies and foreclosures now piling up at an alarming rate, it was believed that it would lead to a banking crisis several times the size of the crisis that roiled world financial markets in 2008. The stock market losses were compounding the worry of market observers, as many formerly sound firms now teetered on the brink of failure. Banks routinely gave out loans to businesses, who used those loans to buy inventory, expand operations, buy other businesses, and even pay their employees. As these companies were now losing massive amounts of money, many could not repay the money they owed. The companies themselves were owed money by their customers, many of whom were financially ruined and could not pay, which meant that the businesses could not pay the money that they themselves owed. Furthermore, millions of individuals were now late or in default on payment for loans that they took out, such as car loans or home mortgages. The amount of consumer debt continued to soar each month. All of this put enormous pressure on the banks, who responded by freezing credit even more. Loans of all kinds were virtually completely halted, in the biggest credit crunch ever seen. Financial experts agreed, this credit crunch was much worse than the one during the Great Recession. The banks often took these loans and sold them as securities to investors all over the world, and as these loans went bad in huge numbers, the holders of these securities lost out to the tune of trillions of dollars. The books of the banks quickly turned toxic, and there were worries that banks everywhere were going to run out of money and fail. In fact, some smaller local and regional banks began to topple as spring turned to summer. For decades, those who had funds deposited in bank had a measure of protection, as the FDIC insured losses of up to a quarter of a million dollars, so as to make sure that people did not lose everything if their bank went belly up. The FDIC worked incredibly well to ensure that we didn’t see the mass bank failures that occurred during the Great Depression, and was quite popular among the public, regardless of their political leanings. Unfortunately, the Economic Freedom Act eliminated the FDIC, meaning depositors for the failed banks lost everything. People lost their life savings, and businesses, most of them small businesses, lost the funds they needed to continue operations, leading them to shut down completely. Loans that the failed banks held were bought up by larger banks at deeply discounted rates, which baffled me, why would the banks buy up loans and securities that they knew would probably go bad? It seemed that that could only go wrong, barring a sudden upswing in the economy. Some commentators also wondered if the financial sector would soon need another government bailout, one much larger than the 2008 bailout, to stave off complete collapse. However, the Harris Administration made it abundantly clear in the past that there would be no such rescue for the big banks. “There will be no rescue if any financial institutions end up failing. If they fail, they fail, that’s all there is to it.” Proclaimed Treasury Secretary Lawrence Weatherford: “For our economy to get stronger, we have to let weaker firms fail, which will leave only stronger firms who are equipped to survive and thrive when things turn around, which they will soon. When weaker firms are liquidated, the economy will be better overall”. Apparently, being delusional was a prerequisite to work in the Harris Administration. Things were not getting better, and I feared deeply that they won’t get better for a long, long time. Another sector that was now getting hammered was professional and business services. This sector includes anybody who provides services for individuals and businesses, from lawyers and consultants to auto mechanics and hairstylists. Job losses and business failures meant much less demand for any professional services. Business failures meant far less need for things like business consultants, call center staff, security guards, maintenance workers, computer technicians, architects, engineers, or anyone else who provided services for businesses. I saw this unfolding at Milton Plastics, which since the downturn began had eliminated many of the support positions within the company. Half of the Accounting Department where I worked was now gone, our six positions having been cut to just three, and almost all of Marketing was now gone as well. We let go of Maria, our office custodian who had been working at the office for eighteen years, and Mr. Milton now performed any computer technician work that was needed. Anytime an issue with someone’s computer or internet connection happened, Mr. Milton would head over and troubleshoot the problem himself, unless the employees can fix the problem on their own. On a more personal level, when consumers have less income, they can’t afford services from people such as mechanics, barbers, dry cleaners, accountants, consultants, lawyers, doctors, nurses, travel agents, day care workers, electricians, plumbers, gardeners, or any other personal service workers. As the other sectors of the economy were shriveling up, it was inevitable that the service sector would fall as well. Within just a few months, job losses in the services sector were piling up just as fast as retail and manufacturing losses, even in higher-paying professions like medicine and law. No job, no matter the field or the income level, was safe. Millions who previously had comfortable lives were now in poverty or close to it. Even the wealthiest enclaves weren’t left untouched. Other areas of society continued to see unprecedented change as well. In the world of entertainment, there was shockingly little activity. Not only were fewer movies and music records being released, people seemed to never talk about their favorite entertainers these days, a stark contrast from the celebrity-obsessed society we had before everything went to crap. In the past, when there were economic struggles, people turned to their favorite celebrities for an escape from the grim realities of their existence. Nowadays, people were turning to celebrities in a whole different way. Entertainers such as film actor Leonardo DiCaprio, actor Tom Hanks, among other lesser-known actors, musicians and athletes had used some of their wealth to open soup kitchens and homeless shelters in cities and towns all around the country. Many of these stars did this work in larger cities such as Los Angeles and New York, but others went back to their hometowns to serve the communities they grew up in. It was heartwarming to see that many of entertainment’s biggest stars were using their unexpected downtime in order to do charity work. These gestures were to help out their fellow human beings who were struggling, even though many of these celebrities were falling on hard times themselves. Thousands of people were helped out by these services every day, and served to take some pressure off of charities, which were overwhelmed with demand, to the point where many of them were shuttering their doors. The movie industry had figured out a way to survive the downturn, at least temporarily. In response to the rapid decline in new releases hitting theaters (only three new titles opened during the month of July, none of them big-budget pictures), many of the surviving theaters drastically reduced their prices in order to get people to come in to see their movies. The theaters also kept the available titles around much longer, so as to have something to show their customers, as well as recoup some of the losses the studios incurred when releasing the movies. A quick check of the local movie times showed that the big titles from as far back as January were still headlining the listings, which was jarring, as many of the biggest movies of the year would normally come out in July. As a result, the drop in moviegoers stopped, but revenues were still way down due to the aggressive price-cutting. The month of July was a doozy for the sports world. Baseball saw a couple of bombshell developments happen during the month. On the first of the month, Major League Baseball announced that the All-Star Game, which was to be held on July 11th in Miami, Florida, would be cancelled. Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred somberly announced the cancellation, stating that “the condition of baseball right now dictates that we should not play the All-Star Game, or hold any of the All-Star festivities”. Manfred had one more somber announcement not too long after that. There had been rumblings for a while that at least one Major League franchise, and possibly several, were on the verge of bankruptcy due to plunging revenues. Ticket and merchandise sales continued to fall week after week, to the point where some teams had stopped selling player shirts and jerseys and the hats with team logos. Then the boom was dropped, on the day the All-Star Game was supposed to be played. Commissioner Manfred came up to the podium again, this time to announce that the Tampa Bay Rays would be ceasing operations. The team president, who spoke after Manfred, held out hope at the press conference that the franchise would resume play once again, once economic conditions improved. That seemed unlikely, as the Rays, despite all of their recent success (they were tied for first place in their division the day that they closed up shop), always struggled to attract fans. They were routinely at or near the bottom of the league in attendance, a trend that worsened dramatically this season, as the downturn set in. During their last homestand, the Rays failed to draw one thousand fans on two occasions. For the league as a whole, attendance had dropped by close to two-thirds overall, for all the league’s teams, and was dropping more each and every month as the economy worsened. As for the Rays’ players, they were declared to be free agents, free to sign with any other team. Several Rays players did quickly find new homes with big-market teams such as the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Boston Red Sox, while others simply had to go home for the season, as most teams could not take on any additional salaries. The disbanding of the Tampa Bay Rays set off another round of salary concessions by players, as the player’s union agreed to another 15 percent across-the-board pay cut, a far cry from the 30 to 40 percent the team owners wanted. Various individual players agreed to cuts in excess of that 15 percent, especially on several small-market teams which were rumored to be the next team to go the way of the Rays. Other sports were also being increasingly hard-hit. For instance, on midnight of July 1st, the National Basketball Association announced the expiration of their agreement with their player’s union, which began a lockout by the owners. The team owners saw it fit to not play the upcoming season at all, so as to not lose any money. The owners, just like everyone else, saw the current economic climate, and felt it was not a good time for the league at all. If they decided to play, they were guaranteed to lose tens of millions each. The league saw the rapidly declining attendance during the tail end of the previous season, and knew that it would only get worse as time went on. I remember all of the sports news on the day of Friday, July 1st. All the sports anchors talked about was the NBA season going up in smoke and the MLB All-Star Game being cancelled. The sports world felt like it was caving in on itself, which was not surprising because it felt like the whole world was caving in on itself during this time. The other major sports were spending their offseasons working furiously to be able to conduct their upcoming seasons without going bankrupt. Smaller leagues, as well as minor league teams, were folding at and faster and faster rate. The Arena Football League shut down operations before concluding their season. Baseball’s minor leagues were under pressure due to the economy, as over three dozen teams folded during the month of July, on top of the eleven that had already ceased operations since April. Speaking of ceasing operations, plenty more businesses close to home closed down during the month of July. As one can imagine, the pressures on companies were intensifying more by the day. Just within a mile or two of my house, I saw a convenience store, four small restaurants, a Taco Bell, a Church’s chicken, an auto mechanic, a computer repair shop, a Dollar Tree store, a grocery store, a law office, a warehouse, three motels, a martial arts studio, a small beer brewing company, a home appliance center, several manufacturing facilities, a construction contractor, a lumber and hardware store, and a Lowe’s home goods store close up. Also, downtown Ontario, a once-bustling strip of Euclid Avenue about a mile from my house, was now virtually deserted. The downtown area had been struggling for years, but the downturn proved to be the final nail in the coffin. Just on that portion, we saw the closing of a pharmacy, a bookstore, a few more restaurants, a furniture store, a phone store, a wedding chapel, and a few more businesses just since the start of April. That was just the carnage that was close by, and that was just what I noticed. I had developed an eagle eye when it came to seeing how the downturn was affecting everyone, but I probably still missed some places that had sunk beneath the waves. The freeway offramps and parks were getting more and more overflowed with people holding signs, asking for change, whatever others can come up with to help. It got to the point where homeless individuals would fight for the best panhandling spots, as space was limited. Unfortunately for many of these people, most of us who were fortunate enough to not be homeless by this point were in no position to give any of their income away. Most of us were one bit of misfortune away from joining the people on the offramp, or the park, or the homeless shelter, or the Harrisville. I felt bad for these poor souls, but I could not help, not if I wanted to eat at all. At least the city of Ontario wasn’t cracking down on the homeless asking for money, like some other localities were. Some places were actually putting the homeless in jail for begging for money, or sleeping on the sidewalk, or carrying their few possessions around with them, which would be shameful even during better times. One trend that developed in the years preceding the Collapse was that cities were punishing the homeless simply for being homeless, some cities were even punishing those who helped homeless individuals. We were still seeing some of this amidst the downturn. Several cities made the news for arresting Good Samaritans who were feeding the homeless in public places or in churches, but most didn’t want to deal with the bad publicity that came with that. In early July, the Ontario City Council held hearings on whether to force their fledgling Harrisvilles to close up, as well as a measure banning sleeping in public spaces. Hundreds of citizens flooded Ontario City Hall to attend this hearing, as one of the councilmembers remarked that it was the most attended City Council hearing he had ever seen. While some were in favor of the measures, most were against. “These are human beings we’re talking about! These people need to sleep somewhere. I know some people see the Harrisvilles as nothing but an eyesore, but unfortunately, they are needed right now. So many are losing everything, who knows, you or me can end up there soon. These people have a right to exist, they need somewhere to live.” Remarked Linda Hernandez, a longtime resident to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, which was reporting extensively on the crisis befalling the area, just like everywhere else. They ran daily stories of those in the Harrisvilles, of those who had to take up panhandling, of those who seen their jobs or businesses disappear. Well anyways, anytime another one of those businesses I mentioned closed up shop, all it meant was more people losing their job, losing perhaps the only income holding up their households. CIties all over the country, and all over the world, were hit hard by this trend. Oftentimes, it was a well-known family company, a city institution that shut its doors. Many family-owned businesses were beloved in their communities, held up as shining examples of a family working hard and making it in life. Whenever one of these places would close, it served as a big blow to the community. You could ask anyone nowadays, anywhere in the country, and they would likely be able to tell you exactly which of the businesses in their area had closed down. It was a main topic for news broadcasts, as well as for the rapidly dwindling number of people who still were using social media sites by this time, to tell everyone how they themselves were affected, and who around them was affected, by the rapidly declining economy. One of these big blows happened to Ontario in late July. The business in question was Joe’s Bike Shop, in business since 1924. It was a venerable institution located in the northwest part of Ontario on Mountain Avenue near Sixth Street, several blocks from the video store where I held my first job. Joe Moretti III had run the shop, which sold bicycles as well as repairing older bicycles, since 1997, when he took over for his father, who had took over for his father many years before. In mid-July, it was announced that Joe’s Bike Shop would be closing down for good, due to lack of sales. According to a Daily Bulletin story about the closure, the shop hadn’t sold a bike in several weeks. Then, after the store closed its doors for the last time on the evening of Friday, July 28th, Joe stayed inside after tearfully saying goodbye to his two loyal employees, one of which was his son, Joe IV. Sometime after that, the Ontario Fire Department received a call, the store was ablaze. After putting the fire out, firefighters made a shocking discovery, as they found the charred body of Joe Moretti III laying in the aisle located in the center of his store. News of Moretti’s death spread throughout Ontario, which was devastated to hear of his fate. Moretti was a beloved figure in the community, for his business as well as his charitable work helping at-risk youth, and more recently for his work at a local soup kitchen, so the news of his death was devastating to everyone who knew him. A day after the death of Joe Moretti III, his wife found something on his computer that he left at home the day before. It was a suicide note, stating the plan to commit suicide by burning down the store. Joe had finished the note by declaring “If my business has to go down, I’m going down with it”. What happened at Joe’s Bike Shop was just another instance of an alarming trend, as there was a sharp increase of suicides among entrepreneurs, people who worked hard for years to build their companies, only to see the downturn destroy everything. The jump in suicides by small business owners was reported to be even more of a jump than the increase of suicides in the overall population. Watching the news, one could see that almost every newscast started with a story of a small business owners taking their own life, or perhaps a murder-suicide where a parent takes out their whole family before killing themselves, which would air right before the news of yet another horrific economic report (those came up practically every single day as well). Earlier in July, a big national story involved a man in New York City jumping from a seventh floor balcony, as emergency responders and bystanders looked on. Police tried talking him down for several hours, but he jumped anyways. “There is no life left for me, there is no point in being alive right now!” said the man, who was later identified as 24 year-old Michael Palmer. Palmer had lost his job as an accountant three weeks earlier, and his fiancee had committed suicide a week after that, in the wake of losing her own job working as a toll collector for the city. Many people sympathized with Palmer’s plight, as they too were going through hardship and personal upheaval. Though Palmer’s suicide wasn’t the first to happen as a result of the downturn, it grabbed national headlines, and spawned a series of copycat incidents, where some poor guy or gal at the end of their rope just gave up on life and jumped from a building, or a bridge, or in the case of one guy, the Grand Canyon in Arizona. All of these stories that seemingly surrounded everyone just served to drive home the point, of the human toll that lie behind all the bad economic news, that countless lives were destroyed every single day. While not on the verge of suicide, everyone around me was going through situations much like those who grabbed attention by ending their lives. I would listen to the struggles my friends, my family, my coworkers were dealing with, I made it a point to learn every single detail, no matter how much it depressed me. For example, take Juan Morales, my neighbor and good friend, he had not worked a single day throughout the whole month of July. The construction firm he worked for had no projects coming down the pike, but he would still call his boss every single day, to see if anything came up, or even if he can do an odd job for anyone. He grew more and more despondent each and every day. I found him out in front of the complex one balmy night right after the sun went down, him and his wife had had a big argument just minutes before, an occurrence that was becoming distressingly common. I stepped outside and headed down the stairs to check on Juan: “Hey buddy, what’s going on? I heard you and Lucia yelling at each other. Is everything ok” I asked him, while trying to comfort him by putting my arm around his shoulder. I never was good at comforting people. I was always much too awkward for that. “It’s just the usual these days, all the money stuff. Everyday, we need to buy something that we don’t have money for. Today, Lucia told me that Marco really needs shoes, that the sides of both of his shoes had burst. I freaked out when I told her I couldn’t afford it. When she yelled at me to use some savings, I snapped. I raised my hand to hit her before coming to my senses. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had actually struck her. I can’t support Lucia and the boys anymore, there’s no work. What did I do wrong? I could have prevented things from getting this bad.” He replied, as he sobbed lightly. “Look, how many times did I tell you, none of this is your fault Juan. You will get through this, you have a great family who will stand by you no matter what.” I told him, attempting to reassure him. Then, he let out a huge sigh before continuing: “I’m thinking of sending the boys away to Lucia’s parents in Texas. Lucia’s dad still has a job, they can take care of the boys. There is a huge front yard there, and the boys love their grandparents, so it would make the adjustment easier. However, tt will just lower their opinion of me even more, her parents never liked me. They thought she should have married someone with money, like they do.” Jose replied. He had told me before that Lucia’s father had a successful pawn shop in a Dallas suburb, and that even though his business wasn’t doing so well, he was holding on, hopefully until things got better, if they got better. “You’re a great dad, and when the economy isn’t horrible like this, a great provider. You have done whatever is necessary to keep a roof over your kids’ heads and food in their stomachs. And with the savings you built up the last several years, you have kept the family from going hungry or living in one of those God-forsaken Harrisvilles!” I said to him, reminding him that it could be a lot worse for him and his family. “You’re right Will, thank you for talking some sense into me. I’m not sure how long the savings will last, but it is helping us get through this for now. Now I have a wife to hug and apologize to.” Juan responded with a small smile, the first smile I had seen from him in several weeks, giving me a hug before retiring into his apartment. As for the Jacksons, my downstairs neighbors, I guess you can say that they are getting off relatively lucky, as not only has Franklin still have his job, he’s actually working more hours than before. He has been put in charge of a second Stater Bros. location, this one in Montclair, a store I used to frequent when I lived in that city, located on Central Avenue just below Palo Verde Street. However, his bosses have put him on salary instead of getting paid hourly, so despite working many more hours per week than in the past, he is making no more money than before. Not that Frank was complaining or anything, he thanked God every day that he was still able to provide for Jackie and the kids, as well as his mother, who he was still able to afford medications for. The medications were taking up a sizable portion of Franklin’s pay, but it was a small price to pay to keep the beloved Jackson family matriarch alive, especially since the family has become so efficient with their household spending, and that they can still afford the rent as well. As for the rest of the residents in our little apartment complex at 623 South Sultana Avenue, there were some changes happening in the month of July. The Lopez family, who lived upstairs on the other end of the complex from me, moved out once July started. Steve Lopez, the head of the household, said that they were moving in with his parents, who lived in Escondido, located in the San Diego area, to save money. The living arrangements would be less than desirable, however, as Steve’s parents had already taken in Steve’s sister Monica and her three kids the month before. Between Steve, his wife Brittany, their two kids, Monica, Monica’s kids, Steve’s parents, Steve’s grandparents, and two of Steve’s cousins, there would be a grand total of fourteen people sharing one three-bedroom house. It would be cramped, but they would all have a roof over their heads. Another complication of moving nearly one-hundred miles to the south was the fact that Steve would have a much longer commute to his job in Riverside. He would be using far more gasoline to get to his job as a shift supervisor at a manufacturing facility, a job which had just cut his pay for the second time in as many months. However, Steve saw a silver lining to the situation, the family would be close together, four generations under one roof, and hopefully would weather the storm together. I did feel bad after watching the Lopez family leave, that last conversation with Steve, an average-size Hispanic fellow with thinning, graying hair, was the longest conversation I ever had with him, and I was his neighbor for about a year and a half. We spoke for perhaps ten minutes, discussing our current stations in life, where we thought things were headed. I never really knew the Lopez family, and never really reached out to them until it was about time for them to move away, and they would no longer be my neighbors. Speaking of neighbors, I would actually gain new neighbors in July. First of them was the Williams family, who moved in the first of the month. A married couple in their early forties with three children, Harold and Jessica Williams had to downgrade their living arrangements, like so many others who had fallen on hard times. They had previously lived up in Alta Loma, a wealthy part of the city of Rancho Cucamonga located ten to fifteen miles to the northeast of Ontario, nestled up against the San Gabriel Mountains. Harold was a dentist whose practice had fallen on hard times along with the rest of the economy, as his income had fallen over 75 percent in just a few months. As a result, he moved his family into an area that was much more affordable. He told me that people were moving out of Alta Loma and other wealthy neighborhoods at a rapid rate, as their businesses and financial portfolios cratered, and their well-paying jobs disappeared. Many families all over the country were responding to the downturn by moving into cheaper areas in order to save money, a trend that was speeding up as things worsened. This move was to be a big change for the Williams family, as their kids, Harold Jr., Haley and Christina were accustomed to the best things in life, the best schools, the best afterschool programs, the best food, the best electronic gizmos, and frequent vacations and trips to places like DIsneyland, all things that were now a thing of the past. “Will we get robbed here, Will?” Jessica asked me, very concerned about the neighborhood and whether their possessions, which were far nicer than anything myself or anyone else around here owned, would be safe. “You guys should be okay, the people here are mostly pretty good people. There has been an uptick in crime around here, but not as bad as other places.” I reassured her as she fiddled around with the pearls on her pearl necklace, which likely cost more than I make in a few months. “Are...are you sure? I see some of the neighbors looking at us funny as we move our stuff in. I fear they might break in. I told Harold he should move some of the nicer things into a storage facility, but he didn’t want to pay for the storage unit.” Jessica, who had shoulder-length blonde hair and looked like she had some work done in the past, replied to me. I don’t think she had ever seen a neighborhood like this. She definitely came off really stuck up and arrogant. She genuinely believed she was better than the rest of the people in the neighborhood. The other new tenant, who moved in two weeks later, was Darryl Graham. He moved in under dramatically different circumstances than did the Williams family. Darryl, a pencil-thin man with flowing long blond hair, had a good life before the downturn hit, working as a general contractor, making good enough money to support his wife Cara and their infant daughter Madeline. They lived comfortably in a two-bedroom house in Upland, in a pretty good neighborhood, but not as nice as Alta Loma, or any of the other wealthy neighborhoods that lie several miles to the north of Ontario. Of course, the work dried up dramatically over the last few months as the downturn set in and worsened, and so did Darryl’s income. However, instead of sticking together and getting through the hard times, Cara, who Darryl described as a gorgeous blonde with sparkling blue eyes, tall and thin, “my dream girl, essentially” in his words, up and left him, taking Madeline and moving in with her ex-boyfriend in San Jose, located in northern California. Darryl came home one day about a week before moving to Ontario, after a day of doing odd jobs for a wealthy client, only to find a note from Cara, stating that this wasn’t the life she expected, and that she was going to somebody who was in better financial position to take care of her and Madeline. Cara was leaving Darryl for her ex-boyfriend, a tech executive named Jacob who, despite losing much of his wealth, still was far more well off than Darryl. She also wrote that she would mail the divorce papers to Darryl for him to sign. One can tell Darryl was destroyed, his family was ripped from him. His beautiful wife and adorable, blue-eyed daughter were gone, and he would likely never see them again. He was a broken man upon taking up residence in the downstairs unit right next to the Jackson family. Darryl welled up at least twice as he told me what happened, and I wondered aloud to the others in the complex how long he would stick around here. “We gotta keep an eye on Darryl, and help him out any way we can. He has clearly seen better days. We gotta be as welcoming as possible, treat him like he belongs. What his wife did to him was truly fucked up. I fear he may try to hurt himself somehow.” I told Juan and Lucia, who were also worried about our new neighbor. We made sure to roll out the welcome wagon for Darryl, to make him feel at home during this surely trying time for him. Juan and Lucia included him to our little dinners that Lucia would make, which mostly consisted of rice and bean burritos nowadays, and we invited him on our walks around the neighborhood and our board game nights. Darryl was mostly quiet, and we made a great effort to not mention his situation around him. He didn’t need anymore negativity, and neither did we. Amidst all the devastation and the worry about where things were headed next, our families always did our best to try to keep the mood light, cracking jokes and playing games and enjoying each other’s company. We needed that bond, it kept us sane. At work, it was more of the same, just like it was all over. Business was way down once again, and Milton Plastics cut three more positions, two of them in research and development and one in human resources. The remaining employees had less work than before, meaning there was just a lot of sitting around many days. I remember that on those days, I was pretending to work more than I was working. Mr. Milton would just see a justification for letting me go if he saw I wasn’t busy. At least I didn’t have it as bad as Reggie, though. Reggie was the one stuck with the unenviable task of telling Mr. Milton exactly how much money the company was losing, a role he took on alone since the guys who helped him out were both let go last month. I was the one trying to make sure the company’s bills were paid, as close to on time as our dwindling cash flow would allow (our suppliers were quite grateful when we paid, a lot of their other customers were paying late, or not at all). Every day, before I made my payments to our suppliers, I had to check the company’s bank accounts, just to make sure we had the money to make the payments, something I never had to do before. And Hannah was the one tasked with getting our customers to pay. An alarmingly high number of the customers we served were late on their bills, and some didn’t pay at all, as their bank accounts were too low, or perhaps they had gone out of our business. She had to make phone calls and send emails and faxes to the late customers, and she would complain whenever a customer went out of business. “Another disconnected number, that company went under too!” she lamented as it became known for the second time that day that a customer went out of business and would not be paying its bills. According to her spreadsheets, we were seeing 5 to 10 percent of our customers going out of business each month, and now over half of the remaining customers were behind on their payments to us, some were a few months behind, meaning it was becoming less and less likely that we would see the full payment amount from them, if they paid us at all. Poor Hannah then had to report to Mr. Milton which accounts we would not be recovering anything from, at which point Mr. Milton seemingly blamed her for the problem. I was wondering, but did not dare to ask, if Hannah was now regretting her vote for David Harris, since she was quite proud to vote for him the previous year. Either way, morale at Milton Plastics tumbled further and further with each week. Some days, when the workload was extra light, Mr. Milton would send myself or Hannah home for the day early, a move that neither of us was too happy with, since we would lose out on the pay would come with the couple of hours of work we were missing. I guess it was better than getting yet another cut in our pay. I didn’t know if I could withstand yet another pay cut. I already had to pay my July rent a week late in order to be able to eat. Thankfully, Sanjay was quite accommodating of his tenants. Some landlords were flexible, happy to actually get rent at all, no matter how late, while others were not. As for those days I was getting sent home early, I was far from alone there. In July 2017, the average hours worked per week had fallen to just 24.6, down from 34 per week just four months earlier. Many employers were cutting hours en masse, in order to lower expenses in the wake of tumbling revenues. The lower labor costs associated with reduced hours was to try to mitigate losses as much as possible. If there was no work to do, why have the workers stick around? Even when I wasn’t talking to a friend or coworker or family member, I still often made a point to ask most people I encountered how they were doing, how they were holding up amidst the chaos. For instance, I continued talking to Sandra whenever I bought groceries every Saturday morning, as she was always the cashier at that time. Her dad finally did get a pay cut at his computer store job, a big one too, about 50 percent, and her mom wasn’t doing so well, she couldn’t afford her medicines anymore, so she was getting sicker. Little Aiden, was now outgrowing his clothes and his shoes, which had holes in them. And apparently when he had a bad fever, there wasn’t any money to take him to the doctor. Sandra was always slumping her shoulders, something was quite common nowadays. She seemed ashamed as she described how she couldn’t afford any new clothes for her son. She was thankful that Aiden potty-trained at a fairly young age, so she didn’t have to buy diapers anymore. It was reported that over half of parents of infants and toddlers had difficulty buying diapers. Diapers were quite expensive, and little ones used a lot of them. In this age of plummeting wages and widespread hardship, expenses like diapers or formula or clothes had become daunting. As tough as life had become for Sandra, her coworkers were even worse off, even the ones who had not lost their jobs yet. According to Sandra, the busiest time of the day, which usually was in the late afternoon or early evening, was now as busy as the slowest times of day used to be, and during the slow times, there might as well have been tumbleweeds rolling through the store. As a result, management had to make major cuts, tough decisions that every other manager had to make. The young man who was typically at the other open register on Saturday mornings (the store would often only have one or two registers open, instead of the usual three or four), a tall Hispanic fellow named Richard who was in his mid twenties, was now living in his car. Richard and his girlfriend, who worked as a medical assistant, could no longer afford their rent after both got severe pay cuts. They would use the car to sleep in, as well to transport each other to their places of employment. Most nights, they parked their car in the little parking lot on the side of the store and slept there, a move that Franklin allowed. The young lady who was stocking the shelves, a rail-thin twentyish white girl named Cindy, who had long blonde hair and braces that she couldn’t afford to have adjusted, had her hours reduced, since the lack of sales meant fewer goods were getting shipped in and needed to be stocked. Her family was on the verge of foreclosure from their home that her parents bought over twenty-five years earlier, and were close to paying off the mortgage on before her father was laid off from the Pepsi distribution center he worked at. Poor Cindy was now unable to continue her studies at Mt. San Antonio College over in Walnut ten miles to the west, where she had been working towards her goal of a degree in nursing, and now she was looking at the very real possibility that her and her parents would end up living with relatives, or worse, the Harrisville. Looking around my place of work, I saw the same trends I saw around my house. Plenty of businesses were closing up around Brea as well, just like everywhere else. The business parks that dotted the area had vacancy signs covering the windows of now empty suites in the buildings. The financial services office that Milton Plastics shared its building with had gone under as well, meaning that our company was alone in that facility. All of the business buildings had some vacancies, and one located down the road from Milton Plastics was now completely empty. Of course, that meant that the places that served the employees of those professional businesses suffered as well. Restaurants that the workers ate at, stores that they went to to buy their business attire or to grab a few things on the way home from work were all suffering. By the end of July, I would say somewhere between a third and half of the restaurants within two miles of my workplace were now closed up for good. I used to frequent many of these businesses, such as McDonald’s, Arby’s, and Wienerschnitzel, as I had a bad habit of eating fast food for lunch almost every day. However, like so many others, I had to cut out my restaurant trips to save money. Eventually, one by one, these places started closing. The Wienerschnitzel, which served stuff like hot dogs, chili dogs, and chili cheese fries, closed down in June, along with some other smaller restaurants, including a couple of decent burger joints. In early July, the Arby’s, who served various meat sandwiches (the roast beef sandwiches were incredible), shut its doors, along with a bunch of other restaurants, big and small. The restaurant closure that hurt me the most was Rodrigo’s, which couldn’t resist the pressures of the downturn anymore, and closed its doors permanently during the final week of July. The American Dream had died for good in the mind of Rodrigo Andrade that day, as I went in to speak to him the final day of business. I took some time during my lunch break to go talk to him, and to order one final item off the menu, a bean and cheese burrito I got because it was cheap. I felt it important to say goodbye to the place, and to Rodrigo himself. That day was his busiest in several months, as word got out that the place was shutting down. He saw the lunch line forming one last time, for old times sake, and he broke down crying while thanking his loyal customers. Closing down his restaurant, his livelihood, the place that he poured his blood, sweat and tears into in order to provide for his wife and sons, that destroyed him. I couldn’t help but feel for him. I even welled up while sitting there, eating my burrito, which was as delicious as I remembered, the gooey cheese complementing the perfectly cooked refried beans perfectly, the tortilla at just the right temperature, not too hot, not too cold. On the final Friday of July, the 28th, as I was just arriving home from work, I was about to prepare my dinner, a hamburger patty on a slice of bread with some ketchup squirted on top, which was about as fancy as anything I was eating at that point. I was pulling the meat out to cook it, and my phone rang, it was a number I had not seen in quite a while. My old buddy Jimmy was calling. We had not really spoken since February, except when I called him briefly on Black Friday, the one in May (it was getting tough to keep the days when the stock market tumbled straight, there were so many of them in the last few month). We had texted each other a bit here and there, but it seemed like we were drifting apart a bit. Anyways, it was a pleasant surprise to hear from his, as I wanted to catch up with an old friend, so I put aside the ground beef and answered: “Hey Jimmy, how’s it going?” I answered, sounding excited, since I had not had a conversation with him for a while. I had wanted to call him, but I was still a bit afraid after he got upset with me. “Um, Will? Hey man, I had a question.” Jimmy replied, sounding rather concerned. He was typically rather upbeat, so I was a bit alarmed. “Sure, what is it?” I asked. “Okay, I know I said before I didn’t want to know what you were talking about when I was last out there, but now I want to. You were right, man, everything is going to s**t. I was ordered by corporate to let go of three of the guys at my office, and this was after telling them last month that their pay got cut in half. My pay was cut too, and now I don’t know how I’m gonna pay my mortgage. I just bought this house, and it has lost like half its value in the nine months since I bought it. I owe way more on my mortgage than the house is now worth, I heard that is called being underwater….. I’m a month behind on my payments now, and many of my neighbors and friends over here are even more behind. Yesterday, I saw a couple of people get dragged out by the Sheriff’s Department from their apartments in the complex around the corner from my house. The news said that Maricopa County has the highest rate of evictions in the whole country, and the authorities are putting extra work kicking everyone out….. I see s**t just falling apart, and it’s scaring the hell out of me and Nikki. I’m having to cut back a lot, got rid of the cable and Netflix, and I can’t take the girls anywhere anymore. They had gotten used to trips to the zoo and the movies and all that, and they don’t really understand why we can’t go anymore. With the cutbacks, we are doing okay for now, but if my pay gets cut more, or the shop shuts down, I have no idea what’s gonna happen next. So Will, your predictions have been dead on so far, what’s next?” Jimmy was clearly worried about where we were all headed. “Well, unfortunately, we are nowhere near the bottom yet. I don’t know where the bottom even is, or if there even is a bottom. More people will lose their jobs, and their homes. People will cut back more, which feeds the whole vicious cycle and leads to more job losses. This s**t is just feeding off of itself now, and it will swallow up all the sectors of the economy. The economy itself may be wiped out. Before long, the banks are gonna start going under, since the loans they gave out will mostly go bad, and they will run out of money. As soon as the people who have their money in the banks find out there is a problem, they will line up to get their money out, which is called a bank run. This will probably happen at all of the banks, and the banks will run out of money and have to close up. The people and companies who still have accounts in the banks, and didn’t pull their money out, will lose everything. That will just speed up the collapse in the economy, since everyone will be broke and most businesses will go under. There is no end in sight to this. I hate to be the bearer of bad news man, I fear what will happen. I hope I’m wrong.” I told him, my voice growing more dour with each passing sentence, as if I’m reading a eulogy at a funeral. Perhaps I actually was saying the U.S. economy’s eulogy. “So….when do you think the banks will go down?” Jimmy asked, now sounding fearful. “My prediction for that is probably sometime in the fall, perhaps October or November, once foreclosures pile up and the banks have to write off all that debt. What you described to me, your neighbors falling behind on their house payments, that’s happening in pretty much every neighborhood in America as we speak. Many of those mortgages are gonna go bad, and the banks will be out trillions of dollars. It will overwhelm them, leading to them running low on money, causing the depositor freakout and then the bank run. I would suggest pulling out any money, any savings, before that happens.” I somberly replied. “Okay man, I’m trusting you on this, since you pay attention to this stuff more than I do. Anyways, my dinner is ready, the family is having hot dogs, not even good hot dogs, those really cheap Bar-S hot dogs. Damn I miss steak!” Jimmy told me with a slight chuckle. “Okay, you take care, and tell Nikki and the girls that I said hi. Tell the girls that uncle Will misses them. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up the phone and buried my head in my hands, trying not to cry. I fear what will happen to the Sanchez family, to Jimmy, Nikki and their adorable two daughters. I wonder if I will see them again, and then it came over me, the thought of them stuck living in a car, or a Harrisville. Those poor girls, stuck in this horrible situation at such a young age, how will they handle the upheaval that is sure to come? How many children will grow up in such a dire situation? How many will know nothing but societal collapse? It was then that I started to cry, right there on my couch. © 2018 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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