Main Street feeling the Heat

Who's ready to start a business? Buy a car? Move to an exciting city?
.... Yeah I didn't think so.

It's scary to think about the economic turmoil that is affecting our country right now. Weeks ago, congressmen didn't recognize or refused to care about the problems on Wall St. often sighting that Main St. needed help, too. I guess it's natural for people to overlook how connected we are. In case you didn't know, Wall Street is about 6 months ahead of schedule, when it comes to finances. Stock prices are based on future cash flows, and future revenues; thus explaining why in the beginning of this entire mess, many weren't feeling the crunch. But now, times have changes. Lay-offs have ensued at the Playboy Mansion, let alone Ford and other corporate giants. I won't even get into Lehman Brothers or Myrill Lynch... It's all just too much.

But why? How? I won't say that eight years ago, pre-Bush we were great, because I just sound anti-Bush, but LITERALLY, EIGHT YEARS AGO WE WERE GREAT! How could we fall this far!

Simply, greed.

And not just on the corporate level either. I know everyone loves to talk about hedge funds and this and that... but honestly, where did the problem begin? (starting up with the derivative talk, I know...) Housing. People flipping and flopping and taking out blind loans and banks looking the other way, while people with absolutely NO credit and NO money took out ridiculous loans. Then there were those that took out equity loans against their houses, and we know how that ended up.

And, the dominoes continue to fall. There's been an upsurge in people defaulting on credit cards, and it's no wonder. Some are stuck paying over half of their income on a mortgage... when the car breaks down, there's no savings to tap into. Lord knows you can't dip into your retirement during these times, so what is an average person left with... Credit Cards. (That's assuming that it's for something legitimate, and not just American materialism, another post, I know)

Well, all I know is that I can't find a good internship because there's a hiring freeze. College graduates incomes have been declining for the past five years... and I'm scared. What's the rush of getting out of cozy college when it's a crazy world out there!!