I talked it over with my family. We have collectively decided not to spend as much money this Christmas on presents and gifts. The decision came after we had a really long talk about how worried everyone still is about the economy. Nobody knows how long it things are going to stay like they are right now.
Any one of us could lose our jobs at any time. My one brother is really worried. He says that the company managers have been holding a lot of unusual meetings lately. The talk is that they are going to have to shut down. The company needs operating capitol that they aren’t able to get. Apparently the ban that they normally have a credit line with, terminated that credit line.
Now the place needs to borrow a few hundred thousand dollars to keep things afloat while they restructure some operations. Who would have thought that it would come to all of this?
A couple years ago we were all thinking things were rosy. We were making plans for a bright future. It seemed that aside from terrorism, things in the world were starting to become really stable. Then in the blink of an eye it all changed.
The funny thing is that I have this one friend who was saying that this whole housing thing was a bubble. He claimed that America was living on borrowed money and that one day it would all end in a massive crash. I thought he was an alarmist idiot. Guess I was the real idiot.
So, after much consideration we have decided to minimize our Christmas gifts this year and instead save that money for the inevitable rainy days ahead. By the looks of it, we are going to be in this mess for a very long time. Hopefully by next year we can go back to spoiling each other rotten. Who knows though? Next year things might be even worse than they are right now.