Where do we go from here?

Is this what it was like in the years following 1929? Is this as bad as it's going to get or will it get worse before the tide turns?

Over the past 20-30 years of prosperity corporations and the Government bent the rules further and further until there were enough loopholes that companies could walk the fine line, gambling with everyone's money, recklessly, yet silently, leading our Country down the road to recession.

Companies have stopped hiring, manufacturers are ordering only what they need, or are recounting their inventories to see if they have enough to get by. Instead of employees getting 40 hours a week they now get 32. Financial institutions and automobile giants, both employing hundreds of thousands of people have recklessly mismanaged their interests for the past 20-30 years and we sat by, assuming everything was okay, assuming that those who we elected to lead us and those who we trusted with our money were operating in our best interest. Well, turns out they weren't.

How will all of this effect our country? How will we change? Will we come out of this downturn much in the same way our Grandparents did with caution, living inside our means and saving more than we spend? Who was it that said great events in history skip a generation? Our grandparents experienced great turmoil due to a major fiancial crisis, when our country slowly recovered the mood of Americans was to take only what they needed and save what you didn't need then for a rainy day (which is the reason why many of our grandparents died with a bank full of money). We grew out of those times and the lessons learned mostly went ignored by much of the next generation, a generation that most likely grew up in a frugal family as many families were, always wanting. Finally, when they had their chance they took all they wanted, anyway they could get it. However, over the years some of the same recklessness of taking all you want and more carried over into the heavy spending mood of Government and Capitalism. Now, we've hit the wall. How will we come out of this? How will we go from prosperity and privilige to protecting ourselves from future failures by those we trusted.

My hope is that our country sees the struggle of Americans and how far we've fallen from grace in such a short time. My hope is that we will concern ourselves more with the troubles on our home soil than with those of other countries. We have problems here and now that need our attention, resources and money. The rest of the world can wait. You've gotta take care of number one first before you can worry about everyone else. America needs to take care of number one.