I was talking to a friend from college this morning. He said that in any church activity with younger adults, the economy is being discussed with fear and trepidation. Most people around our age are heavily mortgaged and fairly newly mortgaged in urban and suburban areas.
It gotten to me to thinking about what is coming with our economy. Let me throw out a few predictions of what will happen if we have another depression. This is a big "if", but it is a possibility if :
1. I think if the next depression happens, it will be a gradual process. There will probably not be a great run on the banks. It will be trickling depression instead of a great crash. If we are headed toward a depression, it has already started.Slowly, as homeowners are unable to refinance, anyone without a thirty year fixed mortgage will lose their home. This will take 5-6 years to completely play out.
2. I think Obama will be elected (barring something unforseen). He will quickly remove troops from Iraq. He will do this not simply because of his views on the war. It will soon become an economic necessity. Afganistan will also become a necessity to get out of as well. We have no viable economic interest in being there. Besides, there will soon be other wars to fight. If McCain wins, we will in a power grab make Iraq a colony of some sort, and force them to give us cheap oil. We will, as he promised, be there 100 years.
3. Most people think Obama will have to table his health care initiative. Nothing is further from the truth if a democrat is elected. We will have some form of socialized health care by 2011. People will get poorer and poorer and will not be able to afford insurance if the next depression happens. In particular, health care will be provided for basic necessities--with insurance available for catastrophic incidents.
4. Much like the previous depression, infrastructure will be repaired and built on a grand scale. It may seem like we do not have money for this, but it will be work that will keep young people fed and clothed.
5. Crime rates will rise astronomically in both small towns and big cities. When people get hungry, they steal. Young people will become more violent. Youth violence is almost always tied to economic factors. Racial tensions will become strained. Some of this will be directed at African-Americans, but most of it will be directed at immigrant people groups. This includes Latin Americans, but also some Asian groups in certain areas of the country. If jobs become more scarice, more citizen groups will form to remove illegals from their communities. Some will do this by force.
6. Many people in urban areas will begin to take in boarders. There will be a return to the extended family home. Grandparents with mortgages paid will have their children and grandchildren moving in with them. If that does not happen, you will see families having their single friends rent out rooms.
7. There will be another terrorist attack. If Obama is elected he will respond forcefully against this. If McCain is elected, he will caution restraint. I know this sounds counterintuitive. It is. But McCain can pull off a "wait and get to the bottom of this" approach. Obama will find it politically necessary to lash out immediately.
8. We will not be able to bail out areas devastated by natural disasters, except for in vital farmland. We will develop a relocation plan.
9. Like the last great depression, this depression will be exasserbated by environmental crisis. America will be in the forefront of addressing this environmental crisis. China will not address it at all. This will cause considerable conflict between the west and China. Unfortunately for the West, China will hold all their bank notes. As this crisis goes on, Al Gore will rise again to prominence as a national leader.
10. Whoever is elected next will be in office for 8 years. People will not want to switch leaders in the middle of this crisis.
11. Churches will gain membership. They will do low-risk, high-reward community iniatives. In suburbs you will see a revival of the neighborhood church, as well as in cities. People will not spend 40 miles of gas money to commute to congregations. This will hit the megachurches hard, but will revitalize small membership churches in neighborhoods.
Do you agree or disagree with this...what are your thoughts about the possibility of the coming great depression?
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OH Gee thanks, Friar, now I am depressed! I am not smart enough to know what I agree with or disagree with...but I do know that there is a lot of good going on as well. I will choose to look for the good, no matter what happens, and there is a lot of it out there right now, but you won't see it on CNN or FOX.
Hello Friar Tuck, I am Kim’s Mom. I stopped by to see who this friend who leaves nice comments on my daughter’s blog might be. I am very interested in hearing just what young people think of this mess that we and the rest of the world are in right now so I thank you for your thoughts. My husband likes to say, “Bread is 29cents but there is no bread”. My husband tells me that at work there is a sense of urgency all around him. It seems most businesses need a line of credit to maintain daily operations but that line of credit has dried up. It can only mean layoffs and no paychecks. I am sure that is but a glimpse of what is going on all over the country. It has already begun to effect local governments. I heard of the layoffs in Chicago and the hundreds of policemen that were among them. This coming days after the FBI and Police raids that arrested 40 members of the ‘Latin Kings’ a gang that controls much of the drug traffic in this country. They started in Chicago and are now seen in 34 states not to mention right here in my neighborhood. What good news this has all been for them.
I hear college students worrying about how they are going to fair. I see retirees who have worked hard their whole lives and done everything right see their nest egg disappear over night. I see young people who are so proud to own their first home now finding they owe more than their home is worth and unable to sell. We are just beginning to see the affects but I am not sure it will be as slow as you predicted more like getting hit with a ton of bricks. “The sky is falling”.
I wish I had more confidence in the voting process but with the new unverifiable machines they have put in place in some states (they promise they will remove them for the next election) and the closing of voting places they say are budget necessary and all in poor neighborhoods. They say it doesn’t mean you can’t vote you just have to do it somewhere else. These people have no means to get somewhere else. I know all this makes me sound like a cynic but I do believe in the basic goodness of man and believe in the youth of this country. I am agoraphobic and until recently don’t get out much. I have only voted once in my life but in spite of my fears of how fair the game is played I will be voting this year.
I rely on prayer and my faith in God. I tend to see adversity as a God give chance to learn and grow. Quite often I find these lessons harsh but much as a parent would admonish a child for putting their hand on a hot stove, necessary. It seems this lesson is for the world and in the end my hope is that we can only be better for it, as painful as it may become to learn. The wealth and greed of the few has exceeded the imagination at the expense of the many. It just reminds me of the story of the lost sheep. While it can be so easy to be angry and unforgiving of their greed I do take comfort in the fact that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is for a wealth man to get into heaven and forgiveness rewards my soul. Easy to say hard to do!
It was not my intention to comment when I visited your blog I was only curious as to whom you might be. Hope you do not mind my long retort. Maybe retort is not the right word for I do agree with much of what you have said and loved that you said it.
Kim and I try not to talk politics. So please don't think that my veiws reflect hers though some may. She speaks for herself and is one smart cookie as well as being well informed and just a beautiful person all around.
Well you ask.
Smiles,
Janett
I think I agree with most of this. The one I agree with the most is the last one. I think there is great hope for the local church, the more difficult the economy becomes. People will be looking for hope, and they will be afraid of the future. Those are the times when people tend to come back to church. I also agree with the gas thing. I hope that we see a big push to involve people in the local church and see the vitality of small churches rise again. I think apart from the fact that it will be difficult for small churches to pay their pastors (unless people are very sacrificial, or pastors begin to rethink their need to be one-job ministers), and we may see a resurgence of tent-making ministers if the economy goes bad. This was an interesting post, Clint. Thanks for getting me thinking about this.
Good Friar - Definitely agree with number 7. I'n not sure about number 9.
If/when environmental concerns stand in the way of cheap food and jobs they may (unfortunately)get pushed aside. But I hope a renewed concern for sustainable local economies will emerge and will challenge the tenets of globalization.
The biggest cities might grow as the remaining jobs get more concentrated. But high food prices (driven by high fuel cost) and rising crime might see mid level cities lose population both to larger cities and to rural areas.
More on a limb, I predict one party will openly break with corporate America and I wouldn't be surprised if it is the (Palin lead?) Republicans.
I think the next 2-4 years will be more like the 1970's than the 1930's, but I think there's a definite possibility that it will be worse. If this does happen I agree with all of your points here except perhaps number 10. I would also predict that the more the crisis is used as an excuse to expand government involvement in the economy, the longer the crisis will last and the slower the recovery will be.
@ Michele--as far as the economy goes...not a lot of silver lining on this cloud as far as I can see. When people on the radio say get your money out of retirement immediately..it is not a good situation
@jannett--welcome to friar tuck's world
@matt--I think our way out of economic despair, especially if Obama is elected, is the development of environmental industries. Especially with energy but not limited to it. Gore will never be elected president because he is too far sighted on this issue. But, he will continue to have a powerful voice, and may return to the Senate.
Also tied in with environmental crisis will be less and less rebuilding of the gulf, in my opinion. And continuing weather that threatens that area's viability.
@ steve--good thinking even if it is predictable. I think this is one of the interesting things about the Obama candidacy. His belief that government can be redeemed and not simply restrained.
Hi Clint,
Hmmmmmm. Living here in Japan, I felt shocked but personally untouched by the crisis in its early days. However, it is coming closer to us daily. They say when the US has a cold, Japan catches pneumonia. Our townhouses already decrease in value the minute they are purchased. Only land has the potential to gain in value. But, we are directly affected by the US's economy. Which I am clueless about, but...
This is a really good post. I kept it new in my bloglines, so I could reread it.
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