"No Easy Outs"

For Wall Street or Main Street. That's what President Obama told Terry Moran on 'Nightline' this week.

He's right. The messes that we have created over the last 40+ years must now be cleaned up...or at least we must start the process of "cleaning" them up. That's the current challenge before these United States of America.

It's a paradox really: People have been encouraged/cajoled/bullied/warned to "save"...and now that people are "saving"...the so-called 'economy' of the nation, yea, the world seems to be taking a "tank-dive."

The "investors" on Wall Street have been playing fast and loose with the nation's investors/investments (that would be YOU and ME)...and they gambled...and gambled...and gambled...

and LOST!
All the "stuff" that seems to keep America's "heart" (misplaced though it has been) beating is now nothing more than that: "stuff." The average 'consumer' realizes that he/she/they can live on much less than what Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Michigan Avenue, and the Malls tells we can/should live on. We have discovered that the "latest and greatest" gizmo will not self-destruct in five seconds unless we buy it. Really, it won't. It hasn't. It's still on the shelf of that same store.

The phrase "spending like drunken sailors" has always evoked a laugh, or at least a courtesy chuckle. But the truth is, "those sailors" only have so much to spend, and then they must face the music. What we, here in America, are discovering is that the "hangovers" are hellish!

What lessons are we learning in these "lean" times? Or are we learning? If and when the "economy" starts to recover, will we be up to our same old selfish ways once again?

I wonder.