This final note today. Enough from us about The Real Economy and the election. A moment now for some voices of New Yorkers and what they think.
Vishal Thanik’s daughter: We’re selling Girl Scout cookies.
Vishal Thanik: Selling Girl Scout cookies, at an incredibly well-trafficked stoop. Well, I’m in plastic surgery, constructive plastic surgery, so most of it’s necessary. I don’t really do cosmetic surgery but if you talk to cosmetic surgeons, it was a huge drop-off, like almost immediately. And even though it’s come back to some degree, people are certainly doing less than they used to do. I think that generally it’s so expensive to live in this city that if you’re able to live here, you’re probably relatively less affected than the majority of people in the country. Otherwise you probably couldn’t or wouldn’t live here anymore. So yeah, I think we are quite skewed.
Susan Pierce: I am a long, long time resident of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. Right now we’re doing this flea market for the church, where we can sell things to help us with repairs and renovations. We have a prayer box and we’ve experienced a number of prayer requests asking for employment opportunities, and it seems like we’ve gotten more than what we ever had before.
Jim Costaldo: I’m walking my dog in the middle of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. [My dog] Kubusch wants to be on the radio, too. For me, the economy has been a little bit difficult because I teach English to foreigners, and consequently I depend on immigrants, but immigrants have stopped coming to the states given the fact that they can find jobs abroad more easily in some situations. And in others, jobs here are too difficult to find.
Creating jobs is hell, it’s not an easy thing to do for any president. And creating jobs is trying to create an atmosphere in which people will be encouraged to hire, and that atmosphere hasn’t been created by either President Obama or Romney in terms of what he’s talked about, so I’m kind of negative on both on that one. I’ve always voted, but this time, I wonder. [Dog barks] I’m sorry guys. Well that’s a Brooklyn scene, we can’t avoid that.
Ann Hepperman helped produce that piece for us.
We’ll have another voice on the broadcast Friday: A sit-down with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and what he thinks about the financial crisis and a whole lot more.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
