A little history of Life!

We spent Saturday night with my husbands' fantasy football team members having our annual get-together.  As we were all having dinner and talking about what we had all been up to in our lives, the discussion topic changed to the current state of affairs in our lives and country when it comes to the current financial mess.

As we all listened to those that had stories to tell, I couldn't help but think of the history of this whole scenario.  Here are some of the things that I came up with.  Feel free to add to the list!

1.  Remember when our National Government was more of an afterthought vs. today when it is the all knowing, rule making, terminal growth we deal with on a daily basis?  For example, back in the 'old days', most of the population could go weeks without hearing anything about the latest conflicts, fraud, spending or how our government was going to 'fix' the lastest problem.  We all worked together in our little communities and did what we could to fix the local problems.  If someone needed a little extra help, it usually started out at the Sunday church service where the congregation was informed of the problem and what was needed to help that family out.  By Sunday afternoon, food would be showing up at the familys' house, some would volunteer to help out with the fields or animals if the owner happened to be a farmer unable to accomplish his daily tasks.   There was no mention of money changing hands, favors being owed at a later date or a scoresheet being kept.  If you had something that you could part with or time that you could spare, no one gave a second thought to helping out.  The person in the situation was not judged or looked down upon.  After all, it could happen to any of us. " The only gift is a portion of thyself."  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

2.  Before the advent of 24 hour television, we had (most of us) 3 channels on our black and whites.  It was rare to turn the television on before the chores were done.  After all, if we sat watching the television, the laundry would not get done, cleaning the house would be put on hold and who would make the staples needed for the week?  Remember the saying, "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."  ~Abraham Lincoln

3.  Thinking back to how people looked at money, I can remember almost all of my grandparents not bothering to go to the bank.  Instead they kept their money at home.  Hidden in the strangest of places.  Of course, with the advent of the banking system enticing all of us to open accounts and receive that nifty coffee pot, we soon became customers.  After all, if someone was going to give you something for free, you would be a fool not to take advantage of the program.  Now we see most people depositing their paychecks electronically.  You don't even have to make a trip to these fine institutions to give them your money.  Of course the day of free 'premiums' have pretty much ended.  And, most of us are now in the situation of owing the bank much more money than we ever had hidden in our houses.  It took a lot of years to get all of us into this situation.  We were constantly told that the American Dream was to own a house, car (several in fact), take out a loan for that material thing that we could not possibly wait and save our pennies for and of course we were only too happy to pay the bank for the priviledge of getting access to money that for the most part, we could have lived just fine without.  

Then, the government came up with this great idea of Home Equity Lines of Credit and the bankers came up with the idea of credit cards.  Why wait to have what you want just because you don't have the money to pay for it now?  Let us help you to achieve your goals and dreams.  When did the dream of being thousands of dollars in debt and no longer having control over your financial life become a good thing to do?  Like a herd of cows, we were led to believe and do what all of the others around us were so excited about.  So, how's that latest credit purchase looking to you now?  Do you still get as much enjoyment out of it knowing that based on most payment schedules for the loans or credit, you will probably be paying close to 40% more than it originally cost?  How is that helping you to improve your life when you are looking at ways to make the minimum payments?  Do you think that it would be a good idea to get back to a positive cash flow?  Do you even remember how to do that?  "The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight-of-hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in inequity and born in sin... But if you want to continue to be slaves of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers continue to create money and control credit."
Josiah Charles Stamp

 

4.  That brings me to the ultimate American falsehood.  Our fantastic retirement/401k/Roth IRA accounts.  Remember the days when you either had your 'retirement' funds hidden at home, put into interest bearing (ok, I know it was not a great rate) savings accounts or CD's, city bonds, ect.?  Remember all of the hype via our great government, IRS and banking system when the politicians finally passed those great rules for these things?  Where were we all told to put it?  Yup, the stock market.  Did any of us even think about what the Stock Market really was?  How it operated?  Who was in Charge?  Nope, we once again turned into a herd of cows and followed the crowd.  After all there were so many 'people in the know' that were more than willing to help us achieve that dream of sandy beaches and cruising the world after the age of 65.  And, the fees that they were going to charge us were not really that bad.  After all, this meant that we wouldn't really have to pay attention to what they were doing with our money.  They were the experts!  

So, here we are.  Looking at each other and wondering what the heck happened.  When did we lose control of our lives?  How is the government going to help us now?  This is what happened in a period of 2 generations.  So, what do you have to show for it and how are we going to fix it?  Of course, the people that we gave all of this power to are more than willing to show the herd which way to go...

Have a great week!