Monday, June 11, 2012

Imagine a world without credit

Imagine that you are on a fixed income and all 8 of your credit cards are maxed out.  You barely manage to pay your debt and stay above water each month.  Now imagine your boss's financial picture to be the same, and his boss's...and all the way up to the CEO.  Now imagine your church, your hospital, your local grocery store, and your favorite restaurant are all in the same situation.  And then imagine the governments of your city, your state, your country, and every other countries are all in the same quagmire.

Most of us are standing in the middle of a debt quick sand with no way to escape.  We are so heavily burdened we can't move, even when we can see that we are slowly sinking beneath the surface.

The credit that gave us prosperity, better living standards, and growth is the same credit that will destroy everything that we have come to expect as a "normal" lifestyle.  This "credit-way-of-life" enable us to live beyond our current means.  It allows us to promise to give certain amount of our time and energy in the future for the exchange of goods and services now.  It works only as long as we deliver on our promises.

But what happens if we promise to give 100 years of service when we only are able to give 40 or 50 years of service.  We became cheaters to our lenders. All of us who are maxed out on our credit cards essentially signed a contract of 100 years of indenture servitude when we know that we won't even live that long.

So who are the lenders that we are cheating.  Is it the banks?  The governments?  The corporations?  Actually they are the depositors of the banks, the citizens of the governments, and the stockholders of the corporation.  We are only cheating ourselves when we live beyond our means.

The credit bubble is stretched extremely thin.  And it is about to pop.  It will mostly likely pop where the promissory notes for future services are most outrageous...Greece.

However, Greece won't be the only one that suffer, because in this game both lender and borrower suffer losses.  And as mentioned earlier, all of us are simultaneously borrowers and lenders.


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