All the doom and gloom coming true.

[redrumloa]

I hope you heeded the multiple warnings, things are getting really nasty.

In Florida, Despair and Foreclosures
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29081486/

In Lehigh Acres, homes are selling at 80 percent off their peak prices. Only two years after there were more jobs than people to work them, fast-food restaurants are laying people off or closing. Crime is up, school enrollment is down, and one in four residents received food stamps in December, nearly a fourfold increase since 2006.

It doesn't get any better.

But no one here would describe Lehigh Acres as out of the woods. Real estate agents said the homes that are selling here typically go for only about $45,000, a third of what they cost to build. They predict that foreclosures will continue to keep prices low for two more years.

Job growth is also still nonexistent. Randy Burns, 50, the gregarious owner of Lehigh Discount Furniture, says he now receives 15 to 20 calls a week from people asking him to buy their furniture or help them move out of town — and he said he planned to leave, too.

“Until there’s jobs and foreclosures stop,” he said, “nothing’s going to change.”

And the people?

Most recently the group has been struggling with a growing wave of families that either visit multiple food pantries using aliases or return the food to supermarkets for money or other items.

Ms. Nicely, at Lehigh Community Services, said that in November she started using a magic marker to blacken UPC symbols on cans so grocery stores would not accept them as returns.

“We even had to do that on the toys for Christmas,” Ms. Nicely said. Without such limits, she said, the neediest families might not be served.

Still, she often feels torn, saying, “I can’t be sure I wouldn’t do the same thing if I was a single parent and my kids were hungry.”

In Fort Myers it IS the 2nd great depression and this nonsense is not limited to Fort Myers.

 

[redrumloa]

Approximately 1,000 people apply for 35 jobs
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI111600/

With the unemployment rate in South Florida rising, Miami Fire Rescue was inundated with hundreds of applications for only a few positions.

Hector Mirabile, the director of employee relations at the City of Miami offered a harsh reality of the job application process. "There are 35 openings that we have," he said. "We will accept 750 qualified applications who will compete for those 35 positions."

The City of Miami accepted the applications on Monday morning from hundreds of job seekers, some of whom had waited outside since Saturday to apply. By noon, there were still people in line with no guarantee to be hired.

Fernando Figueroa is one of approximately a thousand people hoping for a chance to become a Miami firefighter. He stood amongst hundreds Sunday hoping to get a chance at employment. "I'm unemployed. I just got out of active duty for the Marines. I have a son. I have to pay the bills, and pretty much it's tough times," Figueroa said.

Over the weekend and into Monday morning, the line wrapped around an acre of land at Miami Riverside Center and first in line stood Alex Valdez. "It's hitting really hard. People are trying to survive and people are desperate," Valdez said.

Valdez said he endured an array of the elements as he waited a total of 50 hours to turn in his application. "It was freezing Saturday night, and it was raining last night, and then, during the day, it was hot," he said.

 

[redrumloa]

For the record, I am changing jobs yet again. I saw the writing on the wall months ago that I was going to be laid off March 31st and quietly kept my eyes open. In a weird twist of fate, I am going back to the last company I worked for and in almost the exact same position I had. Yes, the last company I was laid off from. Strangely, I will probably be safe in this position for a good 5 years. What changed? I'd have to get long winded explaining industry and the specifics.

The moral of this story? Don't burn any bridges, but be nimble as hell. I sure as heck did not want to be laid off in this market on March 31st with nothing lined up.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Good move, but stay nimble, Red, and good luck.

The US could be heading for a slight population reduction. Boris Borisov (great name, eh?) studied the collapse of Russia in the 1990s, using demographic data to estimate the population losses during that time. He also applied the same methods to the US during the Great Depression and found about 7 million people went missing.