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The Sobering Reality Of What Life Is Like In Reno, Nevada

What do you do when the city where you live is dying? All over the United States formerly great cities are crumbling, but some are definitely in worse shape than others. One reader recently wrote to me about what she sees happening all around her in Reno, Nevada. The unemployment rate in Reno is now up to 11.7 percent, which is well above the national average of 8.3 percent. But that doesn't tell the whole story. The recent recession hit Nevada particularly hard and people have been moving out of the state in waves. In fact, the labor force in Nevada has shrunk by close to 20 percent over the past year as workers have moved elsewhere in search of work. But even though the labor force is now nearly 20 percent smaller, the unemployment rate is still well above 11 percent. There simply are not enough jobs in large Nevada cities such as Reno and Las Vegas. Unfortunately for Reno, it does not have the same kind of big corporate money pouring into it that Las Vegas does. The good news is that you can buy a house very, very cheaply in Reno because homes were foreclosed on in droves during the housing crash. Even today, some housing developments that were put up near the end of the boom times look like virtual ghost towns. The main industry in Reno is "entertainment", but many of Reno's strip clubs and gambling establishments have aged so badly at this point that they just look kind of depressing. I guess that is kind of fitting, because Nevada has the fifth highest suicide rate in the nation, and Reno has been ranked as one of the top 10 depressed cities in the entire country. As the city has declined, gangs have moved in and the drug trade is flourishing. Reno has been called the meth capital of America, and crime is on the rise. Despite being surrounded by tremendous natural beauty, Reno has become a very unpleasant place in which to live. But what is happening in Reno is also happening in hundreds of other communities across the United States. Our economy is collapsing and our cities are crumbling right in front of our eyes, and it is only going to get worse from here. (Read More....)

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Ben Bernanke Says That His Son Will Graduate With $400,000 Of Student Loan Debt

Who ever imagined that Ben Bernanke would become a poster child for the student loan debt problem in America? Recently Bernanke told Congress that his son will graduate from medical school with about $400,000 of student loan debt. For most Americans, such a staggering amount of debt would almost certainly guarantee a lifetime of debt slavery. Unfortunately, Bernanke's son is not alone. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, approximately 167,000 Americans have more than $200,000 of student loan debt. The cost of a college education has increased much more rapidly than the rate of inflation over the past several decades, and most students enter the "real world" today with a debt burden that will stay with them for most of their working lives. In an economy where there are so few good jobs for college graduates, it can be incredibly difficult to get married, buy a house or afford to have children when you are drowning in student loan debt. It would be hard to overstate the financial pain that student loans are causing many young adults in America today. The student loan debt problem is a national crisis and it is not going away any time soon. (Read More....)