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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >I simply do not see how average Joe benefits.  Instead, I see the same 
> people who were reckless before, being able to slide through, with some 
> discomfort.  And, I see Average Joe being crushed

Curious, Bob, that you persist in seeing that with all evidence and logic to 
the cotrary.  Wendy has this one pretty much correct.

Rather than take an individual (or the average individual) and show how he is 
involved in credit, you get a more accurate picture if you separate each 
persons Average-Joe-ness from the part of him that ins't that average Joe.

That is, to the extent that Joe is involved in the idle moving about of money 
from there to there hoping to dip his thumb into the flow for his living, to 
that extent he is going to be hurt.

For example, I have a cell phone, but it most certainly does not imply a 
credit contract.  It's prepaid.  Likely, says I, those credit based prepaid 
contracts will wane and fall by the wayside and prepaid service will thrive.  
And as 
a result people will stop wearing their cell phones like earrings and gabbing 
about nothing 24/7.  Yet another good by-product of the coming depression.

I read this morning a montage of whiners (I know some lists they could join) 
saying their business was being throttled for lack of credit.  One fellow 
points to three empty cubicles in his "computer service" business and says, I 
have 
these three empty stations but can't borrow the money to hire three new 
people.  Say what??  You business is on such a razor edge you cannot hire 
someone 
unless the bank pays them?   That business needs to fail and new businesses 
not 
based on that need to take its place.

Another was a woman running a 'financial counseling' company who could not 
continue if the bank would not loan her more money.   A business giving 
advice 
needs borrowed money ..... for what?  That business needs to fail.

And so it went, a business to make party banners, nail salon, a company to 
advise people on the best car loan, etc.  All companies that do not have to 
buy 
inventory or anything else traditionally thought of as a reason to borrow 
money, and yet they all said if they could not get a line of credit, they 
would go 
out of business.  Fine.  It ought to happen.

You may be surprised how fast people revert to being Average Joes and live 
lives outside the credit game.  Some like those ridiculous "businesses" 
won't.  
And people whose access to goods and services depends entirely on dipping 
their thumb in the vast streams of money and credit that so recently swirled 
about 
us and yet never produce any good or service themselves ... these people 
won't.  

In one of the film interviews I have of Scott Nearing he is chopping his 
firewood at the age of 95 and delivering a monologue on the economy all the 
while. 
 He was an economist by profession.  He says, "I wish the bankers would find 
useful employment for themselves and leave the economy alone."

That may be the upshot of this.  Everyone who has been making a living by 
passing around sacks of money and credit to each other may hve to find useful 
employment for themselves.  

And as to the fact that people have cell phone contracts, credit card 
balances, depend on credit to earn a living, and have a mortgage or rent 
beyond their 
means ... and they will be 'hurt'.  That's one way of looking at it.  They 
way I look at it is that it will  hurt them like a fever hurts you when you 
have 
a sickness.  It helps you get over it.  Time to get over it.   </HTML>