Do you see any upside in the economic downturn?

Generally speaking, people are taking their government for granted less and getting more involved in the process and I see that as a positive.

Edit: Wait, I misread the question.

I’ll think about it later.

Personally, I’ve realized that I need less luxury to be happy than I thought I did.
About a year ago, I looked at my bank account and job prospects and realized that monthly pedicures, weekly car washes, seasonal new Pumas, new summer dresses, expensive face lotions, etc weren’t in my future. That sucked.
But now I realize it makes no difference in my life what-so-ever. So that’s a good lesson.

I get to spend a lot of time with my younger son after I was laid off.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

The economy usually works in cycles. Upswings and downswings. It just depends on how you handle the downswing that affects how long it lasts and how hard it hits.

I was thinking that anything that put the brakes on the rampant materialism that went before it is a semi-good thing.

It’s never as bad as the media would have you believe, and it will always get better.

I hope it puts a real end to “keeping up with the Joneses” or the “Kardashians”....or the people next door or down the street or wherever “those spendy” people live.

I hope it leads to just living a simpler and more spiritual life…and to really appreciating the smaller things in life.

I hope we all shop for things on Etsy now…instead of Wally-market.

I hope we turn our TV off more and watch E! Entertainment Channel….not at all.

I hope we figure out that this is the dream (nightmare?)...and we need to wake up and really learn to live.

For the stable and wealthy then this is a great time to buy assets. For everyone else it’s a great opportunity to learn to live without credit and other “necessitites” like daily infusions of Starbuck’s or eating out once or more times a week.

Great Question. As painful as it’s been, it is worthwhile to find some silver lining on the big dark cloud of the Great Recession.

It stopped a ton of people from living on credit cards, paying 30% annual interest, and pulling the “constantly growing” equity out of their homes to support that lifestyle in the ridiculous fantasy that real estate prices would just keep skyrocketing forever.

When we really recover economically, if people don’t promptly forget the lesson of pay as you go, we will be a nation of people on much firmer financial foundations.

Yes, giving our planet’s finite resources a break and inventors time to think on how to use them more wisely in the future.