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The economy has become a hot topic in recent months.
Presidential hopefuls are talking about it more and more, trying to reassure the people that we are not heading for a serious recession. They would like people to believe that if they were president, the economy would be great all the time, but in our economy nobody has that kind of power. The economy is shaped in part by how people behave with the resources available to them, and that more than any other reason is why the economy is in trouble.
America in the 21st century is a vast debtor nation with millions of citizens living way beyond their means. According to cardweb.com, the average American household with at least one credit card has over $8,000 in debt. And according to the Office of Management and Budget, the government is over $9 trillion in debt. On top of that, we have a currency that's slipping all over the world and that isn't backed by anything other than our belief in its value. And yet our economy rolls along.
It's an amazing thing to contemplate. How can we be in so much debt using a declining currency and still function? There are many complicated reasons, but there are two in particular that stand out: us and government policy. We as a people have developed spending habits that put us so deep in debt that we spend a good chunk of our lives trying to get out of it. Most of us went into debt just to go to this great university of ours. We came in hopes of creating a better life even though part of that life will be at the mercy of creditors, making it even more difficult to move up the economic ladder.
It doesn't help that the government helps finance this debt. It is largely because of to its policy and that of the Federal Reserve that credit becomes cheap and people start living beyond their means. And all it takes to send people into a panic is for the credit to stop coming. Because without our credit, we can't support the lifestyle we want. The American dream is possible, but it comes at a price.
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