Love the one you're with
-Stephen Stills
2008 hasn't been a fun year. A recession was coming, but greedy and self-interested leaders brought us to the brink of a depression.
I'm angry about the shape we are in. I want to make sure it never happens again.
It wouldn't bother me to see a bunch of Wall Street CEOs lose their jobs, and take some of the Wall Street-enabling Congressmen with them.
On the other hand, I need to get past the anger. My family has to eat. Your family has to eat. It is time to focus on feeding them.
I have my eye on the clowns on Wall Street, but my feet are on Main Street, trying to make a buck.
We need to learn from the mistakes. Somewhere along the way, everyone lost touch with reality.
People bought houses, cars and clothes with the primary goal of impressing their neighbors. They took trips they couldn't afford and ran up credit card balances larger than their annual incomes.
Will Rogers once said that "America is the first nation to go to the poorhouse in an automobile."
Will didn't know about credit cards, designer clothes and subprime mortgages. Somewhere along the way, things got completely crazy.
It's easy to see how Wall Street and Washington got crazy, too.
The American economy was built around the idea that people would keep spending more than they made. It worked for a long time and then it all collapsed.
No great nation has ever been built on debt. No one has ever gotten rich by spending money foolishly.
We didn't break the trend.
Now is like the hangover after a three day drunk. We have to pay the piper.
I hated the Wall Street bailout from day one.
One of my biggest concerns was that we didn't teach the fat cats a lesson. We propped them up and kept them in business. We gave them over $700 billion with little accountability.
Instead of learning from the experience, Wall Street keeps screwing up. They fly on private jets to fancy conferences and give themselves million dollar bonuses.
Once the dust settles, it will be clear that we've done nothing to stop them from doing the same thing a couple of years from now.
There is only one way to stop them: Reduce the impact of Wall Street in our lives. We need to quit borrowing money from them and depending on them for employment.
Credit cards are only issued by a very few banks. For the most part, the issuer banks are the banks getting bailout money.
I don't know how a Citigroup collector is going to convince an unemployed worker that he has a moral obligation to pay up.
Thus, I am expecting huge credit card defaults in 2009.
There's a good side to the defaults, too. People won't be able to get new cards for a few years. They might learn to live within their means.
I don't have an all purpose credit card. (I have two gasoline cards.) I don't want one, and don't need one. Not having a card has not stopped me from doing what I want to do.
Our parents and grandparents lived without credit cards. We can, too.
Many of our grandparents didn't work for large corporations. They were self-employed farmers or laborers. We are headed back that way. We've been moving toward a nation of self-employed people since corporate employment peaked almost 40 years ago.
2009 will be the year of the accidental entrepreneur.
I have some experience in that. I came out of graduate school at Vanderbilt during the recession of 1982. The only employment I could find was working on the clean-up crew at the Kentucky Horse Park. (Which, now that I think of it, might have been good training for shoveling what Wall Street and Congress have been shoveling at us recently.)
Cleaning up after horses will cause you to look at other possibilities.
I didn't want to start my own business. But I just didn't have another choice.
26 years later, I'm glad it happened. Just like a lot of the accidental entrepreneurs of 2009 will eventually be happy, too.
For every laid-off auto worker, there is a potential car mechanic. And for every laid-off journalist, there is a potential blogger, teacher, or public relations guru.
I didn't want the economic crisis, but now it is time to make the best of it. If we wind up with a nation full of self-employed people who live within their means, it might work out for the best.
And if we can give Wall Street the finger, it's really going to be a bonus.
It will feel like a million bucks. Or a ride on a private jet.
Don McNay is the founder of McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Kentucky. You can read his award winning, syndicated financial columns at www.donmcnay.com or write to him at don@donmcnay.com McNay is the author of Son of a Son of a Gambler and The Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher. McNay is Treasurer of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
Follow Don McNay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Donmcnay
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Speaking of that stock market, if the banks won't lend with the borrowed Chinese dollars we lent them, then it's time for the Treasury to vacuum that 346 billion dollars back out of the vaults where it's being hoarded. There's far better uses for that cash than bailing out millionare
Would YOU be terribly upset if Morgan Chase, AIG or B of A went belly up? Me neither! :>)
Congress should consider backing our currency with gold, silver, and other commoditie
People may want to support an Amendment to the United States Constituti
If the federal government is serious about growing the economy and creating jobs, it should stop taxing interest from savings accounts, dividends, capital gains, and estates. People will be better able to pay credit card bills and make mortgage payments. Businesses will have an easier time obtaining loans and investment
The United States of America should end the trade embargo with Cuba. We trade with China. We should be willing to trade with Cuba. We should let in sugar, cigars, and many other products. Trading with Cuba may improve the lives of the Cuban people and improve the economic conditions in many southern states.
State government
I graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1992 with a BA Degree in Political Science and a minor in Economics.
I ran for United States Senate from New Hampshire in 2002.
My website is http://www
Sincerely,
Ken Stremsky
check out money is debt on google videos, it is an eye opener.
The point of this is that credit card companies are no longer in the business of short term convienenc
If we revoked the bankruptcy laws the credit card issuers pushed through congress a few years ago, the debt would become dangerous again, and they would have to go back into the business of convienenc
Another option would be to require credit card payments to be based on a 5 year repayment term instead of a 30 year term, this would make credit card payments much higher, and encourage people to get rid of them.
Or else, they do NOT get the money.
Wake up, America.
The taxpayers are the only game in town.
The taxpayers are ultimately responsibl
It's OUR money.
Restore economic democracy.
Put the banks to work for us, not vice-versa
This will restore hundreds of billions of dollars to Mainstreet over the next twenty years.
THIS is the mainstreet bailout.
We don't avoid the money we borrowed, we just pay it back as a lower-inte
Now when the phone bankster in Mumbai, or the high school dropout in Nebraska asks, "Can you tell me why you are behind on this bill?" I take a long pause..
Then I calmly state "You are kidding of course..." and I pause. The cockier newbie kids from Colorado or Nebraska or the forty five dollar a week phone banker in New Dehli might say "No I am not" but most fall into their own stunned pause.
My response; " I am having the same problems YOUR company is experienci
I do not raise my voice, I know it is to no real avail. But I can assure you that by the time I get to "refusing to pay" most of the working stiffs emboldened by the telephonic shield of righteousn
Buy a big house -- four bedrooms when you only needed two -- borrow against the rising equity (this concept needs to be exposed for what it is, an illusion) to buy furniture you could not afford if you held two full time jobs, park a Lexus in the driveway and vacation in Mexico, or the Pacific islands, on the frequent flier miles earned by cranking the card to its limit.
Meanwhile, some of us did not fall for the basic lie -- that debt is wealth. Oh sure, I'm still paying off a boat loan (17 footer, the monthly payment is proportion
But we lived BELOW our means during the big bubbles, paid off the mortgage two years early, paid off the college loans and the many credit card debts incurred while in school, and now only buy stuff when we have the actual cash to pay for it. If we don't have the money, we do without.
The old mantra: Pay to play.
The new one: Pay as you go.
I found it shocking that the taxpayer has now to pay out the same banks who propped up the stupid credit driven lifestyle of people who had no common sense.
I have been thinking about this very thing since layoffs are always looming in the horizon in my workplace. This option may seem more doable for those who have built a career around a particular skill and trade, however anyone can improvise. Still, the point is well taken that we are going to have to explore our options for making a living, and using the skills that we have built over time is a good place to start. One local woman who lost her wall street job used her savings and severance money to start a cupcake baking class. She used her marketing and sales skills to build the business.
The important thing is to not despair, be flexible, and keep the creative juices flowing.
Want to see plenty of AE's? Just take a look at any picture from the thirties showing people selling apples. That's the reality of the idea that we'll simply replace jobs with small business.