Thinking back to the financial crisis of 2008, one would think that another such economic catastrophe would somehow elude us. Just ten years ago, the United States plunged the world into the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression. Yet here we are, a decade later, no wiser and even dumber. I would have thought that we would have learned from our mistakes, but time and again, history shows that we are still prone to repeating mistakes of the past. When will we learn? Today, what we have is the déjà vu of the financial crisis of 2008. So what we have now are almost the same set of circumstances that are on the verge of unleashing an economic meltdown more sinister and devastating than the one in 2008. To understand how this is happening, we first have to look at what happened before the crisis. 2008 crash.
Long before the financial crisis of 2008 occurred, ongoing factors were already occurring that led to the eventual collapse of the financial, real estate, and automotive industries. One of the most prominent factors that contributed to this crisis was the fact that banking institutions starting in 1980 initiated a series of policy changes that began to undermine the financial security and stability of those same institutions. When banks threw out the book on prudent fiscal policies that worked for generations and relaxed the standards for mortgages in order to generate more income by making mortgages, like the United Auto Workers Union, they got too greedy.
As early as the 1950s, until the late 1970s, the most efficient, prudent and reliable policy for obtaining mortgages and the criteria was quite simple. The amount a person could qualify for a mortgage was equivalent to only 25 percent of their gross income. All this changed with the arrival of the credit bureaus and new banking concepts, such as adjustable rate mortgages or ARM’S, as they are still called today. Since the 1980s, a new era of banking began. Over time, corruption, fraud, and embezzlement turned out as fast as the changing ways in which banks reshaped individual mortgage policies.
What also happened during this transition in banking policies was that the Federal Government, in its attempt to stimulate economic growth, approved NAFTA. Our elected officials were unaware that this trade agreement did the exact opposite of what it was designed to do. Consequently, since 1994, the United States has lost millions of middle-class salaried jobs. It seems that overnight America, our strong manufacturing-based economy, was almost eradicated. In the end, this left millions wallowing and languishing in despair, hoping that somehow those jobs would return. As a result, our society has suffered the loss of millions of jobs, leaving families so impoverished that, in many cases, the once strong family unit has deteriorated. Our once stable economy was no longer so.
Since the 1980s, more Americans were drawn to ARM’S thinking that their animated hoods would always be there. Then all of a sudden, job losses, stagnant wages, and loss of pensions meant those ARMS put so many people in a position where they couldn’t pay their mortgages. The mortgages they took out were now being sold at inflated prices to investment firms. When millions were no longer able to pay their adjustable-rate mortgages along with the millions more who had fixed-rate mortgages in early 2007, the financial industry began to unravel. This resulted in one of the worst financial, economic and social crises of our time. The massive foreclosures that occur every day, more people left in the cold and families divided, was the result of our entire economy being sucked out from under us.
In 2008 across America, the staggering and alarming rate of ruined neighborhoods rose at alarming rates, with every bank foreclosure. In all major cities in the United States, unemployment rates exceeded 20 percent. The once strong and dominant manufacturing base of our economy had disappeared. What has replaced manufacturing is the service industry. This increase in the service industry has only produced a very limited number of workers earning real living wages. An example of a living wage for the Tampa area of Florida is no less than $ 25 per hour, or $ 52,000 per year. In Tampa, Florida, for those still employed, the median salary is just $ 30,000 a year. This is with an unemployment rate in 2009 of more than 20 percent. With those figures, there was no way to have enough tax revenue to serve all the public services that are now required by law not only for the city of Tampa but for the entire country. There was a domino effect in declining economies. This only further pushed against any hope of an economic reversal of fortunes. Even though unemployment rates have improved today, wages are still well below the overall cost of living and continue to push city budgets into the red.
When the federal government intervened with the massive bailout programs for the failed institutions that started this crisis in the first place, they only increased our national debt. Today, ten years later, those QE bailouts by the Fed have only increased the wealth of financial institutions by one percent. The American public is still on the sidelines. Our national debt has only multiplied, and when all is said and done, the Fed since 2009, with its $ 1.5 trillion of freshly printed cash, has only created more inflation for the American public. We see it every day in the supermarket. The cost of everything continues to rise almost daily.
What has resulted today is that the federal government is controlling more than 80 percent of all real estate and it is all based on credit. The recent stock market crash indicates that our economy is just the tip of an economic and financial iceberg of economic calamity. The economy has not recovered, credit is all that keeps many afloat, and individual incomes remain stagnant and, in many cases, contracting. With the Fed raising interest rates, it only prevents the national debt from rising, and with Trump’s budget, the national debt will remain like an executioner’s noose, stifling any real and meaningful economic growth for all. Americans.
Our political parties continue to lose the boat in crafting meaningful reforms that would allow the United States to greatly reduce the national debt and, at the same time, stimulate genuine economic growth. With the advent of wireless power along with today’s many other technological wonders, upgrading and securing our infrastructure, as well as providing everyone’s security, must be a major priority.
Today, the world is rapidly being endangered by man’s slow reaction to implement protocols to deny the effects of the almost irreversible damage we have done to our planet. When major cities around the world suffer from extreme freshwater shortages where, at any moment, drought conditions could devastate and send entire populations into hysteria, this is not what should happen. However, the prospects for the near future, if nothing else, are not made just in the United States, but around the world, millions will be thrown into chaos where unimaginable hardships and horrors await.
The time to act is now, but we have leaders in Washington and an administration that has only created a very toxic climate not just in DC, but around the world. Lest we forget China, North Korea, and even our neighbor, Mexico. The constant lies, innuendo and constant agitation from the Trump White House are the sources of so much division. Instead of unity, there is chaos. Instead of humility, there is bravado. Instead of benevolence, there is corruption and collusion. This is the reality we face today. Tragic, yes.
A crisis point is looming, and unless we come together as a united nation with a unified leadership plan, the future remains bleak. America hasn’t really had a definitive directional plan outlining goals to secure our future since John F. Kennedy. It is time for our leaders to consider the implementation of the Ten Articles of the Confederation of National Economic Reform, as that directional plan. A direction plan that will ensure that our future will be there for our children and for generations to come.
