Does anyone feel this country is not in a deep recession? Jobless rates continue to rise and the economy is stalled. Houses are not being built, bought or sold and the stock market has devastated many investments and retirement accounts. Large financial institutions are in serious crises and some of the remaining few manufacturing industries in this land such as our automobile industry are on the verge of collapse. My friends we have definitely seen better times for our beleaguered county. Even the world economy is suffering. This recent economic disaster is one that has been a long time coming for sure! Look at our economy over the last forty years. We don’t really make anything in this country anymore and we have not done so for a while. There was a time when we made almost everything-electronics, appliances, cars, shoes, clothes and even most of our food products. Take a look at your groceries sometime. Many come from other parts of the world. We import almost every item that was once made here in this country. We are told we have become a “service Industry” economy but if no one makes anything here how much service type jobs can you really have in your society.
Another major problem is huge debt. Consumer debt is rampant and many people are tied into credit card and loan debts that foreclose opportunities to use the money elsewhere- thus adding to the problem! We have little money to invest and save and when we do the earnings if there are any are taxed by a government that spends way beyond its limits instead of using that money to create jobs, retain jobs and stimulate our economy. Financial institutions are no better off and Congress is throwing money at them in order to starve off disasters of collapses which will only serve to weaken our economy even further and drive our deep recession into a depression. The greed and corruption of many business and their decisions to exploit impoverish foreign workers by taking their production offshore has crippled this county and its fragile economy.
However, you know what the major factor that drives our economy as has done so for many years? It is what really keeps it going although the points I raised above have clearly caused the problems we face today in our society. Our economy, its currency and the growth of economy through jobs, production, housing starts and the like essentially are driven by one major factor- confidence! The people have lost faith in their country, business, the government and our economy and even our money. The loss of confidence leads to further erosion of the strength of economy on top of the issues I discussed above. The economy would pick up and recover merely by the people having more faith and confidence in it and believe that things will get better and that we can get ourselves righted. However, it is hard to have faith in our economy and system when everything looks so bleak and fear captures us from all that we see around us.
Sometimes I like to think it is like the old adage of the chicken or the egg- which came first? We are expected to stimulate the economy by having confidence in ourselves and our economy yet there is little going on now to give us that confidence to take the first step in doing so and yet without such confidence we cannot begin to recover, we cannot begin to find answers, save our institutions, redefine our government’s thinking on building a stronger economic base and gain more confidence to further steer our country and its economy out of a path of destruction. We are expected to have blind faith and take the first steps to show confidence without much around us to support us. In reality we have nothing but faith to rely on to show that our confidence will be rewarded. Our currency really runs on blind faith. We went off the gold standard ions ago and in reality the value of the dollar has more to do with how much we believe it is worth than anything else. Confidence in our monetary system is what really drives the system and yet it still has value. Somehow, we must harness that same concept for our economy as well. If we have no faith that our economy can recover and rebuild and in our government and institutions, investments or even in ourselves then how can be expected to ever find solutions to the problems that confront us and starve off total collapse of our economy and our country and in turn ourselves. The question is who will take this first step. It must be our political and corporate leaders who must learn that politics and practices as usual will not be acceptable any longer to solving these deep economic problems and restoring our confidence in our systems and in our economy and ultimately in ourselves.
Another major problem is huge debt. Consumer debt is rampant and many people are tied into credit card and loan debts that foreclose opportunities to use the money elsewhere- thus adding to the problem! We have little money to invest and save and when we do the earnings if there are any are taxed by a government that spends way beyond its limits instead of using that money to create jobs, retain jobs and stimulate our economy. Financial institutions are no better off and Congress is throwing money at them in order to starve off disasters of collapses which will only serve to weaken our economy even further and drive our deep recession into a depression. The greed and corruption of many business and their decisions to exploit impoverish foreign workers by taking their production offshore has crippled this county and its fragile economy.
However, you know what the major factor that drives our economy as has done so for many years? It is what really keeps it going although the points I raised above have clearly caused the problems we face today in our society. Our economy, its currency and the growth of economy through jobs, production, housing starts and the like essentially are driven by one major factor- confidence! The people have lost faith in their country, business, the government and our economy and even our money. The loss of confidence leads to further erosion of the strength of economy on top of the issues I discussed above. The economy would pick up and recover merely by the people having more faith and confidence in it and believe that things will get better and that we can get ourselves righted. However, it is hard to have faith in our economy and system when everything looks so bleak and fear captures us from all that we see around us.
Sometimes I like to think it is like the old adage of the chicken or the egg- which came first? We are expected to stimulate the economy by having confidence in ourselves and our economy yet there is little going on now to give us that confidence to take the first step in doing so and yet without such confidence we cannot begin to recover, we cannot begin to find answers, save our institutions, redefine our government’s thinking on building a stronger economic base and gain more confidence to further steer our country and its economy out of a path of destruction. We are expected to have blind faith and take the first steps to show confidence without much around us to support us. In reality we have nothing but faith to rely on to show that our confidence will be rewarded. Our currency really runs on blind faith. We went off the gold standard ions ago and in reality the value of the dollar has more to do with how much we believe it is worth than anything else. Confidence in our monetary system is what really drives the system and yet it still has value. Somehow, we must harness that same concept for our economy as well. If we have no faith that our economy can recover and rebuild and in our government and institutions, investments or even in ourselves then how can be expected to ever find solutions to the problems that confront us and starve off total collapse of our economy and our country and in turn ourselves. The question is who will take this first step. It must be our political and corporate leaders who must learn that politics and practices as usual will not be acceptable any longer to solving these deep economic problems and restoring our confidence in our systems and in our economy and ultimately in ourselves.
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