The sky is falling. Okay, well maybe not yet but I sure have been reading a lot of articles about gloom and doom. Our budget deficit is around $9.5T (yeah, that’s trillion), real estate is declining rapidly, consumer prices are rising rapidly, loans are harder to come by, our national spending is increasing and is causing billions of dollars in increases to our national debt, consumer credit is out of control, layoffs are imminent at many companies, local and state governments are not hiring and I could go on and on.
What I can’t tell from all this is when the crisis starts. Is it time to panic yet? I’ve been practicing running around the yard yelling, "We’re all gonna die!!!!" so that I’m ready when the time is right.
Seriously though. How do we work our way out of this tough spot? Does it just take time for the magic to happen? Do we just hold on and keep doing what we’re doing? My gut tells me NO. The only solution that I can see is for a drastic change in behavior at the consumer level and at the governmental level. We need a drastic change in strategies here. The longer we wait to face our reality, the worse it’s going to be.
I read an article yesterday that talked about how a depression might actually be good for our country. After the initial shock that someone might think that, I read on. The author’s point is that we need a shock to our system. We need people to experience the pain of not having everything in order to alter their behavior. It’s hard to argue that something isn’t needed to change people’s approach to money management. While I don’t want to see our country go in to a depression, part of me wonders if we are headed there no matter what. If you only read one article that I’ve linked to here today, I’d make it the link in this paragraph.