The news about Obama winning the elections has quickly been replaced with a series of scary headlines:

"Unemployment Rate at 14-Year High After Big October Losses" --NYT

"Wolves at the door: Financial mess and gathering recession dominate Barack Obama's agenda" --Economist

"US Carmakers Said to Seek $50 Billion in US Loans" --Bloomberg

A little thrift is good, but not too much. Thrift stores are doing booming business these days. I happen to think that there are some positive aspects to the resurgence of thrift stores in our economy. It helps groups like the Salvation Army make more money for their charitable endeavors.

Hi Everyone,
I am new to the YPF blog, thanks for having me. I want to share two exciting things that have been going on at Green For All over the part month.

One is this:

I probably would have not known anything about Elkhart, Indiana but for the terrible economic crisis that is affecting the nation.  Most of what we hear is in terms of bailouts of major financial institutions, losses for the mutual funds industry with repercussions to the pension fund holdings of many workers, but I had never envisioned that

I just moved to New York City. I never thought I would be saying those words but that's the truth- I did just move to New York City, the Big Apple, the home of about 16 million people, the city with the most languages being spoken at any given moment in the U.S. I was about to call one of the trains I was getting on recently the yellow line, and someone said whatever you do- don't call it the yellow line because you're from DC and that's what they do there. I heard that and I thought about the last conversation I had about the train lines in DC.

How does a young person make it in today’s economy? How does someone just getting out of college with an education financed by students loans get a job that leaves them enough money to pay their loans, eat and drive to work.  The economic slowdown is affecting young people. Finding a job has become harder. And getting that first job is more important as costs of basic goods and services are rising. Food is more expensive and the price of gas has gone up dramatically. Despite the decrease in home values due to the mortgage market crisis housing is still very expensive.

Stimulus Checks Appear to be doing what they were supposed to do ( Today's wall street Journal).

I've been fortunate enough to join some of the YP4 staff here at the Netroots Nation Conference in Austin, Texas. One of the goals I shared with other YP4 attendees was connecting with other leaders in the progressive movement who have used the blogsphere as a means of pushing our respective social concerns, particularly racial/gender/economic justice. While my main passion lies in healthcare reform and inequalities in health, based on my personal experience and academic/civil work, I recognize the need to learn about other areas, including the environment, workers' rights, access to affordable higher education, and how they affect our nation's health.

Being a person with a disability is difficult, but reading an article from Disaboom entitled “Top election issues for people with disabilities” by Kim Dority which was posted at http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverSouth/Stories/Sound-Off/Politics/Story~484899.aspx (viewed on 6/19/08) shocked me. The article pointed out that people with disabilities are the largest minority group in the world. I had never thought of people with disabilities as minorities.

Many thoughts have been dancing in my head since I've been here at Take Back America. One of the most convincing and inspiring, however, has been the notion that we can solve both America's environmental and economic woes in one fell swoop.