Our country needs much more than a physical/environmental infrastructure investment

[Billy Burnett]

This nation needs a WPA program for all forms of health care, including mental health care (not just pill pushing, but real care).

One example of why this should to be a high priority ...

Port St Lucie Mom Kills Son, Tries To Kill Self
Woman Says She Didn't Want To Leave Son Behind
http://www.wpbf.com/news/18364947/detail.html

Police said a Port St. Lucie mother was arrested after she killed her 8-year-old son and then tried to kill herself.

A local psychologist discussed what could lead a woman to do something like that on Christmas Eve.

Neighbors said they don't understand how Eryn Allegra could have killed her son.

"I can't believe it," neighbor Leo Cueto said. "We were just stunned when we heard it. She must've been terribly depressed."

Port St. Lucie police said the young mother confessed to killing her son and then tried to take her own life at a Holiday Inn.

"All of us have thresholds, and stress can take us to the point of doing things that we would not think imaginable," said nationally recognized stress expert Dr. Terry Lyles.

Lyles said desperation drove Allegra to kill her child.

"This lady was unemployed for more than a year, probably thought there was no other hope for her and somehow just spiraled down to take this into her own hands," Lyles said.

According to police, Allegra said she had also lost her home and thoughts of suicide had been on her mind for months. Police said she told them she couldn't bear to leave her son behind, so she drugged him, smothered his face with a pillow and then took a razor blade to her wrists and arms.

"What she needed to do was reach out and she didn't," Lyles said.

Neighbors said things could have been different if she had said something sooner.

"People are very close, and if she needed any help, there would've been somebody to help her," Cueto said.

"Instead of reaching out to people, she ended up being totally in isolation that pulled her away from people, and comes up with this story and ends up thinking it's the best thing to do for her and her son -- bad decision," Lyles said.

But Lyles said Allegra isn't alone. As the recession continues, Lyles said stories like Allegra's will become more common as more people reach a point of no return.

"Just don't isolate yourself to think that you're the only one in this situation," Lyles said. "There are millions of people facing layoffs and potential loss of everything they have, but they'll live on. We can recreate ourselves. It happened during the Great Depression, it can happen again."

Lyles emphasized that if you or someone you know reaches a breaking point, there are crisis hot lines and other resources available.

[patrice]

1. We need person-centered culture change. nt

[ikojo]

2. Creating highway jobs will not cause

wage increase for all workers. People who have jobs now need to be paid more money to put more money in our pockets.

I've heard talk about a sales tax holiday several times a year. What good is a sales tax holiday if people don't have the money to spend? It's the lack of green that keeps the machine from running.

[regnaD kciN]

4. So, how do we increase wages for all workers...?

So much of our current predicament is due to offshoring (predominantly blue-collar manufacturing) jobs to Asia. Trying to preserve high-wage jobs via protectionism might have worked well a decade or two ago, but, by now, it would be like trying to rebuild our industry from the ground up. And who's going to do that when it means pretty much saying bye-bye to the rest of the world's markets?

After a quarter century of cheering on the global race to the bottom, it's going to be awfully hard to undo it. And there's a real danger of a time-lag between starting a protectionist policy and seeing the fruits of it -- initially, before workers' wages can catch up and start to climb, you're going to see a lengthy stretch where the only effect will be already-strapped worker/consumers having to pay more for everything, as increased tariffs will put an end to the smiley-face specials at Wal*Mart. How long do you think middle-class Americans, already struggling to make ends meet, will endure significantly increased prices for everything from grain to sneakers to televisions before such a "buy American" policy pays off in higher wages for them? Odds are, by the time such a payoff came, Obama's popularity would be even lower than Dubya's at its worst.

Sad to say, I really don't know the answer to this. I wish I did.

[anigbrowl]

5. You make a good point. This is why I'm not in favor of just jacking up tariffs.

The problem is that while we now have a mixed economy consisting of natural resource use, some manufacturing, services, and IP, it's not easy for people to just move from one sector to another. If you've had a manufacturing job and lose it, you can't just shrug your shoulders and start designing the next iPod in your newly available free time. When it comes to unskilled and semi-skilled labor, there's no avoiding the fact that India and China have a strong comparative advantage, and they're not going to roll back their own economic gains of the last few decades (and nor should they - after all, people in those countries are equally entitled to pursue economic gain).

[AndyTiedye]

3. How Would the WPA Model Apply to Health Care?

Therapists require years of training, doctors even more.
WPA put people to work doing unskilled labor.