Our self fulfilling prophesy

As we all read the morning news paper or our favorite web feed, the world does indeed look like a dismal place. But the more we read, the more we react. We buy less, stay at home, or if we are bosses, begin to look for who we can lay off.

This cycle presents our self fulfilling prophecy of doom. If our companies continue to layoff, who will stimulate the economy? Airline employees who are laid off, will be much less likely to fly anywhere. Construction workers who are laid off, will not buy supplies to remodel their homes or buy new appliances. Laid off auto workers do not lease new cars. Retail workers who are laid off will not go to the store to shop. Bank employees will not (nor be allowed to) take out new loans. Collectively, the flow of money has stopped. That flow is from the bottom up, from each of us back into the economy. That is what stimulates more purchasing, that stimulates the need for more workers to meet the demand, that stimulates the economy.

Credit card companies struggling to raise capital, raise rates, pushing the monthly payments on card holders existing debt to the breaking point, resulting in yet more defaulted loans, not a continuing stream of payments.

State Governments looking to raise revenues to balance budget deficits built over the years from spending that would make a drunken sailor envious, raise taxes on "Sin" items, and implement fee's that effectively reduce the number of units sold. For example, if you tax soda pop, less people will buy soda pop, sending us back to square one.

Who will step forward to reduce this cycle so basic to any economic theory? Bailouts need to be directed to those who have been laid off, or are struggling to responsibly pay off their individual debts. For if we all wait for the bailout money given to major corporations to stimulate the economy, we will all be standing in soup lines for some time to come.

Crash and Burn or dig out of the ditch

I was listening to a radio station today and the host began to foretell the fall of America that he felt would occur within the next ten years. Well, he is not the only one.

BUT.... this is a prime example, and indication of the apathetic attitude that prevails in some, indeed too many.

If this was said by anyone just 5 years ago they would have caused an outrage and been accused of some terrorist act. But today, not a peep. Does this mean that we all believe it?

Well get off your goddamn ass!!! or it will be the end of us.

Are you waiting for the government to bail us out? The cure of the day? Well sucker, it's a dream. Just look at how the bailout money was spent. duuhhhh wait,...Can't find it? Well that's because no one knows sucker! $350 Billion of our money and the people who gave it away don't know where it went, or they aren't saying. Hey, if I wanted my banker to fund my beach house I wouldn't push them too hard either. Do you actually think the doling out of $350 Billion didn't involve back room deals? We have just experienced the biggest shell game since creation or the big bang, what ever side your on.

This country was built on it's people, working together, you and me. If you are laid off, you have two choices sit there with your six pack texting your friends or get out and do something. Start a business, help a neighbor, run for local office, write a letter to congress, find a new skill and start putting bread on the table again. Go to the local farm and ask to help. (Farms usually have food)

It is time to stand up as a country, unite, dig ourselves out of the ditch, not wait for our government, or the Chinese, to bail us out of this problem. We would have never had success in WWII (and no I was not there) with the submissive, jump into the ditch and hide attitude many of us have. If we don't start yelling, they will do what ever they want and view out at us from behind their towering fences surrounding their beach front properties as we fight for the scraps that are left over.