We all remember that old question that gained such popularity during the Great Depression. Brother can you spare a dime is the one quote that comes to mind about how bad that era was. For those who are too young to have lived during that time, all we have to do is ask the old timers if that it what they believe is happening today. Many of them will tell the warning signs are all there for that particular time to repeat itself.

We are watching banks beginning to fail and seemingly out of the blue. A few months ago there were whispers that our economy was in trouble, but now we are hearing big businesses and politicians practically screaming that something has to be done and done now in order to keep our country from complete economic collapse. We are watching the costs of fuel, groceries, and loan interest all go in the wrong direction. We are seeing people all over the country losing their homes to foreclosure and their jobs being eliminated because they are being eliminated or are being given to people over seas.

It seems that in only a few years the American Dream has become put in extreme jeopardy and many are asking the question of how in the world it got to this point so quickly. It does not bode well for the average American household at all. If you were already struggling to stay afloat financially before, what do you suppose is in store for us now? Is the time shortly coming when we see men who used to be employed with a good job and supporting their families standing on street corners begging for a dollar or two just to feed buy a loaf of bread? If things can not be turned around pretty fast, that is exactly what might happen.

When things start getting bad, we all know that people will begin pulling their money out of banks and this can start a domino effect that could cause those with investments to lose everything at the drop of a hat. This is basically what happened in the Great Depression. Wall Street is where the suffering is going on now and when Wall Street suffers it always tends to have a trickle down affect on the rest of us who might not even own a single stock of any kind. When big companies lose money, they lay people off, they can not expand, and sometimes they have to shut down all together.

No one really wants to loan all of these big money lending companies a huge sum of money so they can stay in business, because for the most part it is their own fault for being in the mess they are in, but if they all fail and we are the ones end of bearing the brunt of the suffering, do we really have any choice except to support their bail out?