How Has the Great Recession Affected Your Home Town?

It’s amazing when you talk to different people, from different walks of life, from different geographic areas big and small, poor and rich, and they express how this Great Recession has changed things in their area. It’s almost always something, there is hardly a town or city that has not experienced some sort of backlash from this economic quandry we find ourselves in. It doesn’t matter, rich or poor, everyone has been affected by this recession.

What I hear are stories ranging from how Joe lost his job and now Sally’s supporting the family on one income, how good, hardworking people lost thousands of dollars when the stock market imploded back in October of ’08, how schools and libraries are closing, businesses are closing by the boatload, and a whole bunch of other frightening and poignant stories about how this travesty has affected the lives of taxpaying, hard working citizens.

If you don’t know a few people who have been impacted – some seriously – by this housing crisis and subsequent tanking of the economy, then consider you and yours very lucky. Local and Federal government is cutting important social programs and other subsidies and keeping other programs that they probably shouldn’t, or paying $100 for a hammer for highway work and other wasteful spending, in the name of saving money and preventing huge deficits.

With how many taxes we all pay already, I can’t help but feel the government is one of the worst money managers ever. Maybe it’s high time we get actual business people in offices instead of politicians, at least then we’d be in better shape, with real money managers that know how to keep on budget and manage economies, instead of wading through the dark waters blind like I feel they are now.

I don’t know, it seems like this has been the decade of the perfect storm as far as the economy goes, and it’s going to take a lot more talented people at the top who are saavy with financials to fix it.