Author: Audrey Lamsam
With the upcoming historical Presidential Election right around the corner, the fervor and the excitement for each candidate is dulled by the magnifying crisis surrounding our economy. For the past few weeks, the DOW has been consistently dropping, more and more banks are claiming bankruptcy, and pink slips are being handed out to people like free candy (the kind that tastes horrible). This is not just a national crisis, this is a downright huge emergency that will undoubtedly affect future generations to come, but most directly, my generation.
Our diminishing economic situation can be traced to the one source that caused it all: home mortgages. Many blame the homeowners who bought more than they could pay back. Some accuse the creditors who gave out more than they could receive. I believe that both sides are at fault. It all boils down to an overabundance of trust that lenders put into their buyers, and vice-versa; trust and greed. Everyone wants to strike it rich, fantasize about their future million dollar homes, sugarcoat their rich dreams with thoughts of diamonds and pearls. But that’s all they are: dreams. And the American people lately have been dreaming way too much, leading to the hellish economic nightmare that we are faced with today.
By having Americans put money into stocks, savings and penchants, and then having that money redistributed to loaners who thought they could give back what they borrowed, the money that once was there is now gone. And that is the core of the problem that Americans are facing. A lack of money supply causes the credit in the economy to crunch, ultimately affecting small businesses, causing them to close down, and erasing retirement money that Americans have put into their accounts for future use (so far more than a quarter of all penchants for retirement within the United States have disappeared).
Now, the question that we as college students are all asking: Why should we be concerned? Well, with a decaying economy and a shaky bailout plan that ideally will serve as a buffer to boost back the economy, though it seems unlikely in the near future, we can say goodbye to our own retirement plans. Senior benefits? Social Security? Medicare for the elderly? At the decreasing rate that our economy is going, all these things will be just pleasant memories from the past.
This economic crisis has shaken up Americans and caused them to not only grow weary of banks but to also be paranoid of future economic failures. I believe that people of my age should definitely think twice before putting their money into any kind of financial institution. We will be the ones who will have to face the aftereffects of the horrible economic situation that the U.S. is currently in, and it will be up to us to bounce our economy back.
However, the saying goes that history often repeats itself, yet from history we learn our mistakes. Since the United States has gone through a huge depression before and overcame that dip in economy and spirits, I have faith that our current economic predicament can eventually be solved somehow and that we will once again gain the confidence we need to restore our economy back to its original state of success.
Audrey Lamsam is a sophomore Econ and Film major. She can be reached at alamsam@oxy.edu.
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