Who Does Depression Hurt? - THE WORLD!

Photographer Unknown
Acquired via Google Images

As journalistic rhetoric ignites a fire storm of fear across the United States regarding a possible second coming of the Great Depression, I find myself in a quandary as I try to find some nugget of truth in all of this. What I dislike the most, is that it seems the world is being punished by bad politics. If the US indeed enters into a time of Depression, it will not just affect our country but it will affect global markets, global economies and global stability. Thus, is it fair that the media is fanning a flame like this one just for political gain? Would the word Depression be thrown around so emphatically if it were not a season of elections? I understand that passions run deep and people on both sides of the country are desperate for a win, but at any cost? Some states in the US have not seen a dramatic decline in the housing market or the economy. Places where fear runs deep are areas where people are selling stocks, emptying 401k's and when we show these people who are loosing their retirements funds, the college savings funds they established for their kids, when we show them pictures of soup kitchens from the Great Depression (see the cover of the newest Time's Magazine) what are we trying to say? We can't be afraid and we can't fear. What we all long for is security and stability and promise. Our country, our world, is in need of unity, faith and commitment.
What amazes me even more is that what people had back in the Depression was much less than what we have today and yet they survived as a people. My great grandparents lived through the depression. They had families of 6, 8 and 12 children. They lived in very humble means. Each child did not have a room of their own with TVs, computers, iPods, gaming systems. They were farmers who were heavily hurt by the drought that hit their part of the country. They didn't have food to feed their families. They didn't have credit cards. They didn't HAVE. If we look at the poor in our country and compare them with the poor in other countries, our poor is relatively spoiled. I love my country and I'm proud to be an American. My families immigrated to the US via ship from Germany many years ago. They came here for promise, for opportunity, for freedom. I will never be ashamed of that. We are, however, an imperfect country and an imperfect people. We are a spoiled country with too much focus on material goods and consumerism and money markets. There is a reason we were told that money is the root of all evil and it was for our own good. We spend hours upon hours at work away from our families to make more money at the expense of our children.
I'm not a financial expert. I don't know how to fix this country. What I do know is that when a family hits financial times it calls for a family meeting. We sit down, we take a look at items in our budget that can be forfeited for awhile. We tighten the purse strings, we save, we spend less, we come together to get ourselves back on track. So you won't get your massage's for awhile. So you can't go on a family vacation to the Florida Keys. Think outside the box with the ingenuity that our country is known for. What happened to playing boards games in your living room, family movie night, cookouts...things that don't cost a fortune. It's time to cut back. To stop spending and to hit our knees in gratitude for the blessings God has given all of us, no matter what our economic status is. We as a country and as a global community are being taught a very important lesson, one we can't afford not to learn. It's time we humbled ourselves. It's time we cared for global poverty, global health concerns. It's time we look outside ourselves, not just as a country but as individuals. It's time we realize that we're not in control here. We never were and we never will be. We've tried to take God out of everything and we're falling apart at the seams. Maybe it's time to start putting God back where He belongs...in everything.