Economy - Recession or Depression? It's 1975 Again.

I've been thinking about the economy lately.

There are few jobs out there, and what there are, pay a lot less than what we used to make. However, prices aren't falling. We still have expensive gas, food and utilities. Housing costs may go down a little bit - but do you really think landlords will lower the rent? Not unless you move to a cheaper, smaller, less desirable place to live, anyway!

So, this is beginning to sound a lot more like a depression than a recession. A recession is when the economy is contracting. Our economy is beyond that. It's trying to rebound, but there are too many downward forces, and that defines a depression. That and high unemployment.

The figures you hear about are skewed - too many folks are out of the job market - no jobs, no benefits, no tracking....

People in the generations after me are likely not prepared for this. Even folks in my generation (boomers) aren't really ready for it! Our parents are children of the Great Depression, so they know how to do things, cut corners, and make a little stretch a ways...

Folks in my kid's generation and younger (just now welcoming twenty-somethings or grandkids), are not prepared for this. Some of them even had everything handed to them, in compensation for what we didn't have as kids....

Let's face it, we do that - we want our kids to never know the privations we endured - whatever they may be. There are generations that were never allowed to fail - all kids had to succeed - even if all they did was show up! Those folks don't know how to handle disappointment, failure, or privations. Those folks are the least capable of surviving what's still to come.

We are all told to prepare for retirement, because government spending is so out of control that social security (which we've paid into our whole lives) is not going to be there for us. Well, I'd like my money back, please.... I never said you could use those earmarked funds for something else, did I?

It's a mess, that's for sure. We will be living with the grand ideas of the 80's, 90's and 00's for a long time. I truly believe we will be going back to the days of the oil embargo - at least financially. I remember that, and the recession that followed it. I was just out of college and couldn't find a job. There weren't any. And that's happening again! So, yeah - it's 1975 again.