Rising depression. Suicide rates for the Mortgage crisis. No Help at all for middle class americans.

Towards our leaders & institutions; they are naive beyond belief. Although being used, abused & oh so confused by their so-called leaders, big media and this one-sided economic system; they keep on chuging along still wanting to believe in the american dream they are sold every minute, every day.

The real whiners are that 1% of happy few plutocrats and their 90% + of the whole shabang. They are the ones we are bailing out. They are the ones constantly lobbying & begging for more deregulation & tax cuts. They are the welfare corporations slaughtering US's middle class and making them feel guilty about it too…

There’s this big squeeze on the nation’s workers, wages have been flat, health and pension benefits are getting worse, at the same time corporate profits have gone up very, very nicely. Employee productivity has gone up 15, 20 percent, yet wages have been flat, plus companies are pressuring workers, you know, to work harder and harder.

And that’s part of a broader health crisis in the nation, where, since the year 2000, even though we’ve had pretty good economic times until the last few years under the Bush Administration, nine million more Americans are out of work than was the case in 2000. So now, almost 50 million Americans, nearly one-sixth of the workforce, is uninsured. And you think how crazy that is, in ways. You know, we’re the world’s wealthiest nation, yet one-in-six workers are out of work.

Wall Street is exerting much more pressure on corporations to maximize their share prices, as you know, which means maximize profits, which often translates into lowering costs and especially lowering payroll costs. So a lot of managers will say, you know, the area where they have most flexibility to reduce cost and increase profits is on payroll. So that’s why we’re seeing all these waves of downsizing and Suicide is becoming an increasingly popular response to debt.

For more than two decades, the couple had lived in their three-level house, where the elms outside blazed with yellow shades of fall and their four golden retrievers slept in the yard. The town had always been home, with a lazy river and rolling hills dotted by gnarled juniper trees.

Yet just before lunch on Oct. 23, the Donacas closed all their home's doors except the one to the garage and left their 1981 Cadillac Eldorado running. Toxic fumes filled the home. When sheriff's deputies arrived at about 1 p.m., they found the body of Raymond, 71, on the second floor along with three dead dogs. The body of Deanna, 69, was in an upstairs bedroom, close to another dead retriever.

"It is believed that the Donacas committed suicide after attempts to save their home following a foreclosure notice left them believing they had few options," the Crook County Sheriff's Office said in a report.

Their suicides were a tragic extreme, but the Donacas' case symbolizes how the housing crisis is wrenching the emotional lives of legions of homeowners. The escalating pace of foreclosures and rising fears among some homeowners about keeping up with their mortgages are creating a range of emotional problems, mental-health specialists say. Those include anxiety disorders, depression and addictive behaviors such as alcoholism and gambling. And, in a few cases, suicide.

Crisis hotlines are reporting a surge in calls from frantic homeowners. The American Psychological Association (APA) and other mental-health groups are publishing tips on how to handle the emotional stress triggered by the real estate meltdown. Psychologists say they're seeing more drinking, domestic violence and marital problems linked to mortgage concerns ? as well as children trying to cope with extreme anxiety when their families are forced to move.

"They're depressed, anxious. It's affected marriages, relationships," says Richard Chaifetz, CEO of ComPsych, a Chicago-based employee-assistance firm that is counseling homeowners over mortgage fears. "People tend to catastrophize, and that leads to depression. Suicide rates go up. We see an increase in drinking, outbursts at work, violence toward kids. Before, their houses were like ATMs," as they rose in value. "Now, they feel trapped.

Foreclosure filings surged 65% in April compared with the same month last year, according to a report Wednesday by RealtyTrac. One in every 519 households received a foreclosure filing last month, and the number of homes with foreclosure activity in April was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing the report in January 2005.

Don Donaca, Raymond's brother, says it's hard to understand the suicide, but he thinks the pending foreclosure led to their deaths.

"He got so deep in debt he couldn't figure out what else to do," says Don, 74, a retired sawmill worker in Prineville. "I guess a guy would have to walk a few miles in his shoes to understand."

Financial concerns at the top.

Many other homeowners are at risk of less-severe, but still significant, psychological distress: One in seven homeowners worry that they won't be able to make their mortgage payments on time over the next six months, according to an April Associated Press-AOL Money & Finance poll, and more than one-quarter fear their home will decline in value during the next two years.

ComPsych says financial concerns are now the top issue the firm's counselors are hearing in calls from clients. Calls about financial worries have surged 20% over last year; those related to mortgage problems have doubled.

"It's escalated to the No. 1 issue because of the housing crisis," Chaifetz says.

Half of Americans identify housing costs, such as rent or mortgage payments, as significant sources of stress, particularly on the East and West coasts, a 2007 survey by the APA says. Sixty-one percent in the West, and 55% in the East (compared with 47% in the Midwest and 43% in the South) reported housing costs as a very or somewhat significant source of stress.

"The problem affects the whole spectrum, not just people losing their homes," says LeslieBeth Wish, a psychologist and social worker in Sarasota, Fla. "The stress exacerbates what is already there. It brings to the surface problems that were often already there, like marital problems. There is so much blaming people for the situations they're in, and that adds to it."

One of Wish's patients was semiretired when she bought a home in 2005 in southwest Florida as an investment that she hoped to "flip," turning a profit. The woman now owes more than the house is worth and can't sell it.

Wish says her client has developed anxiety, dwelling on her financial situation from the time she wakes up to the time she goes to sleep. Other clients, Wish says, are reporting physical symptoms such as headaches and stomach pains stemming from anxiety over their mortgage situation.

ComPsych's counselors are hearing similar stories of the mental-health toll caused by the housing slump. At the request of USA TODAY, ComPsych's spokeswoman Jennifer Hudson queried counselors to come up with examples of the types of employees they're helping. One couple were going through a divorce, and the wife told ComPsych counselors that financial stress was the final trigger. They had maxed out their credit cards and were living off credit in hopes that they could keep their house. Another woman called because she suspected her husband was gambling again, apparently hoping to win big so they could repair their financial mess. She was afraid they were going to have to move in with her parents, ComPsych says.

For Gary Sweredoski of Myrtle Beach, S.C., the threat of losing his home to foreclosure has taken both a physical and an emotional toll. In 2007, Sweredoski, who had no health insurance, underwent triple bypass surgery and wound up with more than $300,000 in medical bills. Then Sweredoski, 60, a real estate broker, saw his business suffer as the housing market crashed.

Today, he and his wife, Irene, struggle to make the mortgage payment on the dream home they built in Myrtle Beach and are trying to stave off foreclosure. Like many other homeowners struggling with the financial consequences of the housing slump, Gary says the emotional pain can be severe.

Standing on his deck overlooking a lake where ducks swim and bobbing pontoon boats drift by, he says such circumstances "shatter your pride and become very humiliating, even though the circumstances are not of our making.

"The situation keeps you up at night, preventing you from getting the rest you need. A lot of the depression that I feel, I do in private," he says.

"It angers you. It frustrates you. It has a large bearing on your emotional state. When the thought of losing a home looms, you lose more than a building. You lose what you worked for so many years, all of the equity that you have accumulated over the years. It's humbling. It affects us deeply."

Rising depression, suicide rates

Historically, research shows, rates of depression and suicide tend to climb during times of economic tumult.

The sense of Hopelessness. The phenomenon and effects of the Mortgage crisis.

Many mental-health crisis and suicide hotlines are reporting a surge in calls from Americans feeling despair over financial losses.

It's unknown if the economic meltdown will lead to more suicides, says Lanny Berman, executive director of the Washington-based American Association of Suicidology. "Maybe the fact that so many are calling is a positive sign. They're seeking help."

Although suicides spiked during the Great Depression, they didn't increase in subsequent recessions, which lasted an average of 10 months, according to the suicidology group's website. The current recession is 13 months long and counting.

Concern centers on rising unemployment, Berman says, because the unemployed have two to four times the suicide rate of employed adults.

Also, there's a strong link between humiliating losses and committing suicide. "Losing your job, losing your home — these are such major losses," Berman says. Although the majority can cope, adults who already have mental health problems or lack supportive relationships are most vulnerable, he says.

Calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline jumped 36% from 2007 to 2008, totaling 545,000 last year, says director John Draper. But callers were increasing before the economic collapse, and about half of the added calls in 2008 came from taking over a veterans' suicide line, Draper says.

He is worried because a lot of adults phoning a hotline with resources for those facing foreclosure (888-995-HOPE ) say they feel isolated, as if they're the only one facing this problem.

"This sense of aloneness is part of suicidal thinking," Draper says.

Among areas with suicide hotlines reporting increases in callers since the economy slid: Dallas; Pittsburgh; suburban San Francisco; Hyattsville, Md.; Georgia; Delaware; Detroit.

In Boston, more hotline callers with mental health problems mention job losses, evictions or fear that they'll lose their homes, says Roberta Hurtig, executive director at Samaritans Inc.

In Kalamazoo, Mich., and other locales, callers with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder say loss of insurance and cutbacks in public health programs are preventing them from getting medications.

At the Gary, Ind., Crisis Center, suicidal callers with economic worries are increasing, and their depression is more severe, says Willie Perry, program coordinator for the hotline.

"There's more hopelessness. They don't see a way out," she says. "We try to help pull them up by the bootstraps, but the bootstraps are a lot lower than they used to be. The grim phenomenon is rearing its head: the suicide of homeowners who have lost their homes during the mortgage crisis is getting on the tip of the iceberg and nobody seems to care.


Police in Taunton, Mass., report today that Carlene Balderrama, 53, a wife and mother, shot herself to death Tuesday afternoon -- 90 minutes before her foreclosed home was scheduled to be sold at auction. Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company at 2:30 p.m., saying that "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead."

The mortgage company notified police, who found her body at 3:30 p.m. The auction had been scheduled to start at 5 p.m., when bidders showed up at the house and found it surrounded by police cruisers. But, unbeknownst to buyers and to Balderrama, the auction had been postponed by the time she grabbed her husband's high-powered rifle, [Police Chief]O'Berg said.".

This is a middle-class family, a husband working, the son is working," O'Berg said. But the housing crunch, he said, "is inflicting real pain on middle-class Americans

The Rule of Law or the Law on their own Hands?.






As the public debate over immigration reform has taken center-stage in American politics and public life, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other racists have declared "open season" on immigrants and attempted to co-opt and exploit the controversy by focusing their efforts -- and their anger -- on the minority group at the center of the controversy: Hispanics specially Mexicans.

As a result, to a level unprecedented in recent years, America's Latino immigrant population has become the primary focus of hateful and racist rhetoric and extreme violence -- aided, abetted and encouraged by America's white supremacist and racist haters.
Spurred in recent years by the debate on Capitol Hill and the groundswell of grassroots activism in support of America's immigrant community, extremists have become increasingly emboldened by, and fixated on, the controversy over immigration policy, encouraging their supporters to capitalize on the issue by encouraging anti-immigrant activism, and even violence against all Hispanics.

While white supremacists have for many years attempted to exploit rising anti-immigration sentiments in the U.S., the level and intensity of their attacks against Hispanics has reached dangerous new highs, with right-wing extremists joining anti-immigration groups, distributing anti-immigrant propaganda and holding frequent anti-immigration rallies and protests.
As a result, Hispanics, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status, increasingly are becoming the targets of hatred and violence from hardcore white supremacists.

Racists ranging from neo-Nazis to Klansmen to racist skinheads are among the most active anti-immigration activists in the country. Motivating their actions is the core conviction of modern white supremacist ideology: That the white race itself is threatened with extinction by a "rising tide of color" controlled and manipulated by Jews. This following report examines the recent record of extreme rhetoric and violence from white supremacist groups and their followers that has played out against the backdrop of the immigration debate in America.

White supremacists have not simply expressed racist convictions, but have urged each other and white Americans generally, to "fight back" against the perceived invasion of the "white" United States by Hispanics from Mexico.

The rhetoric in such pronouncements has grown increasingly radical. "Beaner Brown Supremacist Militias of Latino Communist immigrants firmly intend to conquer [the southwest]," suggested a topic heading on the white supremacist Legion of Saints message board recently.

Will White Americans sit back, watch it happen & let them do it? Or will
White Americans 'remember the Alamo?'"

White supremacist groups have organized a number of explicitly anti-immigration events and have also protested at events held to support immigrant rights.

For example, White Revolution, an Arkansas-based neo-Nazi group, asked its followers to participate in a national "Anti-Invasion Day" on April 10, 2006, in response to pro-immigrant marches planned for that day. A posting by the group on a hate Web site claimed that "illegal immigrants push for civil war." Such voices are unfortunately hardly isolated.

Here are just a few recent examples: Aryan Nations faction leader August Kreis in October 2005 claimed on his Web site that "this infestation of cockroaches need deportation or extermination!" If legal means of "stopping this rising tide" were not enough, "then these brown squat monsters should begin to turn up dead all across Amerika…We now have another game animal to add to our list of available targets for our favorite pastime, hunting, and we'll declare permanent OPEN SEASON on these dirty wetbacks! From what I have heard through the grapevine the Skinheads and Klans across the country are more than prepared for this type of action. I say let's play by state and see which state can claim the most kills and let the jewsmedia whores keep score!"

Oregon National Socialist Movement leader Jim Ramm wrote in June 2005 that "the browner invasion is much like a cancerous tumor that should of [sic] been removed. But instead, it was allowed to grow and infect other organs…as this brown disease rages out of control the white patient faces racial death."

Kevin Strom, leader of the neo-Nazi National Vanguard, gave a shortwave radio broadcast in June 2005 in which he claimed that "These Mestizo invaders are so different from us that by mixing with them or being dispossessed by them we will cease to live, we will cease to be ourselves or have a place to exist to support the lives of our future generations. And that is the crucial reason why this invasion must be stopped."

"AllisioRex," a member of the neo-Nazi web forum Stormfront, wrote in July 2005 that "they are barbarians, they are our enemies, they want to destroy our civilization and we have to fight them. We need to organize better and be more open activists; otherwise, I only see race war in the future."

Another Stormfronter, "Strasser," wrote in November 2005 that "White minorityhood on a national level is a very real possibility. How can White folk tolerate this? Do they care that most minority populations become a cultural hostage? What is the interest in having their children a minority on a mestizo dominated campus? Mestizo immigration is going to force White America to make some very important decisions."

Such statements appear routinely on white supremacist Web sites and in white supremacist literature. Perhaps the white supremacist most active in explicitly advocating extreme violence against Hispanics is New Jersey racist radio talk show host Hal Turner. He reserves his most extreme statements to urge violence against illegal immigrants from Mexico:

October 31, 2005: "Slowly but surely we are headed toward the solution that I have been advocating for years: KILL ILLEGAL ALIENS AS THEY CROSS INTO THE U.S. When the stench of rotting corpses gets bad enough, the rest will stay away."

October 11, 2005: "For years I have been publicly advocating on my radio show and this web site, that Mexican illegal aliens be SHOT DEAD as they cross into the U.S. illegally…I plant the seeds verbally and the seeds grow in the minds of others…I am proud to advocate even MORE killings!"

July 15, 2005: "I once again advocate EXTREME VIOLENCE against Mexicans…Once they're dead, their heads should be cut off and put on pike poles as a warning to others."

May 17, 2005, responding to news that a restaurant owned by the mayor of Denver had employed an illegal alien who allegedly murdered a police officer: "…his policy of affording sanctuary to other illegal aliens makes Mayor John Hickenlooper worthy of being KILLED. I sincerely hope that someone takes a rifle with a scope and puts a bullet through [his] head."

May 15, 2005: "I advocate extreme violence against illegal aliens…I think it would be terrific to trap them by their ankles in steel bear traps then beat them to death when you return and find them in the trap…Oh, if any American sides with the illegals—like a bigmouth politician or a politically correct, ass-kissing local sheriff, lawyers, judges, or the like—it would be a real public service to kill them too!"