Now What?

A plant near my hometown closed today. Nearly 700 jobs lost in an instant. The plant had been operating in the community for over 50 years. Now it is gone forever. What does it do to that community of 3,000 people? It does everything to it and none of it is good. The repercussions will include store closings, home foreclosures, default on personal loans, long unemployment lines and an overall community that will be devastated beyond recognition. Worse than that, this is just one community in one small state. If you multiply this situation times 1,000 then you get a better picture of what is happening.

We are in deep trouble in this country and it is not getting better in the foreseeable future. Can the government resolve our problems with stimulus money? It may help some, but it will not fix the problems we have. We are now witnessing the consequences of systemic problems that have been going on for years. A propped up financial system, poor loan practices, far too much debt to capital ratio and we are spending money we never had - both as individuals and as a country. We are the “want” generation and not the “need” generation and it is all tumbling down right in our proverbial laps.

Now what? I can tell you one thing; it is a pretty helpless feeling out there. People’s retirement funds have gone down the drain. Homeowners have lost value in their homes by the thousands. Jobs are dropping by the way side at a rate of more than 100,000 per week and state and local governments and school systems are on the brink of bankruptcy.

My advice is to protect your own families and finances as best you can while reaching out to others. There are a lot of people hurting and we have to help.

I was stopped at a gas station in Charlotte this week and a man came up to me and explained he was trying to get home to Asheville and did not have any money to put in his gas tank. He had a clunker car pulled up to the pumps, and he showed me the dollar in change he had. I went inside told the cashier to set his pump for $5 worth of gas and he added his money for a total of $6. It wasn’t much, but it got him on his way.

Help when you can. You may be feeling pain, but there are always others that are suffering more than we are.

Tom Keith is the president of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina.