posted November 24, 2009 02:05 PM         

Nov. 24: Some people are turning the recession into a time of personal growth and financial reward. Msnbc.com’s Robert Hood reports.
MSNBC

By Sevil Omer
msnbc.com
updated 13 minutes ago

The recession has hit Terry Zimmerman hard. He is out of work, on the verge of being homeless and barely has money for food.

But the 47-year-old Army veteran from Sacramento still has something to be thankful for.

"My health," says the software programmer.

The recession forced Scott Winterton of Austin, Texas, to question everything about his life. In the end, the unemployed software engineer found a deeper connection to his faith and family.

"I realized that my faith was not in my paycheck or in the housing market," he says. "Since the recession, I've also noticed a change in the country and how we've taken a step back from excess."

Just shy of Thanksgiving Day, dozens of msnbc.com readers say they have found unexpected and uplifting turns during the struggling economy's darkest moments and rediscovered what they previously dismissed or took for granted: Family, friends and faith.

posted November 24, 2009 02:26 PM         

It's so liberating to be unemployed, being unable to make your mortgage payments and fending off lenders seeking to foreclose your home and repossess your car.

Equally helpful is all that spare time to spend contemplating your navel and thinking about the deeper aspects of human consciousness...as well as making critical decisions about what to watch on TV in the afternoons.

posted November 24, 2009 03:25 PM         

quote:

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Family, friends and faith.

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Yes indeed!

A commercial I heard today was:
it`s not important how big your t.v. is but rather who`s sitting around it with you.

The kicker is, how many families left have a home much less a t.v to sit around?

quote:

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It's so liberating to be unemployed, being unable to make your mortgage payments and fending off lenders seeking to foreclose your home and repossess your car.

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And now a potential forced insurance premium or fine on top of all that... Oh yes, give thanks and say amen for the hard working men & women who are jobless, homeless and hungry. .

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted November 24, 2009 05:36 PM         

i guess some people have more imagination than others when it comes to what to do with time off...

posted November 24, 2009 06:03 PM         

We don't need to reinvent the wheel here.

What works to curtail or shorten recessions and raise employment numbers are tax cuts to businesses across the board and reductions in individual income tax loads.

It works every time it's done.

It worked for Kennedy
It worked for Reagan
It worked for Bush

On the other hand, O'Bomber is following the massive spending on government and meddling in the private sector which is a copy of FDR policies...the very policies which prolonged the depression for an additional 7 years in the 1930s.

Japan tried the very same thing...increase the size, scope and spending on government.

The results of the Japanese experiment is called "The Lost Decade".

I hear you Juni.

posted November 25, 2009 09:03 AM         

Capitalism just runs in your blood, eh jwhop? That's nice for you, but for some people, it's nice to try and look at the good things that come from bad situations, not just sit there and point fingers and moan about it. Pretty sure that's what kat was trying to do.

posted November 25, 2009 11:17 AM         

the fact is that this all started when reagan and others of his ilk (thatcher comes to mind) opened the credit floodgates and made it "okay" to borrow enough to really get yourself in trouble. which trend bush pursued with a vengeance. in fact i remember in the 80s my bank in britain was offering incentives as big as rolls royces to lure people into borrowing. to ANYone. usury became the name of the banking game. and a lot of people who lost their homes were caught in the same kind of thinking. tomorrow might never come so hey, gimme my mansion until the whip comes down...

perhaps because i am in a field many consider luxury i felt it earlier than some others, but people started holding onto their money in 07 and the economy HAS been receding since then. the fact that no one wanted to admit it and acted as if giving out a couple of hundred dollars tax rebates would fix it does not change that. and the fact that the "opposition" wants to blame it on obama does not make it his creation.

and the fact that you would blame stubbing your toe on obama puts your criticisms in the "knee jerk" category, whether right or wrong.

posted November 26, 2009 09:05 AM         

juni

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted November 28, 2009 09:47 AM         

This article was not meant to lift spitits in a bad situation but rather to excuse the bungling O'Bomber insanity of doing exactly the opposite of what should have been done by putting a smiley face on O'Bomber's man made depression.