Corporations, Banks, Others Way Too Big Now?

This may sound like a simple question, but with all the bailouts and over 7.7 TRILLION dollars spent in the US alone, which amounts to $24,000 dollars per adult and child, I am really wondering if international linkages and businesses have gone beyond reasonable limits.  The reasoning for bailing out AIG was that “it is too big, too involved, to allow to go under” and now Citibank and subsidiaries along with the Big 3, Ford, Chrysler, General Motors are all in that same basket, all “too big, to much an integral part of the economy” to be allowed to fail too.

Maybe one of the plans or regulations or restrictions of some kind should be put on corporations that get to the point where the failure will create a massive disaster. I don’t know, but one thing I do know is the old saying, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall“. I suppose the corollary to that is the deeper the hole they create when they do fall.

Wal Mart is another part of the huge economic downturn. How on earth can I say this? Well, if most remember, when Wal Mart moved into communities, small shops, business, suppliers all died off. What most people want are lower costs, true, but at what detriment to their own communities. Each small business in town paid separate taxes, school, road, etc. as well as creating jobs for the owners and the employees in that small business. When a store like Wal Mart appears, the tax base goes down, not up. The wages for businesses who supply smaller stores are usually better than those paid by the big box stores, and most owners try to provide benefits for themselves and their employees. Wal Mart is well known to buy goods produced overseas, sending the money to foreign suppliers along with jobs.

Yep, people may get some things cheaper, but overall the economy loses. Businesses that worked in tandem with their neighbours often worked more efficiently, and became an integral part of the community, with problems dealt with on site. Again, is this type of business “too big to be barred”?

If people want to have work, decent work, then maybe it is time for the small business owner to be allowed to thrive without dealing with the big box stores. Each of the big box stores hire fewer employees and pay them as little as possible. Employment goes down, not up. Imagine trying to get a foothold in business when you have to deal with those who have the funds to undercut you at every turn. Tough to make a decent living with that going on, yet people want work!

Some of the Wal Mart stores have been unionized. Yep, they have been. Yet, Wal Mart tried to make a case for closing the first store to become unionized by closing it and opening another close by. Hmm not a good way to be a decent employer or neighbour, or one that I would, personally, want to have nearby.

Yes, I do shop at one of the big box stores here, but I will never work or buy from Wal Mart. The way the company treats the general public, employees, and especially their suppliers is a methodology I cannot support. So, I speak with my dollars. I will shop at other stores that compete with Wal Mart instead.

Big banks, with many arms into all kinds of financial realms, can make a very shakey structure if one part is weakened. Citibank is one of those, with a multiplicity of arms. GM even got into mortgages, instead of maintaining the focus on automotive innovation.  AIG got into some financial areas it should never have, so when it got into trouble, out goes the tax man to pay up. AIG was supposed to be an insurance company, backing mortgages. See a theme here? Corporations did not keep their focus, did not keep their area of expertise intact, and others, like Wal Mart, have removed small businesses all over the country, even internationally. The effects are now being seen as people are either worried about jobs, or out of the workforce, maybe for a long time now.

Bigger is defninitely NOT better, when bigger can crater economies.

Depression Thinking when Money Goes Poof

I guess I am glad I had generations ahead of me who did live through the last depression and knew how to get through and be able to still share what they had with others.

First thing they did was to PUT MONEY ASIDE, even if it was a few pennies, a few dollars and keep it. The little bit may not have bought a house, but if you KNOW you have something, even a paltry bit, to fall back on, you are far less fearful.  Then they became inventive. They found ways to take something that had become broken, worn, and turn it into something useful. They took clothes that had hole in the knees and either patched the knees or turned the clothes into other items.

Why on earth am I even going here? From watching this, hearing the histories of the older generation, and doing some reading on the internet, I am about 50/50 on this going sour, becoming a full and very nasty depression, world wide.

So, instead of trying to play “catch up” I am saying get some practice in being innovative in your living, inventive, even thrifty! Habits can only become habits if you do them, and repeatedly.

Bartering was one of the ways people now are getting things done and without paying any taxes. Almost anything from baking bread, laying brickwork, to running people around in your car can be bartered. Yeah, yeah, I know, the tax man does not like this, but when you are the one feeding your kids, you need to find ways to lessen the strains on your wallet.

Gardens and putting in gardens saved a lot of people from going hungry, so if you live in the city, even in an apartment, you can save at least a few dollars by growing something. Peas grow up, trained on vines, even growing things like lettuce can be done indoors. Herbs can be traded or used to flavour bland, boring food. Maybe you have a neighbour with some free yard space. Talk to them and see if you can barter some raking of leaves for the space, then plant raspberries, blueberries or what you can in your area.

Here is a totally revolutionary idea! If you are up to debt to your eyeballs, then maybe you HAVE to learn to do this because otherwise you face some nasty consequences.  Saving a few pennies, saving a couple of dollars IS POSSIBLE in almost any condition, ask the people living on the streets, they have to.

People lived through the Great Depression and yes, they did manage to save. Why not now when you can do it with far less pain? Your survival, you children’s survival may well depend on this and your own abilities are worth more than money any day, any year, any financial circumstance, use your abilities for what they are, you best asset.