Let's Talk Finance

So, 2008 has been a crazy year so far, hasn't it? And it's only half over! The biggest theme of the year so far....finances, and how messed up all of ours are with this, the worst recession (yes I, Chris Bucka, am officially declaring this a recession) since the Great Depression. I almost laugh when I hear the over-optimistic economic analysts saying we've hit bottom- no, we haven't!

The United States' glory days were in the 50's and 60's, when the generation running the country had grown up during the Great Depression and helped build a better country because of it. So, while politicians and economists are making their best attempts to spin the sunny-side up, let's call this what it is, an introspective period where the American citizen must critically look into how he or she manages their finances. It's a time when credit procuring organizations should probably have their reins drawn in, with practices to limit the indebtedness consumers can get themselves into, and a focus on domestic savings. Let's try and stimulate our economy by getting the rest of the world to spend while we fix our financial mess at home.

Gas prices are at all-time highs. Are they going to go down anytime soon? No, so why aren't we putting any sense of urgency behind making mainstream alternative energy a reality the same way we put a sense of urgency in the space program when an actual leader was in the Oval Office and declared that we were going to the moon- and did it in under 9 years (too bad he couldn't see what we accomplished, but nonetheless, we made JFK proud). Are we that uninspired, or has our society regressed that much that we aren't prducing enough engineers and scientists who actually care to put in the research in this field. Surely, there's wealthy individuals out there willing to invest in what will eventually reap unbelievable returns as alternatives replace our oil dependence and free us from oil slavery.

So what's to come for the rest of the year? Hold on tight, because we're in a volitile BEAR market. Save your hard earned dollars, because who knows when the income stream may get interrupted in the near term, and let's stop spending frivilously. Let's also make our charitable donations domestically where they are needed. Yeah, I know they're starving in Africa, but are you aware of how many people in the United States have lost homes in the last 12 months due to natural disasters? Let's keep it in the family for now, folks.

On the bright side, dub-yah is gone in 7 months and we will be able to see a slightly clearer picture of how next year will play out. Perhaps we need an election to turn this economy around. I don't want to make any comparisons, but we did see some of the greatest government action after the election of 1932. Only problem is that we haven't really seen it since. But let's keep optimistic because, well, that's really all we've got, right?