http://www.palestineherald.com/opinion/local_story_081024743.html?keyword=topstory
By WAYNE STEWART
The Palestine Herald
PALESTINE -- The other morning while listening to the ABC Radio News I
heard something that startled me, but didn't really surprise me.
As Doug Limerick read the news, the story turned to the country's
economy and he talked about a recession and how some economists are
still debating if the country has ventured into one, and he said some
people are even mentioning the dreaded "D" word -- depression.
Here are some definitions economists have put out to help us
categorize these economic events.
A recession is a decline in the country's gross domestic product or
negative economic growth for two or more successive quarters for a
year. Another definition for a recession is a significant decline in
economic activity across the whole economy lasting for more than a few
months.
An economic depression happens, according to economic definitions,
when the country is in a severe and long recession.
I am not qualified to debate with anyone where the economy will go in
the coming months. I have my own ideas, but I will keep them to
myself. What I do wonder is, can the people survive a depression on
the scale of the Great Depression of the 1930s?
I don't think things will come to that point, but what if they did?
The country was a lot different in 1929 than it is in 2008.
Back then, much of the country still lived in rural America and could
grow some of their own food and provide for themselves in many ways.
Would that be the case now? For children who have grown up in front of
video games, the idea of going out and scrounging for food would be as
foreign as saying "yes ma'am" and "no sir" is to them now.
There already are millions of people living off of the government
currently, what would happen if a quarter to a third of the nation was
unemployed and 100 million people needed extra government assistance,
would this spend-happy government have the means to take care of them?
The sad part is, I don't have any answers, and I usually have a lot of
them, although a big ****tion of them turn out wrong. It's not really
im****tant if I have the answers, though; because most people believe
the government has them. (Note my sarcasm)
Here is the truth, we really don't want the government answering those
questions for us, because their answers are almost always wrong.
Long ago, people like Teddy Roosevelt and other individualists,
inspired people to go it on their own. That rugged individualism has
been eroded over the past century and now we find ourselves bound up
in entitlement generations. In essence, we have become unable to truly
take care of ourselves.
Government subsidized corn and other crops makes our groceries more
affordable. It goes beyond cereal, it includes beef, poultry, milk and
just about everything else you can think of in the grocery store. The
government takes care of our roads, helps send our kids to college --
the list is endless.
All of us benefit greatly from government involvement in our everyday
lives, but most of us do not even realize their fingers are in almost
everything we see and do. We must learn to do for ourselves if we are
to survive a coming financial storm.
As Teddy Roosevelt said, "It is both foolish and wicked to teach the
average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been
done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his
own industry, honesty, and intelligence."
If we are not prepared for what is taking place in this world, then
there is no one to blame but ourselves.
We must learn the hard lessons from our parents and grandparents. Put
away for a rainy day; take care of the family and its needs before
attending to personal desires; live a life of hard work and live it in
the privacy of the home as if it were for all to see.
Remember the pictures after Hurricane Katrina -- how an entire city was
in chaos -- now imagine an entire nation like that if we can't learn to
take care of ourselves.
Wayne Stewart may be contacted via e-mail at
wstewart@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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