The financial crisis has blown a massive hole in Australia's superannuation savings, with funds losing a fifth of their value in 2008. Almost 20 percent was wiped off the value of the average superannuation fund last year, with 2009 expected to bring further losses as the economic turmoil deepens, according to SuperRatings. read MOre

Nearly 45,000 Australians lost their jobs last month, according to official labour force figures, prompting further fears that the local economy may slip into a recession this year.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has announced that during December the jobless rate rose from 4.3 percent to 4.5 percent. read MOre

A boy's crusade to stop swearing has drawn the unwanted attention from notorious internet group Anonymous. McKay Hatch's No Cussing Club, which encourages teens to "chill on the profanity", claims to have over 20,000 members worldwide.
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AUTHOR Anthony Burgess once wrote that incidents of evil could not always be explained by a shortage of social workers. These days he might argue that not all criminal and obnoxious behaviour is a result of depression. But increasingly that's what teachers, parents and judges are being told. Depression has become the great excuse of our times and what is a genuine condition has been corrupted into a nifty carry-all excuse.
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NEW-GENERATION antidepressants, including the "happy pill" Prozac, may be no better at relieving the symptoms of depression than a dummy pill.
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A Sydney woman told by a doctor "life's a bitch" as she miscarried her baby in a NSW hospital is traumatised, her husband says. The woman is the latest to reveal her harrowing story of poor treatment while miscarrying in the state's public hospitals.
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A man in California has been arrested for arranging to sell his 14-year-old daughter for $US16,000 ($A23,577), 100 crates of beer and several cases of meat, police said on Tuesday.
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This site became possible because all of us believe in supporting others and not judging them for how they look or appear, don’t read a book just by its cover. Inside we can hide - we are not anymore. The reason I have started this website is so people who feel isolated and alone can share their experiences under any name they choose and not feel judged

Dusko Condic grew up in Bridgeport, on Chicago's south side, in a family of eight children. His mother was a widow. He says growing up in poverty during the Great Depression made him a stronger person.

Giggi Cortese, 81, has lived in Bridgeport all her life. Growing up during the Great Depression was hard, she says, but she drew strength from her family, friends and St. Jerome Catholic Church.

This is a retold story from my father. My parents married a few months before the depression hit Louisiana full-force. But the remarkable thing about this story is that I see no way it could happen in this day and age with big corporations as they behave now.

My father was an employee of Shell Oil Refinery in Norco, Louisiana, where the entire work force was called in for a meeting. Management (local,I assume) announced that there had to be a change, but it could work one of two ways. Half the work force could be laid off with those remaining keeping their full salary, or everyone could stay on working halftime at half salary. But the men involved were to vote and management would do what they elected. In typical Cajun country fashion,they voted to work halftime and keep everyone employed.

I have always thought that a remarkable story, but even more so in view of our own economic times. Just like my parents, I will also plant a larger garden, make more of what my family needs, and, as I was taught, "wear it out, use it up, fix it, and make-do." We have a good model of how to help our families survive hard-times.

I hate to say it ,but some of these folks are just to young being born in 32 or 33 just is too young. They are retelling story's they heard. It doesn't mean there less real. When I hear NPR talking first person it should be first person. My mother and father Grand Crossing Chicagoans and well into their 80's they remember

Thanks for making the story of the Great Depression personal.

Listening to George Will, you'd think FDR had done nothing to make things better, despite how much was spent on the New Deal.

The fact is, the New Deal kept a lot of people from starving, kept things from getting even worse, and built road, bridges, and many other things across the country.

I had Thanksgiving with my 83-year-old mother and her 86-year-old sister. No, they don't remember FDR getting elected the first time, and getting ready to take office (the way Obama is now), but they were poor, and everyone they knew was poor, so they really didn't know how bad off they were.

And the values they and their late husbands developed from that experience were lost on the "people in charge" the last 25 years. Thus, we made a mess that our grandchildren will have to clean up.

Thank Les Orear for the comments about the union. My Mom and Dad have their seperate stories about living through the Great Depression. In Maine, my mothers side, Smuggeling was an honored profession. Tough and dangerous work done by many to support their families in big and little ways. Mom bought her shoes in Canada, and droped the old pair into the river on her return home.

My dad lived in Anacostia, across the Patomic from D.C. He worked for my Grandfather, a carpenter, building "Speak easies", (a secret false end to a walk in closet that could serve as a bar.

Dad led me, when I was a child up a staircase under the rotundra. We came to a locked door, and an armed guard appeared suddenly behind us (I must have been about 8 so 1960?) "What!" asked the guard, "Do you think you are doing?" Cool as a cucumber, dad replied, "I'm going to show my little boy where I used to play on the roof." "No sir" said the guard, rather kindly, too. "It's been a long time since there has been any access to the roof."

Dad used to shine shoes for the Congressmen and Senators.

He saw the Bonus-Marchers burned off the Mall (Tooday no one even knows what a Bonus-Marcher was)

For years my dad has been warning me, (and anyone who would listen) that the policies set up by F.D.R have been under attack by the right. Our government has been picking away at Social Secruity, Bank Regulation, Graduated Income Tax, Unions, our Manufacturing base, and anything Keynesian. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Now is not the time for everyone to freak out because the government spends money to stabalize the economy. Now is exactly the time for government spending.

We better not let the car compaines go down just now; too many jobs are at steak.

I hope people like the good Senator Shelby, who is salivating to see the demise of unions, and car companies, will wake up and smell the coffee.

I think it is important to remember all of the aspects of these times, the good and the bad.

For me it is a reminder that no matter how bad it gets we cansurvive, we can find a way.

Some of these stories are not so different than ones I hear now. My mother came to the US in the 50s and her story is not so different than Mr Martinez.

My other grandmother grew up in the Depression, but even as they emerged from it her family remained poor.

Perhaps if we listen to the stories and retell them, we will find hope.

When someone is injured at work, the employer, injured worker and insurer each have responsibilities to ensure that the injury is managed properly and the injured worker is given all possible assistance to ensure the safe and speedy recovery.
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Injury management is about ensuring the prompt, safe and durable return to work of an injured worker.
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WorkCover is committed to NSW workplaces being among the safest of the world’s modern economies and ensuring that, when injuries do occur, the injury management and workers compensation schemes operate efficiently and effectively to provide security to those affected.
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