The World We Live In

I would be remorse not to document the current state of our economy for my children to one day look back on and have record of these difficult times that our country is facing. I will try not bore everyone with all the details, but I do want to make mention of this so hopefully, one day, all of us can look back and say “wow, we really pulled thru some tough times as a global economy.”

To start with: 3.7 million jobs were lost in the year 2008. It is forecasted that another 2 million jobs will be lost in 2009. Unemployment is currently at 7.6%. (To put this in perspective economist say unemployment should average around 3.4% to yield a health economy.)

There are a lot of factors that have lead to the situation that we are in now, but to help narrow the scope of the problems I will mention “the housing market.” Several years ago banks were loaning everyone and their bother money to by houses. They were going so far as to loan everyone 100% of the money that they needed to buy a house (not requiring a down payment). Banks weren’t being careful with their loans. As a result of these “easy” loans, builders starting building a tone of house, and then people found out that they were not able to pay for these personal loans. Many houses went into foreclosure, and the banks ended up with the houses (that they should not have been loaning money for in the first places.) And then builders were sitting on top of houses that they could not sale. Hints you have the Housing Crash of 2007/2008. And banks ended up with lots of bad loans from the builders they loaned money to to build houses, and also the individuals that they loaned money to that could not afford them, and the viscous cycle goes on and on.

To narrow the scope even further to a personal experience: in the middle of 2008 we woke up one Sunday morning and our personal Bank had been closed down by the FDIC, and another bank had gained ownership of it. That was pretty scary. Luckily all of our assets were protected. But, this is a prime example of how our bank had made too many bad loans and intern were deemed too risky to operate by the FDIC.

Beginning last week in our hometown some 800+ jobs were lost at Wal-Mart’s home office, with an anticipated 1,200 more to come this week. This is a large percent considering that the population of our town is roughly 40,000 people. Some of our good friends have lost their jobs, and it is simply heart breaking.

Spectators, analyst, and economist are calling these times as bad as the 1930’s stock market crash. Of course I was not around during these times, but I still see how frugally my Grandmother lives her everyday life as a result of growing up during the Great Depression. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do predict that my generation is on the brink of experiencing uncharted and life-changing situations.

I do ask that we keep those who have lost their jobs in our prayers, and also keep our country and our global world partners in our prayers as we try to pull ourselves out of this mess.