The Dawning of Depression

If we at least had enough to live on and make expenses, that would be enough. And enough to pay off the house, which isn't worth much anymore. Oh, and maybe provide for our healthcare, which is going to get very expensive in the very near future, and we better pay it or they will take our house! Oh, and enough in the bank for emergencies, home repairs, vehicle replacements; and maybe some investments to stave off inflation, and maybe enough to help out our kids, and help our grandchildren with college, and an occasional holiday or vacation. Would that be enough?

Or would we need more, maybe some hard gold in case the government collapses including the FDIC and the banks can't come up with our savings, and in case our social security checks stop and our investments all go away, like they did last year.

But gold is ready to go down since its run up, so maybe that's not a good idea. Maybe some property since it is so cheap now, but that isn't liquid, and if we needed the money we couldn't get it.

Or maybe a safe haven in some foreign country if everything did go south here, maybe Thailand. But the government there is a bit instable. Maybe Costa Rica? Do they have health care there?

If you are now 25 years old, making $50,000 and want to retire at age 65, keeping the same income, you will need about $2.5 million at retirement considering inflation. That means you will have to save about $70,000 a year or $6,000 a month, starting today.

Fugetaboutit. Joe the plumber is doomed.

So okay, what's Plan B? The problem is; there is no Plan B. There will never be enough money, especially since America has peaked and is headed downhill from now on regarding our standard of living. Wall Street's constant drumbeat about saving for retirement and investing only makes more money today for the wealthy elite. Who knows what will be there tomorrow? Check it out over the last thirty years.

Things are going to get tight. The states are most critical because they don't have the federal cushion of printing money, so you will see local and state governments going bankrupt, which means a drastic cut back or discontinuance of social services, schools, and infrastructure maintenance. The roads will get bumpy, beginning with the poor and disabled, the blind and infirm who depend almost solely on the state, followed by the unemployed middle class that depends on the state as a safety net, and finally the upper middle class white collar workers, up to their necks in debt themselves, that will be increasingly laid off or cut back as profits shrink and Wall Street expectations are unmet.

America has become an economy of paper. Banking, Wall Street, financing, insurance - none of these provide goods, only services. However these are now the driving forces of our weakened economy, that's the reality, and since they rely heavily on money, i.e. paychecks, their influence can only wane with nothing to take their place. They are all services, no different from the corner diner that goes out of business when the local steel plant closes down.

The only hope for these service industries is going international where the money will be made in the future, just as manufacturing relocated to where the labor is cheap and laws are loose.

But Joe the plumber has to stay here, and that's the problem.

So what's the chances of raising two or three mil before retirement? What's your alternative? If you have none, then eventually it will come down to your prescription drugs or food, or maybe a compromise of half a tablet and a little cheap food, maybe potatoes. And then dog food. And then. . . .

And then it is time to die. The options have run out. The greedy are fending for themselves. It's every man and woman for themselves. It's chaos.

And when we look back to see how this could have ever happened, we need look no further than the time when money became more important than human decency. When our religions failed us. Why? Because money has become the ticket out of suffering instead of sacrifice and hard work. Ever since our illusory religions lost their meaning to Americans, we bought our way out, and if it wasn't enough, if the suffering began to seep in again, we borrowed some more money, and more, and more.

We need only look back to see when Americans no longer tolerated hardship, when they believed that they were above the rest of the world, in some kind of an exalted place, like gods, and shrugged their shoulders at poor, starving people all over the globe. That was their problem, the heathens, nothing to do with us Americans.

Maybe it is true about what goes around comes around.

Anagarika eddie is a meditation teacher at the Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation Retreat Sanctuary www.dhammarocksprings.org and author of “A Year to Enlightenment.” His 30 years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Thervada Buddhist monk.

He lived at Wat Pah Nanachat under Ajahn Chah, at Wat Pah Baan Taad under Ajahn Maha Boowa, and at Wat Pah Daan Wi Weg under Ajahn Tui. He had been a postulant at Shasta Abbey, a Zen Buddhist monastery in northern California under Roshi Kennett; and a Theravada Buddhist anagarika at both Amaravati Monastery in the UK and Bodhinyanarama Monastery in New Zealand, both under Ajahn Sumedho. The author has meditated with the Korean Master Sueng Sahn Sunim; with Bhante Gunaratana at the Bhavana Society in West Virginia; and with the Tibetan Master Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado. He has also practiced at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the Zen Center in San Francisco.