Plenty of Influences

It's easy to blame current circumstances on greedy bankers, corrupt politicians, incompetent policymakers, short-sighted corporate executives, and reckless speculators. While that is true to a considerable extent, there's more to it than that.

In reality, today's woes stem from a wide variety of influences, not least of which are naturally occurring cyclical forces that have long served to eliminate excesses and address inefficiences that built when times were good..

That is one reason why, as the following New York Times article, "Reeling South Carolina City Is a Snapshot of Economic Woes," points out, some locales are feeling the pain even though they did not witness the kinds of egregious behavior that were widespread on Wall Street or in the bubbly housing markets of California, Nevada, and Florida.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Even before the job fair opens, the line snakes into the parking lot of the state fairground, a muted parade of lives derailed by layoffs.

“It kills me, it eats me up inside,” said Raymond Vaughn, who has been out of work for seven months, since he lost his job as a window installer. His fiancée now pays the bills. “I go into this fantasy world where I’m like, I’m in the wrong life and I’m actually a millionaire. It really bothers me I can’t do the things I’d like for her. Sometimes you get where you feel less than a man.”

As the American economy sinks deeper into one of the more punishing recessions since the Depression, frustration and fear color the national conversation.

This city in the center of South Carolina is an ideal listening post. According to a range of indicators assembled by Moody’s Economy.com — from job growth to change in household worth — this metropolitan area came closer than any other to being a microcosm of the nation over the last decade.

This is now an unfortunate distinction. Some 533,000 jobs disappeared from the economy in November, the worst month since 1974. In South Carolina, a government panel is predicting that the state’s unemployment rate could reach 14 percent by the middle of next year.

No speculative real estate bubble can explain what is happening in this metropolitan area of roughly 700,000 people. Neither the brick Georgian homes in the city’s core nor the ranch-style houses on the suburban fringes rose or fell much in value. The financial wizards of Wall Street seem far from the palmetto-dotted campus of the University of South Carolina and the domed state capitol downtown.

Yet as the toll continues to mount from an era of financial recklessness — as banks cut credit from households and businesses, reinforcing austerity — the damage has spread here, choking economic activity at places ranging from shopping malls to factories.

“This was not of our doing,” said Doug Woodward, an economist at the University of South Carolina. “We just got swept up in the crisis of confidence.”

The Carolinas may conjure thoughts of textile mills and tobacco fields, but Columbia has a diverse economy. The state is a major employer. So is the university, along with hospitals and banks. The Fort Jackson Army base employs 9,200 people. United Parcel Service has a regional hub here. Michelin operates a tire factory next door in Lexington County. The Computer Science Corporation develops software north of the city.

Early in the year, layoffs were concentrated among factory and warehouse workers. “Now, they run the gamut,” said Jessica Horsely, a case manager at the local employment office. “You see a heightened sense of desperation. People are just grasping for anything.”

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to spend as much as $775 billion on his economic plan, including infrastructure projects like bridges, roads and classrooms, to put people back to work.

Columbia’s mayor, Bob Coble, is consumed with capturing some of those dollars for his city. He has assembled a list of ready-to-go projects totaling $140 million that he said could generate construction jobs and propel further economic development.

Mr. Coble, a Democrat who has been mayor for 18 years, has in mind the redevelopment of North Main Street, a bedraggled corridor of hard-luck retailers that lacks sidewalks in many spots, with exposed power lines dipping down to cracked pavement. That project is already under way, putting down sidewalks and burying power lines in a $19 million first phase. An additional $54 million could complete it.

Similar projects have restored shine to Columbia’s downtown, which was in a similar state of decay a decade ago, and nurtured the Vista neighborhood, a collection of brick warehouses transformed into trendy eateries.

The mayor has also been focused on expanding the so-called Innovista project, a campus developed by the university centered on research in areas like hydrogen-powered fuel cells and biotechnology. The aim is to cluster research labs, private companies and condominiums.

“This will be a once in a generation opportunity to transform a city with projects that have been on the books,” the mayor said over breakfast at a newly opened downtown Sheraton hotel set in an old bank whose original vault has become a cozy martini bar. “These are not bridges to nowhere.”

Yet questions confront the notion of putting people to work through federal largess. South Carolina’s governor, Mark Sanford, a Republican, has been an ardent opponent of federal aid for states, branding it pork barrel spending. If the money is delivered to state agencies like the Department of Transportation, which has its own list of priorities, Columbia might be disappointed.

Despite the attractiveness of Main Street, new sidewalks have drawn few retailers. North Main Street runs through a largely poor area, making it even less likely that improvements will attract business.

Meanwhile, the recession intensifies.

At the state fairgrounds, Lori Harris, 47, waited for the job fair to open. A year has passed since she graduated from college with an associate degree in medical assisting, yet she has been unable to find a decent job.

Ms. Harris previously ran her own house-painting company, but opted for a more stable career in a growing field. She saw an ad for the degree program on television: “Come become a medical assistant!”

Now, such talk seems farcical. She is paying $95 a month toward $23,000 in student loan debt. She is living with her boyfriend, who is supporting her, not always cheerfully. She has no health insurance and cannot see a specialist for a torn rotator cuff and recently applied for food stamps.

“I tried to better myself,” she said, “and I’m getting nowhere.”

She was offered one job, as a medical technician dispensing pills to patients. The pay was $7.50 an hour.

“Forget it,” she said. “I was like, ‘Is it worth going to college? Did I waste my time?’”

She wondered if her age explains the rejections. Or her Boston accent. Or the smell of her cigarette smoking.

“It’s getting really discouraging,” she said.

As the doors opened, people filed in quietly, entering a dark warehouselike space with concrete floors.

“You want a job that makes you smile,” proclaimed a placard at a booth for Wendy’s, the fast food chain. Another sign advertised the benefits for counter workers, among them: “free uniforms.”

A Border Patrol officer stood in his olive green uniform, his laptop running video footage of Latinos running frantically through garbage strewn patches of desert, chased by helicopters and jeeps. Raymond Vaughn stopped and inquired about a job.

“You will have to relocate to the southwest border,” said the recruiter, Michael Day.

The entry level pay was $36,000 a year. But the Border Patrol was looking for people no older than 40. Mr. Vaughn was 43.

At the window install job, Mr. Vaughn made $11.50 an hour. Since his layoff, he has been living on an unemployment check of $221 a week, and on the wages his fiancée brings home from her job as a hospital receptionist. He has applied for more jobs than he can recall. “They always say they’ll call me,” he said. “They never do.”

A former high school track star, Mr. Vaughn carried himself with pride. Yet as the months passed and his car deteriorated without any cash for repairs, as his loose-handled cooking pots went unreplaced, he was sinking. Among African-Americans, the national unemployment rate is above 11 percent, with Mr. Vaughn now part of that number.

“Inside of me, I always felt like I was going to be greater than I am now,” he said.

The job fair brought more disappointment. Only one job seemed possible, a technician position at an air-conditioning company. The starting salaries were less than $10 an hour.

“Even if I work for this, I’m taking a cut in pay,” he said. “But something’s better than nothing.”

At a booth for Amcol, a collection service that specializes in overdue medical bills, a recruiter made an aggressive pitch.

“The more you do in collections,” he said, “the more you make.”

Mary Bamou waited in line, holding copies of her résumé. She has been out of work for three months, ever since she was briefly hospitalized, ending her minimum wage job as a food service worker at the university. Now, she is getting by on an unemployment check of less than $100 a week.

Ms. Bamou, 50, has experience in medical billing, a skill she figured may translate to medical collections.

“Calling people up in these times is not going to be an easy task,” she said. “It’s a job. Worst thing they can do to me after cussing me out is to hang up.”

Frank Kelly, 52, surveyed the booths and wondered how much further this slide would go.

In the 1990s, he wrote computer manuals for I.B.M. in upstate New York, earning $65,000 a year. After he lost that job, he spent a dozen years supervising a lab that tested raw materials at a brake pad factory in nearby Orangeburg, S.C., where he made more than $55,000 a year. In October, amid the rapid deterioration of the Detroit automakers, Mr. Kelly was laid off.

At the job fair, he was standing in line in a suit and tie, waiting to apply for a position at a pet food processor.

He and his wife have been living off her income as an accountant for a food distributor. One of her duties is to check the creditworthiness of customers, which gives her an uncomfortable view.

“She gets to see everybody going downhill,” Mr. Kelly said.

Comments

[ben]

Having a 47 year old woman take out $23,000 in loans to get a BS 2 year degree in "medical assisting" is crazy.

[xqqme]

Find a need and fill it!
Sad to see the American entrepreneurial spirit 'stand in line' at a job fair.

[H Spencer]

Join the US Army-----3 hots and a cot.

[Larson]

Find a need and fill it!
Sad to see the American entrepreneurial spirit 'stand in line' at a job fair. "

-It can take years to build a business. Please spare us that 'think outside the box' crap. It's akin to 'free markets are the only way. Less regulation' yada yada.

Some of us have debts from education and the like, and gambling (which it is) on a new area is a risk for which the consequences may be financial suicide.

You've been brainwashed my friend. Not everyone can be a businessman.
Who'd work for you then????

[Steven Burda]

We'll have to wait and see...

Thank you.
- Steven Burda, MBA
http://www.linkedin.com/in/burda
http://www.cio.com/article/print/470122

[Todd Watts]

ok a few weeks late... but I was busy with family and such for the holidays.
I love this "Even if I work for this, I’m taking a cut in pay".

Really, cause you currently make NOTHING!!!!
Take the job and keep looking for a better job you lazy dumbass.