The other day I came across a couple of articles that caught my eye. Recently, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist George Will spoke in Salt Lake City. He spoke to a private audience regarding a number of subjects, but the one that caught me attention was the current economic condition of this country, emphasizing debt.
He related that in 1916 John D. Rockefellar could have paid the entire national debt by simply writing a personal check. But, if Bill Gates liquidated everything he would only pay two months interest on the nations debt.
Will believes the nation is approaching a sudden phase of bankruptcy. The nation as a whole has a spending problem. The national debt is only evidence of governments fixation on deficit spending. Projections indicate that our national debt will continue drastic increase as Congress deals with how to fund Obamacare, and don't forget about social security.
Congress though, isn't the only one with a spending and debt problem. People like you and me have spending and saving problems as well. Some would have you believe the recession crippled so many businesses and homes has ended, but evidence and research indicate that that is not the case. According to the Public Religion Research Institute and the Pew Research Center, Americans consider themselves less financially stable than they did years ago. A large percent of Americans are delaying paying bills and visiting doctors because they feel they simply can't afford too. The percentage of Americans feeling this way only increase when it comes to the African American community and Hispanics.
In my business, all indications I see is that the economy is heading nowhere but down. The are indicators that real estate may crash again and a people's income simply is rising enough to meet the demands of inflation. When George Will spoke to that private audience in Salt Lake a couple weeks ago, he used a quote from a Hemingway novel "The Sun Also Rises", that appears could be quite prophetic to some degree. A character in the book, describing how he went bankrupt said, "I went bankrupt in two ways: gradually and then suddenly".
My personal experience and my experience as a bankruptcy lawyer indicates the same thing. Loss of job or significant drops in income, costs of health care and life necessities and other personal setbacks put us in a hole we can't dig ourselves out of, then there comes that point where we are totally broke and worn out from the stress of it all.
If you would like some help out of the rat race, we can show you a few options to get you out of the ever deepening hole. Call Richards, Brinley and Richards Law Group today, 801-621-7443 or visit www.richardsgodfrey.com.
To read more about the PRRI and Pew Studies read: http://national.deseretnews.com/article/2404/americans-arent-confident-about-their-financial-situations.html
To read more from George Will's talk in Salt Lake read: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=31616872#Gr60w6oEfm4rVb1a.03
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