House of Cards

  This is a little more political and a little less of my usual "Ponderings" sort of offering. It is just that I heard a brief mention yesterday morning on NPR (yes, that is National Public Radio) that the national debt is nearing its "cap" of some $14 trillion, and something about if Congress doesn't "raise the cap", well, honestly, I don't know what they said after that. My head was just spinning. I keep hearing about countries, entire countries, going broke.
   There was another story they did last week covering the situation in Spain. The way it was presented, there is no "bail out" if Spain falls. And then, it will have a domino effect across Europe. It was said that if it becomes popular belief that Spain cannot pay its debt, then other countries will stop loaning it money. Spain will go bankrupt. If Spain does, then Germany will be next. Eventually, it would be the US. Kids, the whole economy is just a house of cards.
   I know a whole lot of people don't want to believe that. We all just keep hoping that things will get better. We try to prop ourselves and our economy up by believing it is getting better. But I can't stop this gnawing anxiety. What is it really going to take?
   I remember this song by Randy Stonehill that I knew years ago. A snatch of it was "Our economy is shrinking. Our money is a joke. We should go back to trading seashells and just admit that we are broke..." Every now and again, that song rises up and sings inside my head, just because it is so true!
   We can't trust our government or anyone else's government to fix this economic problem. Do you think they can fix it? I don't! I think they keep propping it back up, kind of like a tent in a wind storm. Just when you think it is steady again, the wind comes whooooooshiiiinnng up. I really do believe that is all going to blow away one day. I know I am so pessimistic about it. I admit that I am. But I just want to kind of be prepared in my mind and heart.
   I used to have a friend, Veda Powell. She would call this "catastrophizing". You think up the worst possible thing that can happen. Some of us just do it naturally. I come from a long line of worriers, and I am really good at this! The bright spot is that most of the things that you worry about never happen. 
    Anyway, this was just bothering me, so I thought I would tell you about it and see what you think. I welcome you to totally disagree with me and offer me three helpful examples and statistics of why it is not going to all fall down, like a house of cards.