It is all to easy to get caught in a debate over the causes of the current global depression instead of doing something to fix the economy or even protect yourself and your family so that you can survive the recession, and the perils to surface next.

Years ago I served in the Army. One of the first lessons that I learned in the Army is that there are people that talk about how to do something and there are people that DO something.

The people that do things and avoid talking about things too much are the ones that thrive and survive. The ones that talk about things are bureaucrats and usually cause more harm than good.

The world is rapidly falling into a global depression. When this site was started, that was not a fact and more of a speculation on the future. Now, there are few people that would argue to the contrary.

Unfortunately, the people that used to throw up walls about the reality of what was happening to the global economy are now all to quick to stand there and do nothing. They choose to belabor the question of “How did we get into this mess?”

Well the answer is that it doesn’t really matter too much. We are here and the situation is so dire that there is not time to stand around debating it. If you must debate it at all, then plug your ear into a ear bud on a cell phone and work while you complain and debate.

This is no time for anyone to sit still, sit at home, or mill around without a purpose. If you have a job, make sure you are spending your spare time tightening up your home, your apartment, your car, your possessions. Stock up on food, on batteries, on necessities. If you do not have a job, spend time finding a job, but do not neglect to make some money while you are doing it.

Think that President Obama or the US government is going to solve your problems for you?  Consider that the smartest people in the world just reviewed his plans over the last few weeks and no one thinks those plans are good nor sufficient. 

Need more proof? Here’s a simple number.  The US government has given or promised almost $3 trillion dollars to Wall Street.  This was for the mortgage melt down.  This week President Obama rolled out his BIG plan to bail out people with problems with their mortgage or home value.  It was $75 billion.  That’s $8k for the 9 million people that Obama thinks have financial problems with their mortgage.  That number is so pitifully small that it is insulting. 

Your average person that did nothing wrong and bought an average priced house in the last 8 years, has lost more than 5 times that amount already!

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Hurricane Katrina made believers out of many people in the United States and around the world. If there’s a big enough problem, the United States government can not solve it.

The unfolding global depression is rapidly turning into a problem that the United States government can not solve.

Congress is barreling towards gridlock over a stimulus package that even if passed seems to be utterly devoid of any real stimulus. There are many notable and worthy social programs in the package but rarely any economic stimulus segments that will put people to work or back to work in the United States and nothing that seems to be strong enough to turn the economy around or turn the tide of the financial collapse that grows daily.

In fact if anything the stimulus plan seems to be both a step in the wrong direction and an expensive one at that that might just waste the governments remaining financial ammunition.

This is why the US savings rate has gone from negative to 4.6% and why many economists expect that rate to double or even go into double digits. People are learning to hoard their money and in some cases they are doing that literally in cash. There comes a point where if you know that the banks are corrupt and incapable of managing their money and that the government is incapable of supporting those banks or helping them recover, then it doesn’t make sense to leave your money in the bank.

This was one of the lessons learned during the former Great Depression. True, it did make things worse for financial markets, but there is a big difference between helping financial markets survive when they are corrupted to the point of failure in all circumstances and your own personal survival or the survival of your family.

This is the thing that is causing Americans to save money and in some cases even saving money at the expense of paying their medical bills, their house payments, and their credit card debt.

Let’s face it if you don’t have 6 months of emergency funds on hand in the form of cash, you are not in a good position to survive a Katrina like economic disaster. If 99% of your earnings are going out the door to pay bills and monthly expenses, then you can not save up 6 months of emergency cash.

This catch 22 can only be canceled out by paying yourself first and paying your bills later. Sometime later, assuming the banks are still in business to receive your payments after you have protected yourself.