Economic Murder: Sharing An Old (and yet sadly still ongoing) Story

Wednesday October 9, 2013


I am currently doing a project in which I am going through the archive of my diverse writings I have composed over the course of more than a decade.  It's quite an interesting journey and I see very clearly that I have enjoyed the experience of attempting to write for quite a while.

As the partial shutdown of the federal government continues to drag on I find a certain piece I wrote in 2011 to be very timely still.  And there is something that is very sad about the fact that this piece is still so relevant now.  It speaks much to the current state of our nation.  I am sharing my own written piece as well as the writing of the wife of a cousin of mine to underscore the severity of the circumstances currently afflicting many people in this nation.  These are not times for the faint of heart.  And these are not the types of circumstances that easily lend themselves to healing from PTSD or anything else for that matter.  My own piece appears first.

I coined the phrase ‘economic murder victim’ today to find some way to describe how I feel in these recent days, weeks and months.  I have been officially done with graduate school since May but I completed essentially all of my coursework back in late January.  I have been conducting a diligent job search for over six months now.  And still I look…and look.

The protestors taking part in the Occupy Wall Street movement certainly have my deepest empathy.  Indeed, I do not know how I am supposed to make a viable life for myself given the horrendous economy that currently bedevils us.  And to recently read that incomes actually dropped even more during the supposed ‘recovery’ compared to the initial collapse in 2008 is all the more shocking, sobering and downright disgusting.  It takes clever mathematical tricks on a par with what the financial industry was doing initially to somehow claim we are experiencing a recovery as people continue to suffer high levels of joblessness, underemployment, job security anxiety and simple despair.  I know I am feeling very grave concern.

I realize no one person precipitated the crisis from years ago that is still undermining our economy.  No, the causative factors are too many and too complex to apply such reductionistic thinking.  Yet it is a relatively small group of people who are responsible for the mess we are in now.  And though the actual demands of the Occupy Wall Street protestors are still clarifying I do believe it safe to say that several basic themes are emergent.  And one of those themes is a scathing rebuke of greed.

And so I can’t resist writing out some details of what my life is like currently.  And I have no shame in doing so because I wish to make it clear how much this current situation has undermined my own capacity for optimism.  Today I paid my bus fare using pennies.  Yes you read that correctly.  I used pennies because I am essentially broke.  I am essentially broke despite all my efforts to find a job for six months now.  I am essentially broke despite all the assistance I have applied for with the state of Oregon.  Did you happen to know that the Oregon Food Bank set a record for the number of emergency food boxes they have distributed this year?  That is just one sobering statistic of countless ones.  I have downsized my life into virtual oblivion.  It is not possible to downsize more quite honestly.  The room I rent at a local artists’ community is probably approximately the size of the average jail cell in Oregon.  I would certainly be willing to bet it is smaller than what an inmate in California can typically expect.  And unlike some inmates who get three meals a day and a gym membership as part of their ‘punishment’ or ‘rehabilitation’ I get neither.

I just emerged from graduate school in California earlier this year.  I committed my life to educating myself in the hope of improving my future opportunities in the workforce.  Thus far the return on my investment has been $0.00. Yes, I did do an internship this summer but it was unpaid of course.  I have plenty of experience in a market full of overqualified, overeducated people so very eager to get a job.

Each day I pray that the scale of my life will not shrink more.  And each day I awake to find that the trend does not seem to have reversed.  No matter how much I have economized it still seems that life is shrinking.  There is a saying that life expands (or contracts) in direct proportion to one’s courage.  And I do agree with the basic sentiment therein; I think there is a kernel of truth.  And yet in this era of globalization you can have all the laudable intention to be courageous and expand and still be stymied by forces the size of the economy of China.  I went to school to expand my knowledge base and employability.  And thus far, as noted, the return has not appeared.

I did not survive a schizophrenic mother during my infancy, a stepmother who attempted to murder my father numerous ways, abuse by older stepsisters who could have stood in for Cinderella’s accursed stepsisters, a passable public school system in Texas, the rampant homophobia and misogyny of Texas culture, being gay and then all the isolation of the last two years of my life to end up here at this moment where I am at now.  It has been one of the most disappointing times of my life.  And I have had more than enough.

I want to thank the greed of Wall Street for setting in motion an economic meltdown they still have not been thoroughly held accountable for.  Some may think I am playing victim or trying to blame others for my own troubles in an unjust way.  I am doing no such thing.  I am recognizing the influence of forces beyond the control of so many of us in this nation.  Anyone who would think I am not out hoofing the pavement in search of a job can drop by and see my Excel spreadsheet where I manage my job search.

I go to the gym frequently just to defuse the incredible amount of frustration I feel each day.  I honestly wonder all too often if the best years of my life are actually behind me.  What sad thoughts to have.

What follows is a posting my cousin's wife Nicole placed on Facebook yesterday:

Until today I hadn't realized that the governmental shutdown could actually kill someone I care about. I sent variations of the following email to all* my elected officials. Who, incidentally, have fully funded salaries.

Representative Davis,

I learned today that a student of mine, a promising 21 year old who is currently battling 4th stage cancer, is now denied both surgery and chemotherapy until the US budget is funded. Due to the aggressive nature of her cancer, she was enrolled in an experimental study and she will no longer receive that treatment, even if funding is restored to the study.

This is absolutely unacceptable. The showdown is affecting people's lives. Her life is endangered by the refusal of our elected representatives to negotiate. The responsibility for her no longer receiving treatment is entirely on the heads of the officials who have made decisions that ground funding for the government to a halt.

Representative Davis, I ask that you remember the people whose lives are endangered by every single day that goes by without funding. Please fund the federal budget now.

Nicole Aydt Klein

*all except Dick Durbin whose website link is non-functional, whose DC phone line isn't taking voicemail and whose Facebook page doesn't allow messages.