My views on our economy future.

Many of you know my views but I will try to explain them more with this post.
What we are facing now is the past actions by banks, retailers and even our own government. Let’s start with the fiscal end by the banks and government.

Easy credit: As most of you know getting those credit card offers in the mail begging you to take out cards at high percentage rates are easy to fall into. In 2004, the average credit-card debt of US households was $9,300. In 2007 this report was posted at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/23/growing-credit-card-debt-_n_78048.html.
“Americans are falling behind on their credit card payments at an alarming rate, sending delinquencies and defaults surging by double-digit percentages in the last year and prompting warnings of worse to come.
An Associated Press analysis of financial data from the country's largest card issuers also found that the greatest rise was among accounts more than 90 days in arrears.”
I can not see how anyone with a credit card debt of this amount can stay afloat. But don’t worry because we have that “Payday Loan” office on about every corner, with interest rates up to 400 percent per year.
The Federal bank has seen this coming by reducing interest rates paid by banks for overnight loans. They also want you to borrow and spend by cutting your interest rates. This in turn affects the rate that investors get in return from savings accounts and CD accounts. Which today is almost nothing when you consider taxes and the rate of inflation into the equation.

What this adds up to is a spend and borrow economy. Which has worked for several years, but here is the dilemma. If everyone will cut down on spending and pay that money onto your debt, what would happen to the income of the business owner? You would see many businesses close their doors. But someday this day has to come either by the above or where people are unable to meet their fiscal obligations. We have seen this in the housing markets of today, with the fantastic home loans where you only pay the interest for the first five years and no money down loans. I believe that we will see this in other areas also.

Do retailers really want to save you money? No. We all receive those discount coupons in the mail but to get those savings, you have to spend money. Money that you might not have spent if that item was not on sell. I don’t know how many times I have gone into a retail shop with a coupon only to find another brand that was cheaper without a coupon.

I also can see the citizens play a big part in our economy. We control the prices by demand. Just about everybody I come into contact with complains about the price of gasoline today. But I never hear them explain what they have done to reduce the amount of this product that they are using. As I look at the traffic, I see one person per car, people still sitting in the drive thru at the fast food and banks letting their cars idle. I have not seen any complaints from business owners saying that the week-end volume business has drop off because of the price of gas.

With all this we can look forward to our property tax bills the next couple of months. What was passed will work, but it will take some time for it to fully impact the outlay of money that we will have to pay. And with this we are paying that one percent raise in the sales tax along with the food tax that is building that wonderful new stadium that you and I will never see a dime of income from.

What we can do:
Try ways to cut down on your purchase of gas. If the demand is still here for this product, you will see no reduction in price. Pay those credit cards off and CUT THEM UP!!!! It can be done if you put the effort into it. Sit down and think what is really important in this world. Is that product really going to make you and your family that much happier? We need to remember time spend with your family is more important then keeping up with the Jones. We must be willing to make adjustments to what we really need to our wants in life. Keep a watchful eye on our government and how they are spending our tax money. There is a city county meeting tonight, how many will be there from the public? Thank you for reading.