I have been following politics.... the economy.... so I have not been really writing here. I don't want to revisit this period when it is over so I will decline to even bother with it. The campaign is nasty, full of lies and posturing. People want Obama to bring his own "bam" in retaliation to the smoke and mirrors emanating from the McCain camp, but I am wanting candidates who can focus on what we (as a country) need. I don't have patience for anything else. Flash and vim, leave it home please. Tell me how you're going to fix it. Fix it.
I have been studying the great depression-- the causes are identical to what is happening now-- but I have been focusing on what they did to survive it, get past it, on individual family bases. I am trying to identify whether my family will just struggle, or will be Hooverville candidates. So yes, I am not writing much about that. While these things occupy my mind, my husband and I are focusing on making the children's world stay the same. The children- who are studying phonics and Egyptians and geography. Who climb rock walls, swim laps and paint pictures of giant farting dinosaurs.
How grateful am I that we practice voluntary simplicity? That we refuse to buy new cars because ours are "old?" It may not be voluntary after a while, and I am grateful we were already looking at sustainability out of principle. In many ways, that makes us prepared ahead of the curve.
We love our kids, just like everyone else. Make it. Make it. That's all it is lately with me. Make it.
Hmmm - once again L we are on a similar path. So strange. I, too, want to say, "Tell me how you're going to fix it. Fix it."
ReplyDeleteThe thoughts about not buying new cars, not living in a 3-4K sqare foot mcmansion.
The thoughts of how is this going to affect my family....
The thoughts of not having put ourselves in a position where we need two incomes to survive, but if we needed them, I could go back to work.
I am not sure how much this affects the "average" American yet. I mean when there are lines to buy the new iphone, when there are lines to get the WII... how bad off are we really?
I think the average American is buying all of that on credit. This is where our age is telling; most of us don't even KNOW that welfare, social security-- even the FDIC-- came about as a result of the depression. None of us has ever known economic life without a safety net.
ReplyDeleteI've had this on my mind as well. I'm resisting the urge to make a run on my savings account even though I know it's insured. But retirement? All we can do is hope the next 30 years will fix that.
ReplyDeleteWe are so past this just being a recession. I do think we are hitting the begining of a depression era as well, I do not follow the politics and I know that sounds horrible, my question is who is the lesser of the two evils? Who will be the one to fix the economy? I am hoping by the time the kids are moving out (2 more years) things start to look up for them.
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