Wow. Our economy is in free fall, WaMu and Wachovia failed, venerable Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns have vanished and A.I.G. is a hair ahead of bankruptcy and engaging in a worldwide fire sale to repay the feds. How did this happen? And does it matter now? What will happen now is my question. Will our generation be the next to learn the lessons of a supersized depression? Maybe it's time to get back to basics and simplify. Seniors who grew up during the Great Depression have one unifying sentiment "we didn't have anything like you kids have today -but we were happy." Rarely do you hear depression era folks complain about their upbringing. What happened to our generation? Maybe we all received too much without ever knowing want. Our every desire was satisfied and we began to expect everything. While I do not welcome these difficult times I know that interesting life lessons are forged within them. That Depression era mentality which has always seemed quaint now seems awfully smart. Ideas like "waste nothing", reuse, recycle and don't put your money in the stock market - ever. That was a lesson brutally learned and perhaps to be relearned almost 80 years later. Past is prologue.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Chairman Bernacke, Deliver Us!
Wow. Our economy is in free fall, WaMu and Wachovia failed, venerable Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns have vanished and A.I.G. is a hair ahead of bankruptcy and engaging in a worldwide fire sale to repay the feds. How did this happen? And does it matter now? What will happen now is my question. Will our generation be the next to learn the lessons of a supersized depression? Maybe it's time to get back to basics and simplify. Seniors who grew up during the Great Depression have one unifying sentiment "we didn't have anything like you kids have today -but we were happy." Rarely do you hear depression era folks complain about their upbringing. What happened to our generation? Maybe we all received too much without ever knowing want. Our every desire was satisfied and we began to expect everything. While I do not welcome these difficult times I know that interesting life lessons are forged within them. That Depression era mentality which has always seemed quaint now seems awfully smart. Ideas like "waste nothing", reuse, recycle and don't put your money in the stock market - ever. That was a lesson brutally learned and perhaps to be relearned almost 80 years later. Past is prologue.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Melissa - that is not the best picture of you. You need to get your highlights done.
If you rarely heard depression era folks complain about their upbringing, you haven't talked to my Nana Ramsey! Of course she's dead now, and you won't get the chance. She was very good at reusing, and when her house was cleaned out after her death, they found kitchen cabinets and drawers full of used bread bags. Sounds "quaint"?
Post a Comment