Are We In A Depression?

So, here’s a question many  people are asking these, “are we in a depression?”.  Sometimes it gets a little hard to tell if we are experiencing an economic depression.  People haven’t exactly stopped shopping and they are still traveling and taking vacations.  The only significant change may be the frequency of these activities, but either way, people are performing their roles as consumers and enjoying life as best as they can.

But when you listen to news on NPR, you get to hear the grittier tales of economic hardship.  Companies begin to downsize and people who have depended on their jobs for decades are struggling to start all over again.  Many of them share, “I’m too old to find a new job. No one will hire me.”  Unfortunately, these people find that the most undesirable places will be the ones most likely to hire them.

Students are certainly feeling the “financial freakouts” of their academic institutions.  In California, for example, hundreds of new teachers were laid off and this caused an increase in classroom size.  What this means is that teachers used to have a roster of no more than 25 students.  Now they can hardly accommodate the 37 kids enrolled into each period.  And usually the classrooms are not equipped with that many seats.  Student activities are being canceled because the funds don’t exist to reserve banquet halls, buy uniforms, or purchase supplies.

College students are finding it more and more difficult to get into the classes they need due to courses being cut and the implementation of furlough days.  Those classrooms are also being crowded by young adults hoping the professor will add them to the roster despite every seat in class being occupied.

The hardest part of an economy that is struggling is the effect it has on homeowners.  Those who lost their jobs and were no longer able to pay their mortgages soon packed up and moved in with family or into smaller, more affordable housing.

In these times, we can count on a list of small but powerful strategies to get us through the hard times.  No matter how old we are or our level of expertise, there are things we need to know about what to do with our wealth so that it grows without us having to work too hard.

For many years now, people have turned to network marketing as a way of creating a second (or even third) source of income.  For some, it provides a steady stream of extra cash that can cover activities such as movies, travel, and other sources of entertainment.  For many, it’s a flow of income that takes care of the great necessities of life: bills, investments, and mortgages.

Are we in a Depression?  As of right now it looks like it’s more of  a slump.  And if we do ever enter into one, hopefull it won’t be as grim as the stock market crash of the 1930’s.  Our consumerism gets us through and so far, that hasn’t slowed where it counts.

Fear is what causes a Depression.  When people are afraid to invest and support businesses, those establishments decline.  But to knock out the fear, you can be educated on your best choices and your most effective strategies for growing your wealth.

As John D. Rockefeller said, “These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and gone. Prosperity has always returned and will again.”  The slumps don’t last forever, not in your personal life, and not in society.  No matter how grim the news paints it, trust that there is always a way to create great wealth for you and your loved ones to survive any shift in the economy.

What do you think about where we and where we are headed?