It’s 3 am right now. This whole weekend has been a bit off kilter for us. For one, I have been dreadfully tired since Friday, due in part, I believe, to the toll breastfeeding is taking on my body now that Jack-Evan is almost 5 months old. Nothing I do seems to revive my energy, and I wake up just as tired (if not more) than I was before I went to sleep.
Yesterday (Sunday afternoon), I crashed right after we came home from lunch with my parents – and the 3 hour nap, which Jack-Evan took with me, didn’t really seem to help at all. By 8:30 we all decided to call it a night around here, and thus went to bed. In staying true to the “off kilter” feeling we’ve had all weekend, Jack woke up at 12:30 am and refused to go back to sleep. This is something he’s never done! He has slept through the night (with the exception of waking halfway up to latch on for nursing a few times) since birth. But he just simply refused to go back to sleep. I laid there with him for an hour or so, hoping he’d fall back to sleep, but he was more interested in “talking” and playing with his feet. Then he began getting irritable, and I knew it was time to change locations! I brought him into the living room, partly so Kevin (who has to get up for work at 5 am) wouldn’t be disturbed by Jack’s crying, and partly in hopes that by letting Jack “play” some would work off some steam and get him to sleep. The idea did work, although it took an hour for him to calm down enough to fall back to sleep. It’s now 3 am, and Jack is finally sleeping on my lap.
Unfortunately, so many things are running through my mind that I’m not sure how I’m going to sleep. It wasn’t until tonight that I got a clear picture of the “scope” of what this “bail out” I’ve been hearing about for days is all about. I’ve been sitting here for the past hour, reading about the economy in depth – it’s the first time I’ve really paid attention to everything going on lately. But now, I can’t avoid it. I mean, you gotta know something’s going on when almost every blog you’ve visited this weekend mentions the looming financial crisis.
I first started hearing about things when the story about AIG hit the news. That was terrible in itself. But, really, I had no accounts with them, and it didn’t affect me, so I didn’t pay much attention. Then I started hearing things about Freddie and Fannie and the terms bail out and bankruptcy and all those good financial type words. Not being a devoted economist, all of these news bits went pretty much over my head. They started running together so fast and furious that I was confused on the details….was AIG getting a Bail Out from Toby..uh..Freddie Mac??? I mean, c’mon. The common, every day person probably (and sadly) hasn’t paid as much attention to this as we should. Then last Wednesday night, President George Bush came on at 9 PM EST, preempting the finale of America’s Got Talent. As foreboding as that was (couldn’t he have done his speech at ANY time except for when the finale of AGT was coming on??), it still didn’t occur to me to read up on everything.
I wish I would have paid more attention to the news now. I had no idea that the “bail out” that was being talked about was no longer confined to AIG or other sole entities. I had NO idea that the “bail out of Wall Street” was to the tune of $700 BILLION dollars, and that the final vote on it is going to the House later today (Monday). Am I the only one who has seemingly been under a rock the past few weeks????
I had no idea that a handful of banks had already failed this year – including well known WaMu and IndyMac!
I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. I won’t even pretend to be smart enough to think I know whether this bail out move is right or wrong, but the thought of such a large amount being hefted on the shoulders of the American public scares me. Then again, the thought of enduring a Great Depression scares me.
Will this bail out really curtail a depression like they are saying it will? I am highly doubtful of that! The signs have been pointing to it for years now.
Many of us noticed signs well over two years ago when banks were handing out loans to anyone who could sign a paper. Shoot, my husband and I even took advantage of it – we aquired a 100% no-doc, no down payment, NO PMI loan as first time home buyers at age 23. In essense, all we had to do was sign a paper. We didn’t have to prove income, we didn’t have to have private mortgage insurance, we paid nothing down, and we were given 100% of our home value in credit. We were able to do this all off of my 715 FICO score. And it was so terribly easy that I remember it even made me uncomfortable. We were lucky in that we knew all the “right moves” (get a fixed rate loan and buy far less than we can afford), but I remember thinking how terrible it would have been if we hadn’t have known how to properly prepare ourselves. If we had used our “easy as pie” loan to get a more expensive house under ARM loan terms, we would probably be sitting under forclosure now as well! Thinking about things in that perspective puts this entire economic decline much closer to home (pardon the pun) for me.
Even further back than the start of the housing/credit crises, all across the internet, from as early as 2004, we saw a large increase in sites helping people who were searching for ways to save money, live frugally, and be self-sufficient (homesteading) – www.HillBillyHousewife.com, www.FatWallet.com, www.SavingAdvice.com, and the entire “Homestead Blogger” blogging world. it was as if a collective conciousness was growing in the American public, forewarning us of the need to steady ourselves for a coming downfall.
And let’s not even get started on all of the layoffs, rise in unemployment, the huge increase in groceries and gas prices, and inflation in general.
With everything that’s been going on in economy for the past couple of years, it’s hard not to want to shout “we saw it coming!”. In all of the financial message boards I’ve visited the past few years, the question never was an “if”, it always was a “when”. And now it seems that the “when” is suddenly hurtling towards us like a rock from a slingshot. I just had no idea that the tensed up slingshot had finally released that rock these past few weeks.
And, now, to add to my already “off kilter” weekend, I will now re-awaken tomorrow to a new “off kilter” America where some people are working for an hour just to pay for a gallon of gas while big-wigs vote on whether they approve of a $700 BILLION dollar Wall Street bail out scheme. It just all seems so very wrong to me.
Anyway, I’m tired. All of this research on the economy has my head swimming, and this post is just a very feeble attempt at putting all of those thoughts into coheasive form. I can’t begin now to fathom what might happen with the economy now. I know for one thing, the House will probably to say “yes” to that bail out. Once a train like that one gets going, it’s not going to stop. The only question left now is if it will truly help, and that remains to be seen. My gut says “no” though.
Even though it’s been the hushed talk for a while now, the looming possibility that all of that “depression” talk is so close to “coming true” scares me. My one consolation is that we’re young and can relatively handle whatever is thrown at us. I do fear for the older generation – those currently in their late 50s and early 60s – who were just on the brink of retirement. Those, I feel, are the ones who will have it the toughest.
UPDATE: Monday, 2:37 pm – Whoa! The House said “no” to the bail out. I can’t believe it! I am glad, but it makes me curious as to where we’re headed next in this economic decline. S&P is already down 6%!
