Connecting the Dots between Economic Crisis and Cash Flow
Reflecting on my experiences with economic downturns like we are having today… In reality it is quite simple, cash flow has slowed down and there is currently no substitute source for cash. Thus, we have an economic recession. In fact, during the mid-80’s Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and some border states had their own severe recession. Back then it was called the oil and gas driven downturn. Only these areas were affected, thus the national economy and the media did not report this on a national level.
Okay, here were the lessons learned during this time period. First, it started in one industry – the oil and gas industry. Many people felt that since they were not directly tied to the oil and gas industry that they would not be affected. Wrong! Here are the cash flow issues: people were laid off; the supplier industries were impacted due to lack of sales and they started going under or laying off employees; the Mortgage industry started noticing higher default rates, decreasing home values and loses; the FDIC and FSLIC started closing S & L’s and Banks due to bad retail, commercial and mortgage loans; retail sales dropped – closing stores and creating vacancies in shopping centers; office building speculators found themselves with empty towers and foreclosures rose; and people stopped buying things in all categories – some had lost their jobs, some had lost oil and gas revenue checks, and the “beat goes on… Does this all sound familiar?
We are seeing the same situations that occurred during the mid 1980 in a limited geographic area – but now it is global in nature. This is a difficult situation because the system of cash flow has to restart and grow to “normal” levels. What we call normal, however, is the big question. Does “normal” include speculation, free or low cost loans, senseless refinancing for short term gratification, unnatural home value increases, or hyper anything for short term gains?
What needs to occur is for people to understand that the lottery ticket mindset is not normal. Normal is earning a fair return for a fair day’s work. Greed is not acceptable and systems need to be reset for progress to happen everyday. I learned all this the hard way. The key point is that I learned how to earn back my self-esteem and start growing everyday and passing on the “get rich quick” mentality that seemed to be everywhere.
For the system to work, national and community leaders need to focus on how to get business jump started and operating at efficient levels, train employees for higher level work, and get cash flowing again based upon the commerce system. The lottery winner is only one person – what we need is for large groups of people to win while providing value for themselves and their organizations or communities.
If we don’t focus upon the right things, we will all lose and lose big. All industries will suffer to survive and people will be hurting – financially and mentally. If we all start adding value and losing the non-value added activities, we will all win in the long run. Yet, remember this, economic issues will rise and fall, our job is to focus upon ways we can grow personally, add value to the world, and earn our fair share during the process.
Voss Graham
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Tags: cash flow, Economic downturn, financial survival, how to improve
Susan Kishner
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A friend of mine just emailed me one of your articles from a while back. I read that one a few more. Really enjoy your blog. Thanks