Are We Entering Into The Greatest Depression?
Almost forty-two million Americans receive assistance from Government programs* to provide for their essential nutritional needs in the United States, and many more visit local churches and food pantries to receive emergency rations and supplies. Is this an indication of how close we are to another 1929 style depression?
Since the 2008 Recession, the Federal Government has more than doubled our National Debt which now stands at well over twenty-one trillion dollars**. Can we even visualize how much a trillion dollars is?
This is what one billion dollars looks like, now imagine one thousand of these to get a trillion dollars. It would cost every man, woman, and child in America over 64,000 each to pay off this debt. But that is just the National Debt, that does not include the State Debts, the municipal debts for all of the cities, the corporate debts, or any of the entitlements like Social Security and Retirement Funds that we paid into expecting a return after we could no longer work.
The current monetary system is debt based and it depends on ever increasing levels of debt in order to grow and sustain itself. But what happens when the interest being paid on all of that debt rises above the total income of all of the debt holders? It looks like we will soon find out.
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**Disclaimer: I often use the freewrite prompt to tell a story instead of doing a pure freewrite, so they sometimes take longer than 5 minutes and usually have some editing. But I try to do my story straight through at one sitting without any unnecessary breaks.
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Storefront Photo by Clementine Gallot
One Billion Dollar Photo by methodshop
Over 20 Club Graphic by the ever so talented @fireawaymarmot and personalized for me by @snook
Old' Steem by the most wonderful @snook
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Prompt: depression
Set your timer for 5 minutes.
Start writing
Use the hashtag #freewrite
Publish your piece (include a link to this post if you wish)
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Or, if you don't want to publish your freewrite, just copy and paste as a comment under the prompt post.
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Introduction to freewrite
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Nice to read another freewrite from you Deacon! The thought of the amount of the enormity of our national debt (thanks for the visual) isn't a pretty one.
I had to use the WIC (Women, Infants, Children) assistance up through when my youngest was two. We should have signed up for food stamps at the time, it would have made what little we made go much further but, since we were careful with what we had, we only needed to use the WIC funds for a few years. With those we were able to purchase formula (once I was no longer able to breastfeed), cereal, milk, cheese and peanut butter for my girls. Plus, once a year the program gave us $30 in vouchers to use at the farmer's market. It is a wonderful program and I am grateful to have had the assistance when my family needed it.
Almost all of us need a safety net at some point in our lives, I have at one time or another looked to family, friends, my church, insurance and then even the inevitable help from Government assistance of one kind or another. Those, even the wealthy, who think that they can always get by on their own are just kidding themselves. We come into the world dependent and if we live long enough we will again become dependent on others. It is the in-between time that the healthy and wealty tend to get full of pride in self.
Arghhh - Now, I am depressed!!!! 😪
It is so crazy and we all keep participating to keep on going down the wrong road.... Not all of us. But so many!!!
We have the same in UK. It is very depressing.
@mariannewest @deemarshal Those numbers? Statistically... we're painting it.
not sure what you mean by painting it?