Really? Okee dokee.

Hey Mike, I agree with you. Forget the media and the sheep that believe everything it portrays – on either side of the “spin”. We all see the same indicators that you do. Plugging our ears and saying, “neener neener neener neener” ain’t gonna fix a damn thing.

To quote Idiocracy, “Shit’s really fucked up right now”.

I work for myself. No bosses, no sick days, no certainly no bailouts. I can only speak of my own experience, which of late indicates not a recession – but a meltdown. The last 2 quarters have already hit me hard. People are tightening their belts, the effects of which are trickling down through the system, to mom-and-pop shops like me.

And Mike? Don’t watch more TV. Please. There are songs to be written, poker to be played, and Booker’s to be had.

Impending doom for many people simply means living within their means and giving up 5 dollar coffees. For some it is much more serious I know but that seriousness comes from trying to sustain a bigger lifestyle that they can afford.

The media just seeks to make victims out of irresponsible financial handling. Sadly Christians are too often concerned more about sustaining a lifestyle than making difference. We should be the most sacrificial people around but… Well we know, just getting up on a soap box now.

I better go watch some TV Fox or CNN tough choice I better ask Rush.

And Chad as a boxing Kangaroo with a conscience.

Oak and eucalyptus are best for wood stoves.

I think Mike was bristling at the implication that he was a sheep of the media, lacking the ability to assimilate data and form a coherent, informed thought.

I, on the other hand, just like to pick fights and then feel sad about them.

Secondly, I feel like it’s a big jump to equate the current economic recession to a fire on the edge of a stage. A leader telling the band to play in that situation would be telling the band to stay in harm’s way. Not to mention, your analogy suggests death, not an economic bruise or scab. I think the Jaws analogy is similar. To go with your metaphor, we are not the cops in this instance. It’s NOT our job (or within our direct ability) to fix the economy. Within that story, our character is a beach goer who needs to prudently stay out of the water. Nobody (not even Bobby) has suggested that there’s no recession or that it’s all hype- nobody has said there’s NO shark. Chris said it could take one (maybe “two at the most”) years to get through this. I said Beth watches the market all day every day because it’s an extension of her job. I just think that sitting on the sand, frozen in fear about the possibility of the shark beaching itself and biting your leg off is counterproductive.

I hate it that people are losing jobs. I work a freelance job and am very stressed that I, too, will have to go to uncomfortable lengths to make money to pay my mortgage and provide for my family. But in the whole scheme of things, Phil is exactly right- the worst that can happen is that I’ll have to hunker down. Maybe I’ll have to move my family back to my real dad’s farm in Nowhere, Tx or stay in my uncle’s guest house in Ft. Worth. It’ll be uncomfortable, but it won’t be my undoing. And depending on how I swallow that pill, it could potentially be the best thing that ever happened to my family. I believe those circumstances are a pill that would change us for life, for better or bitter (but that choice is mine).

Mike, of course there’s data that supports a recession. Does this surprise you? Do you think it surprises anyone? And saying that you’re “trying not to be offended” kinda dictates that you’re already taking offense, no? Relax. Nobody is saying anything other than that you should buckle down but keep living life. Keep going to work. Keep loving your children. Keep thanking God that you have children, and a roof, and a stable job (that I believe you like very much), and a wife that you love (and I believe loves you), and friends, and places to exercise your musical creativity, and, and, and, and, and…

2 thoughts, with love and respect. :)

1. Mike isn’t leading here, he’s blogging, just sorta filling up a little intertube space with (as he might put it) unwashed mental droppings.

2. In regards to leadership, and I speak not from economic experience here, but still… good leadership does not tell the band to keep playing while the stagehands try and put out the fire. I, personally, have been on the other end of this equation, waving my hands around yelling something like, “HEY!! ANYONE ELSE SMELL THE EFFING SMOKE IN THIS JOINT OR WHAT?!??!”

To quote of my all time favorite movies, Jaws:

Bear in mind, this is after the shark has eaten like 12 people and Richard Dreyfuss’ character (Hooper) is trying to convince the mayor to shut down the beaches until a professional can be contracted to kill the shark.

Mayor Vaughn: I don’t think either of one you are familiar with our problems.
Hooper: I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and BITES YOU ON THE ASS!

And… scene.

A sincere kudos for your suggestion about giving. As I see it, this economic season is an opportunity to be little a little more Christlike around our direct sphere of influence. Instead of $200 to World Vision like a normal year, $25 towards a family in the community that needs a meal.

Not that there’s anything wrong with, or unChristlike about World Vision, I’m just saying that I think with a little creativity and Divine Opportunity, the joy of small blessings can abound.

As is usually the case with these things, the people who will have the worst times are those without significant training, education, or job skills, who have been able to find work anyway in any expanding economy, but are the first to get, being less essential to the enterprise, in bad times.

And yes, well educated and trained people will lose jobs too, but they will have more options to find another one, if they aren’t too choosy.

For those of us who are still employed, our reflex in these times is to give less and button up. But the opposite is probably indicated, though I’d really make sure the gifts are going where they’re doing good, now of all times. Make your giving local, and make sure it meets a direct need.

I am laying in a BIG supply of wood for the wood stove. There’s quite a bit of free wood out there, if you know where to look.

Companies have stopped purchasing new supplies. That’s what the Purchasing Managers Index measures. That’s not hype, that’s a real measurement of a crucial bellwether for how the economy will trend in the next few months. A lower PMI means those companies expect to sell less of their product, and when it’s really bad (which it is now) it’s usually a precursor to increased layoffs at those companies. It means less income for the vendors that supply those companies. It indicates that the productive output of a broad range of industries is decreasing, and that the people managing those companies are making plans to weather a bad, bad few months.

Again, that’s not hype. That’s a lot of companies telling us what they plan to do. They plan to stop purchasing. They plan to lay off workers. Things are getting worse.

So I’m with Chris on this one. Beth works in finance and watches the market every day- and she takes calls from people just like Linda who are worried about the state of their investments. Of course she’s stressed. It’s a scary time, and we have started to take measures to make sure we’re ok if things go souther. But I’m not ready to buy a pistol just to protect my garage full of canned goods just yet. ESPECIALLY based on the reportings of a media that makes a fat paycheck by alarming the public. I don’t think they’re actually fabricating any news, only creatively choosing the adjectives and adjective phrases for potency.

When I was your age, we had just endured 4 years of Carter, and something called stagflation, when interest rates to buy a home were in the high teens (even 20%!), inflation was in double digits many years, and yet the market wasn’t moving at all. So, stagnant inflation, stagflation. Sometimes we waited in line for hours to buy gas.

The idea that I would ever be able to buy ANYTHING to live in was a complete joke. I looked at people around me who had bought real estate twenty years earlier when the prices were “low”, and realized I had no chance.

In fact, at your age, I was literally renting a room in a house in Glendora. Then another one, in another house. Shortly after that, I bought a 25 foot travel trailer that wouldn’t travel, but was parked in a trailer park in Arcadia full of very old people who seemed to need me to look in on them a lot (I have a talent with stopped up sinks and things). I could just barely swing the loan on the 25 ft trailer. That trailer was my first home with my new bride, Karen, in 1986. By then, interest rates were down to maybe 10-12 percent, depending, but I still had no hope of coming up with a down on a house.

I made some money on an arranging job, sold the trailer at a profit (inflation was still cooking along) and bought a condo, again just barely, with a negative amortization for the first five years. After a few years, the neighborhood began to deteriorate, so we sold that condo and bought a house, again just barely. Then we sold that house and had another house built on a lot we had bought, but again just barely. That’s where we live now.

Sure, things could go REALLY south, in which case some of us are going to have to move in with friends/family and share expenses till things improve. But it probably won’t be that bad, and 20 years is a LONG time. You’ll bounce back.

There has always been an underlying vitality about America. We get lazy and complacent sometimes, and pay for it in blood and treasure, but we get the job done. We’ll do it this time, too, even with our government working against us, like it did in the 1930s, because at the core we are working for ourselves, not somebody else, so we’re just more highly motivated than most.

Of course, if our government manages some of its more egregious ambitions, enough of us may begin to feel that we aren’t working for ourselves anymore. That will be very bad.

But I think maybe that won’t happen, at least not till your kids are grown, depending on how we manage things.

My Great Aunt Irene, working as a secretary in Chicago, invested a portion of her small weekly wage during the Great Depression. She thought the communications industry had a lot of future potential. She did amazingly well.

I wish I had some of her wisdom now.

The only TV shows I watch are House and South Park, and neither one has much in-depth economic coverage.