Years ago I warned of a significant economic downturn to hit this country with the end result being a devaluation of our currency. Folks, the dollar is going to end up getting trashed.
Call me a doomer if you will but I am by no means the only one. Many have sent out the call for one and all to get their financial affairs
in order and to prepare for the worst. The U.S economy is currently in a downward spiral.
The view from this christian country girl is the following:
We have consumed until we've spent ourselves ragged and into a corner in regards to the credit situation. Our Government has spent billions on an unjust war with Iraq and now the chickens have come home to roost. The mortgage mess is one in which we have yet to see the final outcome. Folks, this is not by any stretch of the imagination over. We've only just begun to see the tragic effects on our country because of it. Credit cards have only gotten us into one big mess. Easy
credit is never the way. Spending on things without using cash will bring us many miseries and this is what many of us have only recently found out. Our governments way out of this nightmare is to throw money at the problem by bailing out major corporations who have only proved that they cannot be trusted. These failing companies are good at throwing parties and dishing out fat bonuses to their CEO's, but fail miserably at taking care of
the meat and potatoes which truly help them the most - their workers. For their employees, they offer pay cuts, lay-offs and early retirements!
Lay-offs are at record highs now and if you want to see something which will knock your socks off and may wake you up to the sorry state of our economy, visit here folks, it is an interactive map which shows the literal vanishing of jobs in our
country since 2006. The projected stimulus package is a joke and is not going to help the common man. Here is a website which discusses our leaders considering cuts to such needed programs such as Head start and food-stamps. I know that many countries are dealing with their own financial mess, it's not just us. But I am a firm believer that as far as finances go, as we go, so goes the rest of the world. What is the New York Stock Exchange? It is the main artery to which the other countries are joined in respect to world finances. It's been the economic capital of the world for some time now. Where are we getting the money for the bail-outs? Where does the TARP (troubled asset recovery program) money come from? My friends the only answer is that we are printing money so fast that our presses
will soon explode. What do I think will happen next?
Our dollar will be DEVALUED. I know it has been coming, I warned of it in my article:
"Economic Collision Just Ahead: The Titanic has nothing on America". Here is another incredible website which lists the layoffs and closings in our nation
every single day: Layoff Daily.
I visit this site and regularly and I have been increasingly disturbed at the enormous number of people who are losing their jobs. My heart goes out to every single one. Why are we not seeing more families homeless? Well, that is coming my
friends. No doubt you have heard of the tent cities springing up all over our nation. What will we do in order to help people who have been affected by job loss and other financial hardships
and how hard will it be to help them when we ourselves may end up the ones who are in need of help?
What is my advice for those who are worried they will lose their income and end up on the streets? If you don't have a job, look for one immediately and once you get one, stay put! If you have recently been laid off, see if you can draw unemployment, although if you are able to do this it won't last forever. So here is what we all must do no matter if we have a job or not, Get back to the basics... In other words, look and see where you can makes cuts. Cancel your cable, cell phone, Internet service, and other bills you have which are NOT necessities.
Also, think of ways to make your dollar go further than it's ever gone before. Stop buying things which are not necessary and if you have only a few feet of earth, plant a small garden. Buy products when they are on sale, take a look at what you are spending and decide that now you will have to do things differently. Don't buy that new car, instead take the cash and lay it down on an older model, who cares if you have a fancy car if you can't afford to eat and have peace of mind? I read only yesterday that states are considering cutting funding for certain medicare services such as home health, etc. This is absolutely astonishing! Counties are
laying off policemen, firefighters and EMT workers! Nurses and schoolteachers are not immune. Once this starts who in this world knows where we will end up. I made up my mind that me and mine would get back to the basics and in fact I am getting pretty good at it. When
I get paid I fill up my tank, get groceries, pay the bills for the week and rat-hole the rest of the money! Always before we may have went out to eat once a week or called in a pizza for delivery- my friends, those days are OVER. Although we can afford to do this, we will not because you never know when that $20.00 we would have spent for pizza could have come in handy on some necessity down the road.
I save my change and cash it in every 3 months at one of those coin counting machines. I plant a garden in the spring and I can, freeze and dehydrate every spare bit of fruit and veggies I can get my hands on. These are the things we must do in order to make a
positive lifestyle change in this horrid economic downturn. More on the sorry state of our economy in upcoming articles.
