[ian (Ian)]

without wanting to be melodramatic, some of the affects of the recession over here in the USA do not make the media, but include:
- public parks, libraries and swimming pools are closing
- unemployment is now hitting 10% with little job creation
- unemployment + the huge number of house foreclosure means many, many thousands of people, and families now homeless, living with relatives or living in their cars. and these are regular, honest people.
- there is virtually no major manufacturing left in the USA. not only from the recession, but because of the way health insurance is structured (oppressively unfair), insurance is paid for by employers. so no job, no health insurance and no public health system. and because of this additional cost to employers, jobs are not only disappearing to cheap labour countries, job are also disappearing to Canada and Europe mostly due to their having a public health system.
- in my area where we can get 10 feet of snow over winter, the number of council payed snow plows has been halved which means more roads left covered in snow which only results in more accidents - and if you have no health insurance you're screwed.
- and because of the insurance fiasco, over 2 million americans go bankrupt each year just because of health costs. over 10% have no insurance and over 60% are under insured.
- towns that were built around major manufacturing, particularly the car manufacturers are becoming ghost towns.
- tent cities are appearing in all major cities
- crime is on the increase as people become desperate.
- there are virtually no government education scholarships left which used to allow the poor and minorities to go to Uni. and a 1/2 decent Uni over here starts at $10k a year. a Uni comparable to the major Uni's in Australia (most of which are currently classed in the top 50 in the world) would start at $30k per year.
- the social security system, largely for old age pension and old age MediCare, is over a billion dollars - projected to hit the trillions in the decades to come - in short fall and the gap is widening. people retiring over the next few decades will receive next to nothing in terms government sponsored support.

i could go on and on about the human costs.