Now What?

The stimulus has passed, the President has spoken, things will be good, bad and indifferent, some things will change for the worse, some things may change for the better but whatever the case, it is going to be a long and hard road. 2009 will be a very long year as most of us struggle to keep our heads above water while more people and businesses fail around us. Driving down the street, we witness yet another home or business has been added to the for sale pile, another home has been added to the foreclosure pile and another store has gone out of business.

The reality is that we do need things to reset, many things about this particular economy are bloated; developers overdeveloped, builders overbuilt, and many companies over-expanded. Economic contraction is difficult and the economy has to shed this oversupply of goods and services to get back in line with demand. But, economic contraction is a very psychologically draining event. It puts us all at odds with each other.

It does not seem fair that many of the people who bought a house they could not afford and are now on the verge of foreclosure will be given economic assistance to help them afford/retain the house especially when the prudent majority conducted themselves as good citizens; purchasing a home within their means and being satisfied with what they could afford. Now the irresponsible buyer, who makes less money than you gets a leg up to keep their Mcmansion - twice the size of yours. It does really suck but yet it has to be done in order to save some geographical areas from economic calamity and by extension be good for the economy and the country.

Of course, the biggest and most irresponsible acts were carried out by the financial institutions. Again, as the Treasury, the Fed and the Congress pour trillions of dollars into these institutions to save them and we watch the collateral damage on the entire world's financial markets unfold where whole countries are going bankrupt as a result, the upper echelon of these institutions still get to collect billions in compensation and bonuses that we could only summon in our financial dreams. It is definitely not right that after all that cash, things are still pretty bleak; the banks are still not lending, they have reduced credit lines to consumers and businesses and the venerable Citigroup is still on daily meltdown watch.

How is one supposed to exude magnanimity when some of us will be carried through and still get to bask in the same light at the end of the tunnel? The greater good is to save the country but what will we be left with? Higher taxes? Diminished capital? No matter how you slice it, the prudent are now left with no choice but to continue to live within the same means while those who were the most financially incompetant and reaped the biggest benefits will be given the most amount of money to improve theirs.