Our new normal
Ahh the good ole days! They were great. Just about everyone drove shiny new car, had a job that paid very well with benefits, stocks and other investments normally grew at a reasonable pace and life was easy and predictable.
The good ole days aren’t coming back folks. Now is the time of Our New Normal. Brace yourself.
Will work for silver.
For those that will wallow and be victims of the new normal, this blog is not for you. You can’t go back in time, you probably can’t even re-create it because the conditions surrounding the good ole days are gone.
So what’s the new normal? The USA isn’t the THE superpower in the world anymore. The dollar in your pocket is on par with our Canadian neighbors to the north and unemployment is going to stay about 9% for the foreseeable future just has it has for the recent past. Also your house isn’t worth squat. This is the new normal.
What else is new? College degrees are over priced and carry less and less value. For the college graduate, what awaits them isn’t much different from what they left five years earlier, their bedroom at Mom and Pops. But now they are burdened by a heavy debt load that they were ill prepared to handle and currently unable to afford. You can’t sell your degree either. That paper your degree is printed on isn’t worth the $40 to $75 grand that you financed. Bummer. The new normal.
For those that don’t go to college high paying manufacturing jobs are not around like they were 20 years ago. Getting an entry-level job at the big three in Detroit pays about $14 an hour these days. I hope you know something about computers or the internet.
So what do you do with this information? The new normal doesn’t sound so good does it? Ahh but all these facts I’ve laid out are just random bits of information. People are living their dream outside of the doom and gloom news reports because when it boils right down to it we are not statistics. We are hopes and dreams wrapped up in these terrestrial bodies and yet our energy to create is limitless and cannot be contained. Now is the time to embrace the dreams you hold in your heart. It’ll never be cheaper to create, hire and build your dreams as it is today.
Behold the power of the new normal. The new normal is the internet, smart phones, twitter, interconnectedness, opportunity, low costs, low risk and the ability to build your own dreams all with just a spark of inspiration from your brain.
Reiter Thinks 
I do agree that the good old days are gone and that we are in a period of stagnation, very similar to what Japan went through for years. But these are important times and we need to change to the new reality. There are still people out there making lots of money, we just have to be better at it. Before everybody could, now the circle is reduced. Is that really bad?
Thanks for the early morning comment and welcome to the blog.
Thank you for reinforcing my main point. Things have changed in our world but people want to still do things the old way. For instance, go into massive amount of debt to fund their lifestyle. Big mistake! Now more than ever cash, in its depreciated form, is king. In the periods of economic down turns, the opportunities are vast. The Robber Barons of the past made huge financial gains during the depression. They saw opportunity while others did not. It’s our choice to seek out those opportunities.
Great Post! The sooner folks realize “the good old days” are gone and start plugging into today’s new “normal” everyone benefits, especially future generations. It’s a new way of thinking for most folks and a concept they must get a handle on.
Cindy,
A destructive and backwards mindset it, “This is the way we’ve always done it here.” Well that isn’t going to cut it moving forward in any industry. Fundamental shifts in education, manufacturing, government and business are all on the horizon.
Matt
definitelly true. Where do you see the opportunities at the moment?
The opportunities I see are different from what someone else may see because the answer lies within each person. Here are a couple of guidelines I’d suggest. Feel free to comment.
Opportunities I see;
1. Self financing. Go to a library and start reading about money and how it works. It’s not rocket science. Pay yourself first, save, and stay away from debt and credit. This is a slower and disciplined approach. This step will propel you through your life.
2. Follow your passion. Ask yourself what you love doing. Is it writing? Art? Singing? Dancing? Leading? Find something that you love and that you’d do for free and do it. If you need to set up a website, do it. Host it for free at Weebly.com and buy the domain from Go-Daddy. Total monetary cost for doing something you enjoy and sharing it with others about $12.
3. Deem yourself an expert. Visit likeminded blogs, groups and message boards. Listen, participate and contribute. If you are very interested in gardening and have been doing it for years, you can brand yourself as an expert gardener by helping support and guide others who have questions.
Where most people will fail is that success does not happen overnight. Not at all. That’s why you have to LOVE what you are doing. Because you’ll have to do it for free for a LONG time. (BTW keep your day job) Most people quit because they thinkk they’ll make money right away. If you’re doing it for the love of the activity and not for monetary gain you’ll enjoy it. Put yourself out there. Open the business (after you’ve saved the start up cash) start the blog, go for the job that is the next step in your career. Go get it. Choose not to participate in the economic downturn.
True, and untrue at the same time. “The way it was done before” can be good OR bad…the way our great-grandparents handled money is the way it should be handled now to ensure success…these ways and their results have not changed, just the behavior of the sheep that salivate over the debt products they have been sold for 30 years.
My wife’s parents handled money in a conservative fashion, and are very comfortable in their retirement.
Other people I know borrowed to their eyeballs because that’s what the “Joneses” did, and they are now in their 60’s and just starting to save for retirement.
These fiscal values have always been around, have never changed, and have always worked…it’s just time to pull them out of the foot-locker and dust them off.
Keith,
What I refer to as the “old way” is mortgaging your future for immediate needs. College, homes, cars etc. All big ticket items being financed or leased using your potential future is dangerous. I believe I recent read that college debt has surpassed credit card debt recently. Ouch! That’s a much smaller population of people using massive amounts of debt.
Pay with cash, save, work, work some more, and slowly build your own security blanket. We have gotten away from good sound use of our own money and need take stock. The young people graduating from high school probably never had a class on financial discipline.
Thanks for the comment!
Matt
Matt – Change equals growth, and growth equals change. Until people are willing to change, to listen when people give feedback, and to grow beyond what others tell them they should be – we will continue to try to live “the way we have always done it.” For those of us who are willing to change, and are grateful for what we have and would like to share with others, it can be frustrating… the key is to take one day at a time, live it as fully as it can be lived, generate joy and be of service… Thanks for posting!
Georgia,
Thanks so much and very well said. I for one will live through my example.
Matt
Matt,
What is so very interesting for me about your post is that the spirit, creativity, intelligence, and hard work that made the good ole days so good — is still at our disposal to make these the good “new” days.
You and I must have been thinking along the sames lines today for my latest blog post incorporates good ole wisdom to give career a boost. Thanks for visiting it and leaving your insightful comment about reliable & relevant.
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http://katenasser.com/give-rise-your-career-4-people-skills-traits/
And yes … glad you are back blogging!!
Kate
Great post! I cannot help but recall many “good old days” – and we go through cycles, which I believe is shown in our history books. I am not a historian, but have live more than half a century and now at the grandparent stage of my life. We seem to be returning to frugality and creating ourselves, rather than having safe jobs waiting for us to go to each day. We are focusing more on our happiness and relationships – which to me seems similar to post war times. Education is often just that and bot a ticket to a job – we have to create ourselves and revenue streams with what we learn, and doing what we are passionate about. It is not about “stuff” any longer, but our joy. I for see a much simpler life and more family focus.