You are right, but we only have ourselves to blame for this whole mess. People in the USA (not me, thank God) accumulate debt as if it were a good thing. People bought houses with ARM's and didn't even try to figure out what ARM's were or if they did, the assumed that their incomes would rise to meet the rising payments.

I work with a math teacher who never even tried to figure out what the real mortgage payments on her house would be. Now it is true that in high school (where I teach), we don't really teach financial (or mathematical) literacy. People just plod along as if by some miracle, they will be able to afford their payments.

What I am most concerned about is when Mayor Bloomberg asks Randi Weinbackstabber for give backs. In the early 1990's we had a lagging payroll. It made my life miserable and we didn't see pay increases for years. I can just see Randi volunteer, when we do go into a recession, offering to have members give back financially.


Here is my prediction--within one year, the UFT will have its members give back financially--lagging payroll, increase in payments for health insurance, increase in co-payments, and --here is my biggest prediction--the final pay raise that we are expecting in the spring of 2008 will be postponed.....
Rhoda | 11.11.07 - 5:33 pm | #