Financial Crisis Ahead

Watched Glenn Beck tonight. Just and aside about Glenn here. I used to listen him on the radio up in Portland until they changed station formats. I had been wondering what happened to him for awhile until I heard that he had scored a show on CNN. Now that we have CNN I can actually watch him. And since there aren't any good talk radio stations here in town I'm sure at some point I'll start streaming regularly and get back in the habit of listening to him.

Anyway, my world collided tonight as I watched. My love of talk shows and my growing passion for personal financial health met in an unexpected way.

If you haven't become aware, the financial well-being of people in the U.S. has been endangered in recent years because of our own irresponsibility. As a society we have been spending more than we earn using credit and any other means that we can gin up. Now it's catching up with us.

The segment on Beck's program was sparked by the crazy day that Wall Street experienced. After discussing the Street with another corespondent he referenced a clip from Jim Cramer on CNBC calling the Fed on the carpet and using the word "Armageddon" referring to our economy. Watch it. Listen to it. It should shake you up.

He then brought on Peter Schiff who said:

"And it`s not just sub prime. You know, it`s not just people with bad credit that overpaid for houses and committed to mortgages that they couldn't afford.

And what we`re seeing right now around the world is the people who have been lending Americans money, whether they`re hedge funds here in the states, or overseas central banks, or foreign banks. They`re discovering now that Americans simply cannot afford to repay these loans.

And they`re also discovering that the collateral behind these loans, residential real estate, is not worth anywhere near the amount of money that they lent out."

Whoa! Here it comes. The big bite in the butt is here.

He went on to say:

SCHIFF: "Exactly. You know, that`s why it`s so disingenuous when you see people on Wall Street or the government say that the economy is sound, that what`s happening is not going to impact the economy. Of course, it`s going to impact the economy.

Our whole economy, our artificial bubble economy has been based on consumer spending. And they've been spending borrowed money, principally from abroad."

This is what my eyes have been opened to the last few years. As a society we've become hyper-consumers. The big-screen TV has become god. The boat has become god. The vacation to Maui has become god. And the biggest god of them all? The biggest god is the house. Everyone can afford to own a house, we've been told. You can't afford not to own a house, we've been told. It's all a load of BS and we've jumped in with both feet.

A growing passion of mine is to help people extricate themselves from this mess before it's too late. I want to see people take pride in what they have earned, not just what they have. I want to see people handle their money wisely and in cases of fellow Christians, handle their money in a way that honor's God above all other things.

The storm is coming.

theMK


Read Glenn Beck's show transcript here.