Economically, nothing lasts forever

Things are tough all over. They’re tougher if you refuse to accept them or are unaffected by what’s going on.

Businesses are being usurped on a daily basis. My bank - the soon to be swallowed up Washington Mutual or WaMu - if you talk to the marketing nazis, is one of them, but some changes planned. “Great news!” comes the recorded voice on the bank’s customer service line. “Between March and July you’ll begin to notice changes we’re making to the automated system.”

I can hardly wait.

They, like many lenders, got caught in the sub prime loans and mortgages game and lost everything. I read one article that said depositors withdrew $22 billion the last three months before the Chase buyout in September after boasting $220 billion in assets in 2001.

What started as “A friend of the family,” is going to become JPMorgan Chase. Now the fate of account holders lies in the hands of another corporate conglomerate. Suffice it to say I’m not optimistic. Will it be business as usual, or will current account holders become another anonymous face? I’ve had thoughts of changing banks. What good would that do if they get swallowed up too?

As I walk through the Spokane Valley Mall, closing business signs and lease signs are popping up everywhere. “I wonder if the mall is going to close,” I heard a mother say to her young adult daughter. Good question.

I read where Circuit City is going out of business too. Apparently, their problems were so bad no one wanted to buy the corporation. The store next to the mall in the valley has “closing business” signs up. Everything in the store was on clearance. A few weeks ago, I went in to look around because I wanted a tripod.

Circuit City’s idea of clearance prices equates to a whole 10 percent off.

“Are you kidding,” I asked a sales associate that probably wasn’t old enough to have a driver’s license. Evidentially Circuit City wasn’t particularly motivated in liquidating their inventory. “I’m sorry sir, that’s our price,” he said.

“That’s the reason you guys are going out business,” I said as I left the store.

I went back in last Thursday night just to see if anything changed. Apparently someone saw the light, because the same tripod I looked at a week earlier was 40 percent off.

It seems that some companies have no concept of dealing with the public. Poor quality, cheap materials, high prices, excessive fees, marketing gimmicks and minimum wage employees all micro-managed from afar by a wave unrealistic goals, empty mission statements and pointless memos. When it all fails, the people who concocted the scheme go back and dream up another plan while everyone else picks up the pieces.

What really bothers me is the employees that get trampled. While the corporations move on with another project, the employees that did as they were told file for unemployment, which has become quite adversarial.

A friend of mine, who is unemployed, was notified to bring in his job search logs; something that is required when receiving unemployment benefits. Despite the fact he just went back to work they insisted he honor their appointment.

They greeted him with insinuations and loaded questions that would have been the envy of Joseph McCarthy.

He said it was obvious they are trying to get as much money back from him as they could even though he was no longer collecting benefits.

I’ve seen bad times before in the early 1980s. I remember seeing a lot of people lose their homes to foreclosure, others commuted 38 miles one-way for a minimum wage job, simply because that’s all there was.

The experts anticipate the economy won’t improve for a year or more, but bad times, like the good times, don’t last forever. It’s simply a matter of persevering.