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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Are You Better Off Than You Were 4 Years Ago?


From my father I learned to be a student of history. I have studied the great depression. We have been living through a mini Great Depression 2. The politicians have sugar coated it and what is left of the social net has saved us from oblivion. Had President Obama not intervened as he did, we would have had cataclysmic Great Depression 2. I'm sure that it would have been worse than the one in the 1930's. There would have been incredible human suffering and social unrest. Violence would have been common place. In such unsettled conditions, it would have been easy for a politician like Hitler or Stalin to take power. God knows what would have happened afterwards. President Obama will get a good place in history for this achievement.
Are my wife and I better off than we were in September, 2008? We live in the same house that we did 4 years ago. We still own the same rental property that we owned years ago. We drive the same cars that we drove 4 years ago. We have the same television that we had 4 years ago. We wear the same clothes that we did 4 years ago. But our debt has dropped over $250,000 and our retirement savings have grown.
I am retired and my wife is a doctor. She has been spared the pain of unemployment. But we have suffered a lot of stress over the last 4 years.

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