This is what I am hearing about the economy: the recovery is slow because people are hesitant to spend money out of fear that their jobs may not be secure. They don’t trust that the economic collapse won’t reoccur and want to be more ready the next time. This sounds to me like the years after the depression.
The way my family lived when I was a child was like this: People like my parents learned to live with less. They repaired what was a broken and used things up before buying a replacement. They lived within their means. They saved for things they wanted instead of going into debt. I don’t know how much of a down payment my parents had on their first home, which they bought after both of my brothers had left the nest and I was a sophomore in high school, but I remember the chart my mother created to keep track of the payments. They made double payments when they could to save interest until finally they owned the house.
This all sounds like a great idea to me. What a difference it would have made to a lot of citizens if they had lived this way before the recent economic collapse. It will make a difference now in the way our economy grows if the citizenry is stable and wise. I believe this: we are all part of the problem and we are all part of the solution. Unfortunately, history shows that, at least in this country, people forget and, sadly, industry depends on this forgetfulness.