America's Biggest Concern

Is not economic depression but a psychological one...

No fear, no defeatism, no going backwards.

Personally I think political, education, corporate and financial institution leaders want to keep the populace off balance as a method of control. They view the despair and anger that fuels different corners ranging from the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street demonstrators as silly little distractions to keep the masses occupied with infighting. People need to wake up and channel their energies into a more proactive plan of action. The first place to start is with you. It behooves us to take stock of what we have or don't, what we owe and what we don't, own up to the mistakes we may have made with money and constructively deal with it. However you do it, whether it is liquidate everything and repudiate debt, give up the escapism of consumerism, complex relationships, drugs and alcohol and own up to who you really are and embrace a self image as a strong individual. The road to mutual help is laid by being a powerful person that can help themselves so they may help others. It is a matter of survival and will; individuals must fight to keep their inner fire burning and continue moving forward.

To stop is to risk never getting started again and I refuse to do that although it is a battle within at times. Personally it makes no sense for me to get mad at behemoth institutions I have no control over. If your temperament is to get involved and shake down the windows and rattle the walls then doing it as an ant on a hill of thousands doesn't do much for you personally. It is why the large power brokers prefer it.

Far better to note Tip O'Neill's observation that "All politics is local" as far more useful since getting involved locally empowers you as an individual that effects change. Everyone is different in goals. What is my "local" thing? During general election years I work for the County Elections Board running precincts as a non-partisan Inspector. Work for the local political party, any local organization to make change. There's plenty unattended situations needing help, leaders and an answer.

Do anything but stand still doing nothing or moving around making a lot of noise with little result for the effort. Our biggest concern as a country isn't just an economic one. It is an economic depression that leads to a psychological one because people fall into the trap of feeling like failures. They believe they failed because they screwed up their finances, education, income, career or wasted time on banging the drum at the bank, the school or employers to no avail. They mistakenly escaped into complex relationships, sexual arrangements or drugs and alcohol. Even if you have fallen into trapdoors there is always some way out but it is rarely easy and takes effort.

This does take work though. Personal hard work, one foot in front of the other with times that every step of progress is painfully bought. There is also satisfaction that you are moving forward going somewhere rather than running from something. Run towards the light away from fear. The biggest fear most people have is living in a weekly motel collecting change for food and splitting their blood pressure pills. That fear will carry you there as a self-fulfilling prophecy if you take it to its ultimate end. Conversely being optimistic, working at moving forward, putting effort toward reaching light is a foregone conclusion of destiny. Refuse to allow the government, financial institutions, consumerism, corporations, marketing, political class to force you into a life of submission and manipulation you don't want. In doing so you become a strong individual of character that as a consequence will be supported by others and surrounded by people you can influence to make real change occur.

Stop Motion Economy

Square dancing in a monetary blur...

We're weathering a time that not even the experts and historians who study these things understand what is really happening with our global economy. If they claim to they're either bluffing, deluding themselves or lying. We are in an historical upheaval of epic proportions that contains common threads with similar chronological events of the past yet is different because it is distinctly in the here and now.

It is disquieting to our daily lives and will not be truly understood until the future. Meanwhile we are stuck in the present square dancing with partners we may or may not know and doing our best to keep time with the fiddle at a hoedown we'd rather not participate in. We're romping in a blur of light and dark, clarity and reflection, in a utilitarian fashion to keep our balance.

On the continuum of personal finances it's fair to say that many people are not being truthful to themselves or others. An old ethic that one never talks about money has revived with a strong resurgence; probably because there isn't a lot left to brag about. Almost everyone has been affected in some way and if they act and say as if they're not, then they are either bluffing, deluding themselves or lying. No one will come out of this decade without some markings of having changed for better or worse.

Meanwhile all we can do is square dance in a haze making sure we keep time and keep our footing while we whirl around. It's "Places all. Bow to your corner, bow to your partner, three hands up and around you go. Promenade around the ring, big foot up and little foot down, make that big foot jar the ground, back you go and forward again. Allemande left with the old left hand, meet your partner with a great big smile, promenade across the floor and now your home, bow to your partner, bow to the gent across the hall. And that is all."

Remaining positive during a hazy tenuous new economic age that expands beyond our known boundaries goes a long way to calming the disquietude of the storm. Coming up clean, being honest and truthful will not explain the disorder of economic, social and political change of the big picture but will comfort us individually on the home front.

We Have Lost Nothing

We are gaining something new...

Our society has lost something that is making many people feel displaced. It is causing a lot of individuals to go through the stages of grief, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and for the healthiest of us...Acceptance. Everyone at different times and each in his or her own way. Those who have arrived at acceptance understand that we haven't lost anything of value at all. What we recognize is that we have been forever dispossessed of social norms that no longer have validity and outlived their purpose. There is no turning back to return to the old ways no matter how many attempts are made to resuscitate what once was.

What seems to appear to underlie this divestment is the economic crisis and the awareness of the ineffectiveness of the political class. It is the trigger but not the bullet. The cartridge that was fired held shotgun ammo that blasted into little pieces disrupting the entire order of life as we knew it. The economics and politics of our social disorder are the symptoms of the wound and not origination of it. Technology and science are. The paradox is these two fields of endeavor that have advanced so far in recent history are also agents of change bringing us back to a more natural way of living. The most notable of this is the internet allowing people to be freed from cubicle land and constraints of traditional employment to create a new way of living.

Not everyone has arrived at this point of thinking yet, just as the Age of Enlightenment occurred over a number of years, so will this magnificent cultural shift. Some people may languish in the old sphere and possibly never arrive in the new one. This is the source of the impression of no longer being in the corral but instead on the wide open range, the polar opposite of the way we have been trained to become one of the posse. The drift of being untethered is bewildering in a world when the exact opposite has been highly valued and what was stressed we should strive for. This is the seemingly odd juxtaposition of technology and science versus natural thinking and living. A Global Positioning System device cannot guide us to a mental state of mind, only human intelligence and intuition can do that. Hence the sense of dislocation.

What will separate us in society is how we grasp this concept, brave the barely marked trail and forge ahead in contemporary covered wagons. Those that cling to the old will find their grip slipping, making themselves frustrated and angry. Each person has to arrive at their destination in their own caravan. We can help others that instinctively seek it but there is little to do for those that don't.

The Economy is Tanking Again

Don't let it sink you...

Quotable President Harry Truman said "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own." People can quibble all day what this economic era is called but it won't really have its own name until it's written past history. Recession, Depression, Disruption, take your pick, it's irrelevant in the here and now. What the average person really knows is for most people things aren't getting much better. For many it's taking a turn for the worse while some are pulling out of it and at least beginning to break even. Very few people are untouched although there are a some who doing well.

It is clear that generally for most people in Arizona the economy is not improving much, if at all. The optimistic projection of economists at the WP Carey School of Business of ASU is that it will be at least three years before we even begin to see a turnaround in our economy. Real people and businesses know better. We've been particularly hard hit by the real estate and mortgage foreclosure tsunami, with the first quarter results of this year being much more dismal than anticipated, both on the real estate sales and foreclosure fronts. Unemployment is technically just below the national average but that does not include people who have given up looking for work and the underemployed. Although there are jobs listed, they are too few for the number of people applying for them and most people are not qualified for these jobs and they don't pay very well. We have lost more quality jobs than we have gained in all jobs. Gas and food prices are going higher and people are running out of savings and credit while inflation for necessary items is increasing.

The danger seems to be systemic unemployment and that affects income which in turn affects business and tax revenue. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. The real danger to those who are long term unemployed or underemployed is not just losing skills but the effect it can have on the mind. This has been called a "man-cession" since unemployment has statistically hit men harder during this economic downturn unlike in the past. Since men still tend to identify themselves (and increasingly women) in terms of the work they do and associate it with their self-worth, the hazard of widespread psychological and subsequent social problems is pretty high. 

That is a trapdoor.

As difficult as it might seem with little money and limited resources it is critical to stay physically occupied and mentally challenged to avoid conjoining psychological depression with an economic one. I see this as a looming social problem for the country as a whole. That should serve as warning to anyone that it is a state of mind to avoid. Large numbers of people may fall into this trap but that doesn't mean you have to. The English idiom "where there's a will, there's a way" applies here. If we are determined not to fall into a trap and do something about our situation, then we can always find the means and approach to do it.

The challenge then is for people who do not want to become stagnant, depressed or lose skills to figure out how to rise above the crowd and do something constructive with the time involuntarily thrust into their hands. Every person is different therefore personal solutions are not the same. My belief is that anything you can do during this time period to occupy your body and mind will pay off in the long term. Anything you do from tutoring what you know to learning more about something you don't know will lead to possibilities. Standing still will not. The smart person will distinguish themselves from the masses that do nothing by becoming occupied with meaningful activities.

Eventually this economic downturn, whatever it is named, will end. When it does those that did nothing will continue to do nothing and those that did something will be doing something better than before. The new normal will become real normal and living will get much better. It always does, it is part of the human condition. The important thing to understand is this economic interim will become past history and when it does the future will become the present. You will be glad you prepared for down the line when it arrives, since you did not give up during this difficult time now, no matter what it ends up being called.