Thursday, December 19, 2013

Economic Crash Course

Living on a homestead farm (to us) means trying to be as sustainable as possible, being as self-sufficient as possible, and above all, living within our means.  We try very hard to not go into debt and try to only buy things if we have the cash money to pay for it.  Listening to the news, especially on the economic/political front right now really grinds my gears.

Rant On [X] Off [  ]

There seem to be no adults in the room as anyone that brings up living within a balanced budget is branded as some sort of extremist.  Anyone that wants actual cuts to spending versus cuts to the growth in spending is marginalized by a society that wants more and more and more.  The concept of only purchasing what you can afford is foreign.  The question, "Can we afford this?" is never asked.  The word sacrifice appears to be an alien term.  Although greed and consumerism is nothing new in our society, is it just me or does it seem like the velocity of the "I want it now!" mentality is speeding up and our economy is hurtling toward the cliff?

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It is my opinion that politicians of both political stripe within our Federal government don't have the gumption to address our bloated spending.  There are a lot of immoral things in our world today, but I think it is very immoral to purchase things for yourself and present the bill to your kids or your grand kids.  Our generation is saddling future ones with debt so large that the tax rates to service it will crush their standard of living.

With that being said, while reading Herrick Kimball's Deliberate Agrarian blog, I became aware of a great educational tool that is comprised of 20 videos, ranging from a short one minute and 38 second video to the longest, which is 19 minutes and 48 seconds long.  In all it takes 3 hours and 20 minutes to watch the entire course.  I did it over a week or so during my lunch breaks at work.  The class is called The Crash Course and you can go through it by clicking this link:  The Crash Course  I checked and the videos are also on You Tube as well.

I'm going to go through it again, but with my wife and kids this time.  The author, Chris Martenson put this together and begins by stating that "The next twenty years are not going to be anything like the past twenty years."  He then begins to develop that thesis by going back and explaining basic economics and moves to where we are presently and then finishes with how our past and current decisions have shaped the future.  But he doesn't stop there.  He gives you some questions to ponder and leaves you with some decisions to make.

It's really not a doom and gloom thing to make you fearful.  He's not selling anything.  He educates you so that your eyes are open and you have information to prepare yourself for changes that are sure to occur.  I'm was a Finance major so I sat through many boring lectures on economics, finance, and accounting.  This is not one of those type things.  Mr. Martenson has put together an informative, upbeat presentation that I enjoyed and I recommend it.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.  -Benjamin Franklin



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