Bad Economy Hurts All But Wealthy

Most people already know that the US economy is in pretty bad shape right now. Really it's not hard to figure out because anyone that owns a car or travels to a supermarket has seen the price of gas and the price of food rise dramatically over the past few months. The truth is that the huge run up in food prices is due to the price of gas and diesel products. Just last night, my wife was telling me about how the prices of necessity food items have been rising at the supermarket over the past few months.

Just like in previous recessions and depressions, the economy does not hurt people in an equal way. The poor and middle class are hurt much more than the very rich among us. Why? Because when bad economic times come along and regular hard working men and women struggle to pay the bills, the rich are in a unique position to profit even more during bad times than during an economy where most people are benefiting. No example explains that fact more than the current sluggish housing market.

Right now while millions of Americans are one payment away from losing their homes to foreclosure, a few very wealthy individuals are preparing to ride to the rescue and buy those same homes at nickels on the dollar from struggling mortgage companies and banks. These wealthy individuals know all too well that the current downturn in the US housing market will not last forever and when it does rebound again in the near future they will double and sometimes even triple the amount of return on their investment.

In my lifetime, I have seen this process happen over and over again and I am convinced that this is the reason why the rich get richer while the poor and middle class go in the other direction. There is nothing criminal about being rich and having a desire to grow ones wealth. In fact, regular Americans try to do the same thing as well, but with limited success. The very wealthy have one thing that the rest of us do not have and that is the guts to swim upstream instead of going with the flow.

Right now while the mainstream news media is preaching the latest gloom and doom stories of the day. The richest 5% of people in the world are preparing to become even richer by bailing out the rest of us from our homes and other property at garage sale prices. Don't feel bad for them because like always the economy will turn around again and when it does the rest of us will be more than happy to pay full retail price to get back the same homes and other properties these wealthy people bought from us at bargain basement prices from us just a few years earlier.