A Personal Finance Reality Check

We’ve been through a lot the last few years. It’s been called economic hard times, a depression, the Great Recession. And on and on.
It’s nothing.
When we see the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti, we see a real personal and economic tragedy. This is a true calamity. Haiti and the Haitian people have seen more than their share of misery, from revolutions to extreme poverty.
The sad truth is made even sadder after several studies and reports indicated that Haiti’s economy had been steadily improving.
For most of us, this should serve as a reality check for our own lives and finances. No matter how bad things are for us, they pale in comparison to the hardships that the Haitian people face.
I hope you spend a little time today thinking about and praying for the people of Haiti. I also hope you spend some time thinking about just how lucky we have it.
Sending help…
Click here to donate to UNICEF’s relief efforts.
Click here to donate to Yele Haiti.
Click here to donate to the Red Cross.
Clicke here to donate to Mercy Corps
Depression is more than just a name for sliding GDP numbers. True, it may be an economic condition; but, it can also be a mass psychological effect that turns into an dire economic feedback loop.

The Great Depression was not a singular event.
Think I am full of doom and gloom? Absolutely not. Both Matt and I are extreme optimists. But consider these facts: depressions happen on average once per lifetime, or every 80 years or so. It’s been 80 years since the last depression. The government is running budget deficits on a scale that has never been seen before, and has no way of paying back the money. The housing market has leveled off, but there is nothing to help it recover after the current first time house buyer’s stimulus wears off. The unemployment rate is getting higher, and there is nothing to slow that down. The US automakers have recovered for this month, but only because of $3 billion dollars of free money for (mostly American) clunkers. As soon as that stimulus effect wears off, the American car manufacturers will be in even worse shape than they were last month.
The sudden collapse of the debt market and it’s catastrophic ricochet into the stock market has a lot of people saying that they “lost everything” in the recession.












