So just how bad is this economy really?
I'm not oblivious to the news and current events. Unlike most Americans, I'm also educated enough to realize what happens when the credit market drys up. But this industry doesn't have the real water cooler socialization that those in the "real world" face.
It hit home for me tonight in an odd place. Lady who lived next door to us my entire childhood passed away, so I was at the funeral home paying my respects and seeing old friends from the neighborhood. All of them really sweating their job and the economy. Everyone asking each other if their work looked secure. These are nice middle class working class folks, the real meat and potatoes of the american economy, and they're scared shitless.
It's been kinda feeling like the 70's:
- Here in the southeast we have a gas crunch thanks to hurricanes and a paniced herd. It's a real challenge to find gas right now, when you do it's regular only, and there are lines very often.
- Layoffs all over the news. Earthlink shitcanned another big group today.
- Banks are falling under control of the FDIC.
- Also here in Atlanta, one of the largest Chevy dealers in the U.S. (24 dealerships, 14 of 'em around Georgia) closed their doors leaving customers with cars in service bays high and dry.
And now the government is doing a $700 billion dollar bail out of the banking industry to avoid total collapse of the economy with talk of throwing another $25 billion at the auto industry. How long before they add credit card and airline industry to the pile?
This represents a huge shift of the control of our ecomony from Wall St. to the Washington bureaucrats. This gets more scary when you consider there's a very realistic chance a Marxist will be elected to be our next President. Not that the other choice is any better. Both suck.
Only thing we're missing now is one more nasty event that inspires a run on the banks for withdrawals, and it's 1929 all over again. The President was on TV last night talking about the economy on the brink of collapse.
So who is squirreling money away in a mattress already?
I try to think long term, I'm well diversified and have a fair amount of my networth in land. But I gotta admit, this makes even me worry about not only what our cash flow may look like in 6 months, but the fact many of us may end up having to work well into our 70's if not til the day we die.