Monday, June 02, 2008

Are we afraid to say the word Depression

A friend who is also a CPA and owns a practice asked me today if I was noticing a slowdown in collections. As it turns out my experience confirmed his. This makes me wonder, as we are finally hearing the recognition of that the US is going into a recession, should we be discussing depression.

This is a hard point for me to make considering my firm belief in the law of attraction. So perhaps my even mentioning this would could create the reality. If I thought that was true then I would not be making this post.

There are cycles that spiral within a range going back and forth. Then there are those that continue in a cycle that tend to go down with one event causing an accelerating downward spiral. In housing it may start with mortgage defaults going up which gets worse when even potential buyers finding it difficult to get a loan. So with a lack of buyers prices fall even lower bringing more people into default who before may have been able to sell their house.

This may happen with a business whose sales and collections drop. So the business has to let employees go. These employees put a drag on the economy by limiting their purchase of goods and services which cause more layoffs.

If we believe perception creates the reality then we may agree with the media and politicians who would want to limit discussion of this. Yet on an individual basis would we not be better prepared the earlier we deal with this reality?

To me it seems clear that the time for people to look at their situation and state it before the media or politicians get a chance to spin it. So if you are experiencing economic issues please comment and share what you see.