Hunker Down, It's Gonna Get Worse

Hunker Down, It's Gonna Get Worse

To steal a phrase from many journalists, editorialists, and pundits, our financial system is in a meltdown! At this point the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about 5,700 points from its high this year of 14,200. THAT'S DOWN FORTY PERCENT! And even though our government and others around the world are moving fast to try to stop this crash, it looks like they may take the wrong course of action. Although the market moved down very fast, it could take years to bottom out and move back up. Consumer spending is drying up and that is the true engine of our economy. As a friend of mine used to say, "No mun, no fun!"

Talk about scared, just look inside my head! Being one who has almost no savings left after the last few years I have had, any disruption in my employment could put me on the street. I believe that, as the economy always does, it will eventually improve and be the envy of the world again... in the long term. Unfortunately, people like me, who have no financial safety net, live in the short term and we may be pushed into the void. A place from which some of us may never recover.

I go to my job like a chain-gang prisoner beaten into submission. There are few, if any, opportunities for me since my sector of the economy has been shrunken by outsourcing and overtraining for the last several years. Every other person who does the same job as I do is holding on tight, so what job would be there for me? Ten or twelve years ago people with my skill set were in high demand. Now with so many others trained to do my job and willing to work for less, and the huge number of jobs that I am qualified for that have been sent overseas, I would be forced to suffer unemployment for months or to take work way below my current pay level and skill level. In the last ten years my pay has increased 9% while the cost of living has increased over 33%. I've been in a recession for ten years!

It seems to me that whatever help the government gives should go directly to help the increasing ranks of the poor and the weakening middle class. The banks that fail may deserve it. Isn't it the height of "trickle-down" economic theory to "rescue" them? Shouldn't we let them fail while at the same time helping regular people who are suffering because of it? I am obviously no economist but "bottom-up" economics makes way more sense to me.

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