How did we get here?

Did you ever ask yourself that?

Well, maybe you should have listened when the wife told you to stop at the filling station and ask for directions.

I've been in those type of situations. Many times. Many more than I'm comfortable thinking about.

The old joke is that the wife, after listening to the husband bragging about how smart he is, asks, "If you're so damn smart why ain't we rich?"

We will not go here into to the myriad possible answers which he could come back with, because generally that question pretty well shuts his mouth. Especially if he knows what's good for him.

I suppose many people are looking at the economic and political situation and asking themselves that same type of question. Perhaps a better question would be how do we go about figuring out where we really want to go.

An older friend of mine is asking himself how he got into his situation. He wants to blame the DOT for screwing up the road, but really he should be asking not how he got here, but how he's going to fix things.

There is an old saying the the quickest way to get out of a rut you've dug yourself into is to stop digging down and start digging up.

Basically my friend is over extended. He has a nice little business. It's not quite doing what it was a couple years ago...but then who is? The problem is the nice big new house he lives in, the very expensive motor home sitting under the shed he can't afford to fill with diesel, the expensive non-income producing real estate with big mortgages that no one is wanting to buy. The toys accumulated over a lifetime.

I don't reckon he's the only one in this type of situation.

The trick is.....are we going to try the old tried and failed policies again, or are we ready to maybe start to get back to what used to work and has been pushed to the wayside.

Maybe it's time to analyze things in light of six syllables in a savage truth.

This truth was uttered on Dec. 10th 2008 by none other than Bernard Madoff. He had spent decades living a lie (and living quite well by some standards), but it all came crashing down for him and many, many others when he uttered those six syllables now so infamous.

"It's all just one big lie".

Perhaps we should examine some of the lies.

More later.