Meddling. That’s what it’s called when people poke around and toy with things that are not theirs to toy with. That’s what it’s called when people come in and try to force things and end up breaking them. That’s what our government leaders are doing, and for what?

Free market economies are, in essence, like forces of nature. They react to their environmental conditions in a way that will bring them back to a state of equilibrium. When things are overinflated, they let off some steam. When things are lacking, something moves in to fill the gaps. But always just to bring the system back into balance.

Our government leaders, at this very moment, are meddling with our economy in ways that are both extreme and extremely dangerous. Perhaps most frighteningly, they reflect an attitude of greed and unrealistic expectations. The fact is the people of the United States could not have continued their streak of consumerism. It was impossible, a virtual house built on sand. Unfortunately and strangely, our leaders are frantically trying to restore this house built on sand. Instead of making the hard, but mature, decision to move our house to a more solid, rocky foundation, they are trying to patch up the house, neglecting the receding sand underneath.

COMMON SENSE ALERT, WASHINGTON: IT’S NOT WORKING!!!

Just today, GM announced it had "burned through $6.2 billion of cash in the last three months of 2008," posting a quarterly loss of $9.6-billion loss. The rest of the U.S. automakers aren’t faring much better.

AIG, bailed out just a few months ago for billions, is going down the tubes.

Citigroup and Bank of America are on their way down.

It’s time to consider the sobering possibility that there is nothing we can do except grow up and learn to accept the consequences of our overspending. It’s time to accept that we cannot avoid a deep recession any more than we can keep winter from coming. Driving our nation farther into debt will only prolong our suffering. As much as saying so would damage lawmakers’ poll standings, it’s time to just let things take their course.
 

Glum faces are everywhere nowadays. And why not? The media has very little by way of good news, usually some story about a woman in Palm Beach finding her prized Chihuahua still alive in the belly of a gator. Nothing to make you sit back and say, "You know what? Things are okay." The talk around the water cooler, in the pews at church, and around the dinner table has turned decidedly negative.

Well, I met a man today who was actually excited about the recession. He owns a landscaping business in Utah and sees this time as a chance to outpace his competition. While they are tightening their budgets and cutting down on advertising, he is able to find better deals on advertising and increase his market presence. When everyone else is frowning, Mr. Landscaping is grinning from ear to ear.

What’s the difference between Mr. Landscaping and the grumpy masses? He saved his money when times were good and put a little away for times like these. He avoided taking on debt. Now, when the best opportunities are presenting themselves, he is in a unique position to take advantage of them.

While not all of us were smart enough to save during the good times (myself included), I think all of us can take a lesson from Mr. Landscaping: When rainy days happen, the winners are the ones positive enough to open an umbrella stand. The losers just stand there, mope, and get soaked.
 

Since it seems every blog post I do is wrapped up in the recession, I’ve decided to start doing a recession journal, a chronicle, if you will, of things in the media and things on the ground. This recession is affecting Americans in different ways, depending on their economic circumstances, their attitude toward risk, their political leanings, and other factors.

Yesterday, a poll was released showing that 3 out of 4 Americans are angry about where the country is going. Do I consider myself one of the angry 75 percent? I wouldn’t say I’m livid about the mess we have sunken ourselves into, but I am frustrated. I’m frustrated with the lawmakers, the leaders, and the corporate big shots who let government and Wall Street go wild with the credit cards. They should have been watching out for these things, I reason.

But then I remember that I too am an accomplice to this fiasco. After all, didn’t I feed the frenzy by taking on credit card after credit card? Didn’t I mortgage my home with less than a solid down payment? I got caught up in the spending frenzy just as much as those crazy bankers. In some small way, I helped push us toward the economic brink.

There is a silver lining to this crisis, of course. Business school made it clear that these swings in the market were necessary. The system, they say, has to cleanse itself and regain equilibrium, and it does so inevitably. At the end of this disaster, the market will be right again. It will work like it should, and it won’t be based on inflated assets and wishful thinking. By the end of this, Americans will learn to live like they always should have been, responsibly and within their means. We will learn to live a little more down to earth, a little more like the rest of the world.
 

And I think that is a good thing.