Everyday in Every way Things are Getting Better and Better - NOT!
After the melt down of 2009 I am amazed to read and to hear on TV that the economic recovery while slow in getting here is right around the corner and that by the second quarter of the year we will be sitting pretty and will all be driving brand new cars. That everything is just peachy. That like Pollyanna things are just getting better and better.
Well folks, it is time to take off the rose colored glasses and that a long cold hard look at reality. Yea I know reality bites, but it is reality and far better to be prepared then to blindly stumble into collective poverty.
Fact one. The patient (The Economy) is on life support, if not dead, it just doesn't know it yet. All that is holding things together is smoke, mirrors, compounding debt and creative accounting. That and the desire of most people to believe that all is well and that someone, somewhere has things well in hand.
The unemployment rate is at an all time high despite billions of dollars being spent on job stimulus. The number of home loans in default, range up to 25% (mortgages from 2007 are 24% in default and 2008 loan are 20% in default the FHA reported) and most loans are technology in default as the underlying value of the property is no longer able to support the mortgage.
Did I mention that no one is in control and the ones we think should be, Presidents, Prime Ministers, Finance Ministers and the heads of the Central Banks of the Major Nations, are as clueless as anyone else. It is a case of - as long as we all believe that the bubble won't bust then it won't bust, but like the little boy in “The Emperor's New Clothes”, someone is going to point out that, BUBBLE what Bubble, and it will all come crashing down.
Fact Two. The only person that can look after you is you. Repeatedly FEMA, the
National Guard, Local and State / Provincial, and Federal Governments have shown that they are helpless in the face of Disaster, natural or man made. So we need to look back a couple of generations and see how our forefathers managed to survive with no phone, no power, no TV, no interstate highway system, no car. They can show us how to cope with life with no modern conveniences and ways to get things done without electricity..Fact Three. The only real assets you have is your knowledge and the ground you can use to grow food. Everything else is only of value if you can con someone else into buying it. In economics this is known as “The Greater Fool Theory”
The best things you can do for yourself is learn a new skill, and that doesn't mean mastering a new video game, I am talking about learning to weave, or blacksmith, welding, how to build a house, auto mechanics, gardening, skills that you will need to survive and prosper in the new economy.
It comes down to being prepared for and ready to take on the challenge of a life after the bubble bursts.
Cheap-O Economics
