NECESSITY OVER WANT By: Andrew Nieto

Value is something that differs from person to person, but what about from generation to generation? Money has always been an issue and we have taken our money for granted. Previous generations used the majority of their income for necessity instead of luxury. Due to our irresponsibility with money we are in a recession and borderline depression, but we have not started to fix it. Americans instead focus on buying things that they can live without and can not afford. When money was almost impossible to get is when we Americans realized what their most important necessities were. We have not learned from the unfortunate outcomes of the great depression instead we are more focused on what to buy next instead of realizing we are truly fortunate. The following images will show that Americans values have changed and are not learning from previous events

During the 1920s banks all over America needed to give savings in order for families to survive another day

When a bank has that many people it is not good sign. Everyone was searching for every penny they had in order to spend it on food and shelter. If you walk in to a bank now you are never going to find that many people waiting to withdraw their money. We have lived on credit and we are getting to confortable with it. In fact more people are in debt than having extra money in their accounts

Nowadays people go to stores and spend money they do not have on things they do not need

This photo was taken on black Friday. A day in which markets lower their prices on everything. When in a situation we are in, we have to accept that instead of buying a luxury item you do not need we need to save it for a real emergency and I do not mean a sell, I mean a medical accident, a malfunction with the car, or for any cloudy day.

A protest in the 1920s would be for jobs in order to feed families

A protest now is to protect the internet

When did the internet become more important than fining a job? Our human race has strived without the internet for more that 20 centuries. We are at 8.5% unemployment ate and it’s increasing as we speak. We should focus on the consequences of the future instead of just today. I believe anyone would choose a good paying job over having internet access.

Although debt has decreased in the last few years we were at one point almost $1,000 billion dollars in debt

If we look at the GDP over the last century there seems to be a very large increase

Our debt was low in the 1920s because we did not have enough money to give out to the public. We have gotten a huge increase in debt and we still go around with an average credit card of 4 per American. Why do you need so many? It does not make sense to have something that can bring more debt instead of using cash or debit

This is now a very common scene of children being children

Children in the Depression in line for food.

Children out of all of us have become greedy. Children instead of asking for a college fund or money for necessities; they ask for electronics that cost over $300. We have to teach our children to appreciate that they are not hungry, cold, warm or sick. Instead the children want more and more. The parents not knowing the power of no, give them what they want. In a time a need parents had to send their children to food drives not able to provide for even themselves.

World War II rescued our economy for the depression

We’re in war. Why isn’t our economy going up?

War is what saved the economy. We were able to make huge profits and eventually get out of the depression. It was luck that saved the economy. But what about us? We’re in a war? We have a lot of debt? Why aren’t we making profit? Simple we are just not the same as the generation before. In WWII everyone believed it was the right choice, now people do not believe in the cause. We are just not the same and we may not come out of this so called recesion.

Times have changed. But we have not learned from our mistakes. We takes things for granted. We waste money on unnecessary things. Our values have changed and because of that we not have to deal with the future consequences. As you have seen it was worse in the depression but we are not doing anything to prevent it from happening again. We are just postponing it.