Wake Up America!

This just in this morning from the American Banker:

"New-home sales in November dropped to a 17-year low nationwide, and the median house price declined 12%, to $220,400, according to the U.S. Commerce Department."

My, oh my...can you believe this?

What I find hard to believe is that some people find this "news". In 2008, 2.6million jobs were lost - the most since 1945. I know it is hard to believe but people can not buy houses unless they have income/jobs. Watching the mainstream media denial of this obvious fact would be funny if it were not lulling so many stirred up folks back to sleep. No one wants to talk about the elephant in the room: we are broke! Yes, that is right boys and girls; there is no jingle jangle in our pockets or purses. We are all cutting back on the "extras" and beginning to... dare I say it...BUDGET our expenses. For the children of this generation this may seem like a cold splash of water in the face, but I for one, breathe a sigh of relief. Thank God. I don't have to worry about the "Jone's" anymore - they are in the same boat, or at least putting a toe in the water with the rest of us. I hope you are relieved too! Not that I have any ill will towards any Jones's, we all want to better our lives as we see fit, but really - enough is enough with the buying, buying, buying.

We may well see a bit of "rally of optimism" over the next three or four months, but my guess is that we are in "valley of tears" for much of the next couple of years at least. One can not just lose so much personal and corporate wealth and expect to build it back up again in a few months. The government monetary policy will remain the same as it has been....print more paper. This printing of "fake" or "fiat" paper, along with artificially low interest rates set by the private bank known as The Federal Reserve Bank (more on this later!), will destroy the remains of our economy. Fear, panic, hunger and possibly civil unrest may create the "opportunity" for the further infringement of our personal freedoms and unraveling of our Consititution by our own elected politicians. Why? Because most of us are ignorant of the root cause of the problem: Fake money! Let us pray things do not go this far!


Anyway...as they say, "back on the ranch", what can we do today? Let's start with basic emergency preparedness. Food, water, shelter and medical provisions. Do you have them? If not, why not. Even without all of the craziness in the financial markets, we should all have basic essentials in our homes and 72 hour kits ready to grab and go. Do you?

Here are a couple of good sites:
Emergency Essentials
Mountain House

Suprisingly, FEMA has a good site too.

One last little nugget, I found a great little booklet out on the web: Gone Before You Get There It is inexpensive and I am using their list as a check list for my own household - I hope you find it helpful too!

All in all, a time of reigning in our spending and focusing more closely on what we really need has its own bright side: let's focus on our families, good times at home, keeping more of what we earn and review our priorities. I'll bring more insight to these and more ways to save money, become more independent and challenge you to think about "wealth" in new ways in the days and weeks ahead.

Cheerfully Back to Basics,
Leslie