by Pete Thorsen
Now that spring has finally rolled around I am getting more and more concerned about a possible collapse of the already feeble economy. Starting last fall and all through this winter the stock markets have fallen. Not huge losses everyday (though there have been some really bad days) and occasionally there were a few up days but over the last several months the trend has certainly been down. And I mean way down. Over the last few months the DOW has lost well over six thousand points and is still on the downward trend. The downward trend has actually seemed to be picking up steam.
Of course stock markets have always gone up and down and that is just what they do. The TV news could not hide the fact that the markets were way down but they certainly did try to marginalize it. And maybe the news stations were right. The stock markets had been setting record high numbers for awhile. Obviously you can’t keep setting records continuously I wouldn’t think. If it had just been the markets that were going down that would be one thing. But commodity prices are also still going down. The one thing that had turned around and was now going up is the unemployment numbers. So taken all together things were certainly looking bad.
Since the recession of 2008-9 the unemployment rate which had been up around ten percent and then supposedly over next several years had fallen down to around five percent. Over this winter it had again went up to just over eight percent.
Even when the unemployment rate had been falling one of the main reasons had that the nation’s participation rate had fallen dramatically. There were just way fewer people looking for work. Now that low participation rate had went down even more and at the same time the unemployment rate had went up. Way, way fewer US citizens were working. And still the unemployment rate continues to rise even more and with more and more out of work everything suffers.
Wages are low and jobs are very hard to find. And despite what was once touted as the way to get ahead was to go to college that is not being mentioned so much anymore. That is because college grads can not find work either. Those that can get a job after graduation were found doing things like flipping burgers for minimum wages or at other mundane jobs in about that same pay range.
Of course a large number of these college grads have student debt hanging over their heads. It was reported that forty eight percent of those with student debt were more than a year behind on payments. They had not made a single payment in over a year.
The US government was the holder of all this student debt to the tune of an amount approaching two trillion dollars! And that was turning out to be a very bad investment. Some of those in Congress were talking about just ‘forgiving’ this student debt. What on earth! Letting them borrow a huge amount of money and then just tell them that they do not have to pay it back. That the taxpayer’s will pick up the tab.
You didn’t need a crystal ball to know that stormy weather was ahead for the whole nation.
Chapter 3
Spring is here finally. Spring is always a happy time isn’t it? Though maybe this spring not so much. Beth lost her part time job at the library due to the city doing many budget cuts. The city is deep into the red and has to take drastic measures to try and get their budget in order.
City governments, county governments, and state governments all across the great United States are in the same boat. All of them are doing drastic budget cuts and not the kind pretend cuts like they have done in the past. All levels of government are really hurting financially. No one knows where all this will end.
It is an ugly financial world out there right now. Pension fund managers are pulling their hair out. That is the area maybe the worst hit. Many pension funds were under funded, wait scratch that and make it read most funds were under funded and now with the stock markets in free fall the funds are losing value at a record pace.
Whether a private pension fund or a government one they are just about all in the same very leaky boat. Of course some of these funds do not buy stocks and instead buy all bonds. But the returns on bonds are way down also and not many of these bonds are on very shaky ground and the bond holders may lose much of their investment.
Some states have laws on the books that control how much money pension funds must contain but law or not they just can not get the money to fully fund them anymore. Sorry but you can not get blood out of a turnip. The money is just not there and can not be raised. So even though some states, cities, and counties are under court order to fund their pension plans the government entities have no choice but to ignore those court orders because there is no money.
Everyone is hurting across the board. And it is not just here in the United States either. Every country I think is in a deep recession or a depression. Governments fudging the numbers will no longer help. Of course real people do not really care about all that. They care about paying their rent, putting gas in their car, and putting supper on the table. Well those three things are impossible for more and more people both abroad and right here in America.
Here in the States they no longer report just how many Americans are receiving food assistance. The last time it was reported the number was sixty six million. It is way more than that now. And food is getting more expensive and there even seems to be less of it in the grocery stores. I have noticed a few bare spots on shelves in grocery stores here lately.
When Beth found out I always planted a garden she wanted to help. And she wanted to learn how. She said her mother and her would have to plant a garden in their tiny back yard this year. So she came out to help me so she could learn. Before she came I used my old many times repaired rototiller to enlarge my garden plot. Really enlarge the plot.
Beth was very surprised when she came out to help and she saw how big a garden I was preparing to plant.
“Do you always plant this big of a garden just for you?”
“I just made it slightly bigger this year. Better to have too much than have too little is my motto.”
“I never expected to need this much space. Your garden is way bigger than our whole back yard.”
“Just plant what you can at home and you will at least get some food out of it. If I end up with too much I can always give you some.”
“That’s why the garden is this big isn’t it?”
“I just like to be prepared. We better get to work. It is not going to plant itself.”
Beth was a good worker even though she did not know what to do. I had to show her how to do everything. Something I did not mind in the least. Beth had plenty of time to help me because she had now graduated but still could not find a single job of any kind, even for minimum wage.
She asked me about the big old windmill I had on the place.
“Does the windmill work?”
“Yes it works good. Last year I put in a new set of leathers and now it pumps just like it did a great many years ago when it was new I imagine.”
“But you have a regular well for the house don’t you? So you don’t even use it.”
“See that big water tank? That’s my swimming pool in the hot summer. And I use the windmill to water the garden. That way it costs me nothing. Not even for electricity. Gotta save a dime where I can.”
“Do you really use it for a swimming pool?”
“You bet I do. On hot days after I get off work I jump in there and nothing feels better than that on a hot day. How many people do you know with a twelve foot deep swimming pool?”
“Only you!”
“Stick with me kid and you too will be living high-on-the-hog.”
“I think I’ll do just that.”
I looked at her then and she was looking at me and smiling at our joking but she looked serious at the same time. It made me feel funny inside.
I was not working out as much any more either. I still had my same job but my boss was having a tough time finding work even for his small crew and we very seldom worked a full week anymore. Three day work weeks were now fairly common for us, actually for many people. I knew exactly what he was going through because I hardly ever g
ot any weekend handy man jobs anymore. When I did get one it was often just a one day job or even part of a day of work. Everyone was cutting back just trying to make ends meet.
Police forces everywhere were being cut back at the same time crime was going way up. At first it was just petty thefts with people stealing to try and get by but gradually there was more and more of the much more serious crimes. Here in a more rural state there were many guns for sale by people needing the money at the same time people needed those guns for their personal protection.
I even bought a couple more guns at prices that two years ago would have been unheard of. They were just too cheap for me to let them pass by. The guy that I bought one of the guns from had a lot of related items for sale real cheap also. I bought a lot of various ammunition along with other odds and ends he had for sale. He also seemed very knowledgeable and I asked many questions about some of the stuff I bought.
Of course it seemed that everyone had stuff for sale now. Every public bulletin board was packed with items for sale or work wanted ads. The often joked about signs saying ‘will work for food’ were no longer a joke.
Unemployment continued to rise. And with it there was less money coming into all levels of government at the same time those governments needed more and more money. It was a vicious circle.
Most everyone was cutting back on expenses but there was little that I could do to cut back anymore. I had always been living as cheaply as I could. Beth and her mom were having a tough time of it. Beth continued to look for work but there were no jobs of any kind to be had. When her mom got sick and had to go to the hospital they both knew they would not be able to pay the hospital bill. Her mom (Betty) did have Medicare but the deductible had gone way up the first of the year along with the premium.
Over the last year or more all medicines had taken a major jump in prices. The only income that Beth and her mom had was what Betty received every month from Social Security. She did have money in the bank but that had been slowly been used up to pay regular bills. She owned her house outright and Betty tried to get a reverse mortgage on it but was told that they were no longer available.
I felt bad for them both but there was little I could do. I had some money saved up but it was not nearly enough to pay the hospital bill. Betty had stayed in the hospital for seventeen days and even after Medicare paid what they did the remaining bill was enormous. Of course many people had outstanding hospital bills now. Actually many people had a long list of outstanding bills that were not being paid.
Of course even the TV news could no longer pretend everything was awesome. They aired many interviews with this person or that person that would put the blame on someone or other for this economic downturn. Many blamed this current President and some blamed the previous President and some even blamed other countries for our current plight.
Then I happened to catch an interview with someone who seemed to make more sense. When asked who to blame he said Congress but previous ones not really the current Congress though he made it seem that all were the same.
He said the trouble started near the end of Clinton’s second term as President when Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. In those over sixty years that law had protected banks from hurting themselves and there had been no major bank closings or severe economic troubles. But just eight or nine years after it was repealed all the big banks needed a bailout because they were in very serious trouble and our whole economy was in chaos.
At that time Congress decided to make things worse by putting on a bandaid to prevent a depression. So they bailed out the banks and spent an additional trillion dollars to dump into America’s economy. They should have instead re-instated the Glass-Steagall Act but they didn’t. They should have let the banks that were stupid fail but they did not. They should have let things run their normal course but they didn’t.
When all they did had little effect the great Federal Reserve Bank stepped in and lowered interest rates to zero as a temporary measure to boost the economy. But it had no effect other than hurt those Americans that had money saved in the banks. Now they received no or very, very little interest. The Fed left this emergency temporary zero interest rate that way for many years because the economy was so shaky they said they couldn’t raise those rates.
Next the Federal Reserve started printing money and dumping it into the economy to the tune of at least three trillion dollars to boost the economy. This had very little if any real effect other than boost the stock market. At this point the Fed was out of options. They had done everything they could and had nothing left to try.
The trouble was everyone was trying to prop up America’s economy when they needed to just leave it alone and let things work themselves out naturally. Yes things would have likely got a little worse for a couple years but then it would have started a real recovery instead of the fake induced one that politicians and the media had been harping about for the last few years.
When Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act it only took seven or eight years to bankrupt the banks. We then bailed them out but did nothing to stop it from happening again. Now it has been another eight years and the banks are again bankrupt and we as a country do not have the money to bail them out again or the inclination to do so.
Because of all the meddling done by our government to our economy now we will have to pay the piper. And it will get very bad here. Likely it will get way worse than it was during the Great Depression of the nineteen thirty’s. All the government’s meddling did was give us a few years of flat line growth and add trillions upon trillions of dollars to our debt. Our government, by kicking the can down the road for a few years, will now bring America down to a third world country for at least several years. Times will be so bad that in five years America will be unrecognizable.
Well that synopsis was sure not putting a positive spin on things I thought when I heard the whole interview. I hoped that the man was wrong but what he said did make sense and I too believed we were very quickly heading for the second great depression. This one likely more severe and maybe even longer lasting. I sure hope that both this guy on the news and me are wrong about this prediction.
America is now a way different place than when we had the Great Depression in the nineteen thirties. We have a much bigger population now and this population is mostly clustered together in our huge cities. There are now very few small family farms anymore and instead we have huge corporate farms. Most people have no idea how to grow a garden or even attempt to take care of themselves. We as a society are way different now than during the first Great Depression.
If it happens to us now it will be much, much worse and I believe this time at least many and maybe a fairly large portion of our current population will perish from starvation and violence. I can only hope that I am wrong and things will turn around quickly and get back to normal.
Mortgage payments are being skipped by a large amount of the population but home prices are now so low and financing for a home loan is almost impossible to get anymore. Technically many homes with former owners still living there are in foreclosure but the banks are no longer kicking anyone out. It is better just to let them live there with the hope that the economy will turn around and mortgage payments will again start being made. Wishful thinking by the banks I believe.
Banks are in sad shape. There are no ‘stress tests’ being done on all the banks anymore because I’m sure none would pass any kind of a test at this point. Many on the internet think most all the banks are now actually insolvent but if they closed these banks the nation’s situation would then become untenable. Better just to let the banks stay open and at least pretend that they are still viable entities.
One thing that the banks did do was to drastically reduce the spending limits on all credit cards. Overnight huge numbers of American citizens found out that their credit cards with large balances on them no longer worked. It sent another shock through the nation but there had been so many shocks at this point
that they now caused little impact overall. The banks had sent out warnings before they actually did cut off the credit for many people. Of course most people likely were no longer working and could do nothing about paying down their debt anyway. Warning or not.
Chapter 4
The world turned and time passed. It was good that I had increased the size of my garden. With very little work now I had plenty of time to tend the garden. Beth wanted to help with it but gas was expensive and there was no extra money to spend needlessly on gas so she seldom came out to the farm. She and Betty worked in their own small garden and both theirs and mine were starting to produce some stuff already.
When I did have a day or two of work in town I always swung by Beth’s house to visit. I also always brought some food with to give them. Sometimes the food was from my garden and sometimes it was from what was available in the area when I went out foraging. They both always gratefully took anything that I brought them.
As the summer progressed I was busy canning vegetables from my garden. Many people had gardens this year and everyone’s gardens were now producing viable amounts of the much needed food. That is when tragedy struck.
I was just going out to work in the garden when I had a phone call. I answered and heard noises on the line that almost sounded like crying. I said hello a couple times before I heard “My mom…..” then more crying. I was sure I recognized the voice as being Beth.
“Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on my way. Hang on until I get there.”
I hang up the phone and ran to my truck and that old thing had never been driven so fast all the while I had owned it that’s for sure. The brakes and tires squealed when I came to a stop in front of Beth’s house. I ran up the steps and burst through the front door without even a knock. Only then I thought maybe I should have brought a weapon of some kind. But none was needed. I ran through the house and found Beth just outside the back door.
