by Pete Thorsen
Karen had directed some changes to the landscaping but not many from my original design. I explained the reasons behind everything I had done and what was still to be done. She understood and not just accepted but embraced my ideas and the reasons for them.
There were bumpy spots in our lives during this period also. Like my family, Karen’s parents were not rich though they were better off financially than my parents had been. They were at first skeptical of Karen’s choice in a man but I soon won them over, and they fully accepted me into their family with no reservations.
Then things happened. And those things were eerily like what happened to my parents. Karen’s mom was diagnosed with cancer and started chemo therapy. While that was happening, her dad had a serious heart attack that happened inside the hospital when he was spending time with his wife in her room.
Only the fact that he was in the hospital at the time of his heart attack saved his life. His wife screamed, and nurses rushed into the room. The whole staff worked to save his life. And he lived but never left the hospital, and that was where he passed. Karen’s mom passed within days of her dad. She lost the will to live without her lifelong companion.
It was a bad time for Karen. She had a difficult time handling the double loss of both of her parents in the same week. She took a three-month leave of absence from her job but went back to work after a month. Being home alone was not helping. She gradually came to grips with her loss and after six months was almost back to her normal vibrant self again.
We gained financially after her parents’ property was sold. After paying for all the expenses incurred from the hospital charges, funeral costs, and incidental expenses we did receive some money from the estate. All that money was just put into savings. We did not need it at that point, and we did not really even want it. We both knew her parents would be pleased knowing they had at the end provided financial aid for their family.
Chapter 3
My business was booming. Many parts of the nation’s economy appeared to be booming. The nation’s stock markets were constantly setting new all time record highs. Unemployment numbers were around historical lows. House sales were spiking, which was why my business was so good.
But there were ugly signs all around at the same time. The national debt was at such an absurdly high number that no one could even comprehend it, let alone ever consider paying it down. And it was the same situation for almost all other government entities from states to counties to cities to towns and schools. They all had high debt.
And though huge amounts of money appeared to be flowing around everywhere there also appeared to be many cracks or flaws in the money flow. There was now almost no middle-class America. While anyone could get a job, those available jobs would almost certainly be part-time low-paying jobs.
Healthcare in the United States was a huge extremely complicated mess. For the last several year's health insurance premiums had shot up to record amounts every year while at the same time deductibles had also gone way up making much of that health insurance almost worthless to many people.
Even though the premiums were so high, health insurance companies were dropping out of many state markets. A few years ago if you wanted to buy health insurance, you had many companies and plans to choose from to get the lowest price and the best coverage for yourself and your family.
Now that had changed completely. So many areas in the country now had only one insurance company even offering insurance. You bought from them, or you could buy nothing. With no competition, they could charge anything they wanted and offer very poor policies because you had no other choices. And in some places, you could not even buy any insurance at any price because no company offered insurance there. It was both bizarre and alarming at the same time.
Student debt was another big issue. It was way over a trillion dollar issue. It continues to get bigger and bigger with more and more of those going into default on that debt.
And it was exactly the same with auto loan debt. Americans owed way over a trillion dollars in auto loans, a record amount. At the same time, there were a record number of repossessions also.
Add to that new record highs in credit card debt in the United States. It was just debt on top of debt on top of debt.
While unemployment was at historical lows much of the employment was in historically low paying occupations. And much of the employment was part-time and not in full-time positions. College educated job numbers were either stagnant or declining while high school education or less jobs were increasing. In other words, if you graduated from college you likely only might be able to find a low paying job that did not even need that higher education that you went into debt to get.
Ten years ago or more the nation and much of the world had gone into a major recession. It was bad enough, so many countries had to resort to emergency measures to try and save their failing economies. Many of these emergency measures were done by the countries’ central banks and also some by the countries’ governments.
In the United States, both entities did everything possible to save our country from a severe depression or outright collapse. Congress passed huge spending bills basically giving away money to boost the economy and also gave outright bailouts to select companies in the United States.
At the same time our central bank, the Federal Reserve Bank took drastic emergency measures also. They reduced interest rates to very near zero to get money flowing. The object of this huge rate change was to promote loans to individuals and companies to promote rapid economic growth.
And the Federal Reserve Bank injected cash directly into the economy too just as Congress had done. They did this by first buying our own debt in the form of US Treasuries. What many call or think of as US Bonds (though incorrectly). Later the Fed started also buying worthless debt from its member banks to make them stronger and to inject even more money into the country. About four trillion dollars worth all together, or so we were told anyway. The Federal Reserve Bank is never audited and is very secretive, so we Americans have little-verified information about what exactly the Federal Reserve Bank is doing.
Even with both Congress and the Federal Reserve Bank dumping unbelievably huge amounts of money into the nation very little happened other than the constant rise of the stock markets. The nation slowly, very slowly recovered, at least to some extent. And now ten or more years later we are where we are today. Heavily in debt with a very fragile somewhat listless economy.
And the serious emergency rescue measures of our Federal Reserve Bank of near zero interest rates are still near zero after more than ten years. Some people wonder just how long serious emergency rescue measures are supposed to remain in effect. After ten years the Federal Reserve Bank is terrified to raise interest rates back to normal because the economy is so fragile and the debt is so very high.
Also, there are billions of dollars worth of different kinds of bonds that are at one percent or sometimes less. And there are trillions of dollars worth of US Treasuries that have interest rates of less than two percent. What will happen to all of that if normal interest rates rise to five percent or more?
Also, our federal government owes over twenty trillion dollars and pays way over a quarter trillion dollars interest on that every year. If interest rates go up, then the interest our government has to pay also goes up. And where would that added money for interest come from anyway?
Besides our shaky economy, the nation has other problems. We, as a nation, have fought in constant wars for many, many years. We cannot say we won any of these ‘wars.' We never had any criteria for what winning would even be in these constant wars. We never declared war on any country. We would always just send our troops over to some other land to fight and die.
To some extent because we are constantly fighting wars in many other countries we now find that a very large amount of the world doesn’t like us. Some are openly hostile, some are covertly hostile, and many just plain dislike us.
These constant wars hav
e drained our resources of money and young men. Plus besides the constant foreign wars, we have been fighting; we also have wars being fought at home. We have the great war on drugs that we have fought for decades, and it is a war we have totally lost but continue to supposedly fight, throwing more and more taxpayer money into it.
The war on poverty that we have been fighting for decades is another war that we have lost but supposedly continue to fight. And again we just keep throwing more and more at it.
And now there is a real threat of racial wars in the United States. Racial tensions have increased greatly in the last ten years. Some of the things talked about and things being done are rather bizarre. There seems to be a movement to try and totally erase the Civil War from American history.
Since the last Presidential election, some people have been talking and acting in ways that could lead one to question their sanity. Even before the election started the nation was very polarized, and the election made that even worse. It is so bad that one whole state, the state of California, is threatening to succeed from the union, just because they don’t like who was elected as President. Talk about bizarre.
California succession is just one example of things that are going on in this once great nation. We have entered into a trade war with Russia and conditions between these two great nations have sunk to multi-year lows. No real expressed threat of open warfare, but certainly, it is possible and seems to be getting more likely every day.
And it is the same with the other major world power, and that is China. Relations between the USA and China are getting worse and worse. In this case many threats and taunts have been made between these two nuclear-armed nations.
Chapter 4
At our house things are great. Karen and I could not be more in love even after years of marriage. And the household now includes our daughter Cassy. Two years ago we were blessed with a perfect daughter, and both Karen and I could not be happier.
Karen still works, and Cassy stays with a good friend of Karen’s who babysits her. Both Karen and I trust her friend Nancy with our daughter. Nancy is a wonderful woman and babysitting our daughter allows her to stay at home and care for her own son that is very close to Cassy’s age. This allows the two kids to play together every day and what we pay Nancy help’s pay some of her household’s bills.
With real estate selling so good my business is doing great, and I am out on jobs just about every day. On the off days, I am busy writing up my reports for home buyers or loan companies. I have an office in a small room of our house. I do not require much room because all I need is a computer with internet access and a printer to print my reports.
Because I work from home, I can do odd jobs here sometimes when I have some free time. Sitting in front of a computer so often I keep a watch of several news sites in an effort to stay on top of any news that might directly affect my family. I feel that there might be an occasion that an early warning could save my family some money or even possibly our lives.
I have felt for many years that we all live in troubled times. We, as Americans, face many possible catastrophes at all times including both natural and man-made disasters.
I don’t sit around quivering because I am so worried about some disaster happening, but I do acknowledge that there is always a slight possibility. So I have taken steps so if something bad does happen my family might have a better chance of surviving whatever the trouble happens to be.
I haven’t gone off the deep end and spent a fortune buying everything imaginable of preparedness items, but I have bought and done a few reasonable and not very expensive things. Some of my precautionary items have been purchased, and some have not. Just like having insurance that I hope never to use that is how I feel about the few disaster precautions that I have taken.
Things like having a generator in case of the loss of electric power. Yes, that was one of the more expensive items we have purchased. And I am not the only one around here with a generator because we live out in the country it is not all that uncommon to lose power a couple times or more every year. So many of my neighbors also have generators, because it just makes sense to have one. It is a fairly common item for many rural homeowners around here or elsewhere.
Karen and I often discuss things on the news that are happening and how those things could maybe affect us. Sometimes that is as simple as predicted thunder storms or snow in the winter. Or it could be home mortgage rates going up that could slow home sales and thereby directly slow my business.
There have been a few times that we have become concerned about things we have learned from the news, but so far at least those concerns have been proved out to be either groundless or premature.
In the last year or so the news has become weird, at least the TV news. Maybe weird is not the right word. The news has changed enough, so a new phrase is now very common, “Fake News.” Instead of fair arbiters of the truth, the news channels instead spout just opinions and often outright lies.
Newspapers and TV news channels used to be where everyone in America went to get the news. Now that has changed because nobody trusts either of those news outlets anymore. What a sad state of affairs. So now many turn to the internet as a place to find the news. But that venue is also tainted, and now everyone who desires to have real news is forced to view and sift through countless reports in order to hopefully find some kernels of truth.
All the news has turned into propaganda here in this once great nation. At first many thought they could just view foreign news outlets but soon found they were also just propaganda that was heavily slanted one way or the other. So now everyone who really wants to know what is going on have been forced to become miners who have to dig through a big pile of tailings just to find a few nuggets of truth.
While Karen and I have the house done, we still always have projects that we are working on around the place or in the house. I think that is the same for any homeowners. The seven acres we have here do allow us to add more features to the place.
We don’t have the whole place fenced but years back when I could not afford fencing (or anything else) I had transplanted wild raspberry and black berry bushes along the borders of my property. It had cost me almost nothing, and through the years those rows of bushes have expanded and now form a formidable natural fence.
Our natural fence line produces a lot of very tasty berries that we pick every year. I now use a brush mower to keep the natural barrier from taking over the whole seven acres. I had also planted a couple of trees along the border and added wild grape vines which grew up the trees. The wild grapes we also harvest. The fact is we harvest all the wild edibles that are in the whole area around us.
Through the years I had also planted many fruit trees. Mostly different varieties of apple but also some pear, plum, cherry, apricot, and we are trying a couple of hardy peach trees. By now we have many mature trees and the trees provide plenty of fruit for my family. We freeze some of the fruit but dehydrate most of it. When the peaches start producing (if they do) we will likely can them instead of drying them. We also give away fruit from our trees to many of our friends.
We do have a garden and grow some of our own vegetables. We still buy most of the veggies that we eat, but the small garden adds some fresh naturally grown veggies to our diet. We placed the garden where it could easily be expanded to provide much more produce than it does now.
I am also a hunter and take full advantage of all the wild game and game birds in the general area. The wild meat is naturally lean and better for us than what we could buy in the stores.
I am not a fisherman, mainly because this particular area of northwestern Missouri does not provide much for fishing opportunities without some travel.
Overall much of the food we eat is naturally gathered, but like almost everyone else we still rely heavily on the grocery stores. We are far from self-sufficient here on our tiny rural getaway. We have been talking about getting some chickens so we can have fresh eggs, but we buy them now from
one of the neighbors about two or three miles away. So we are getting natural free-range chicken eggs, and at the same time, we do not have the bother or mess from having our own chickens. And I am sure our neighbors appreciate the small added income we provide by purchasing their chicken eggs.
Besides just the house we have a two car garage, a small storage shed, and now a fairly good sized metal building. The metal building has a lean-to on the back that is where we store a good supply of firewood. I freely admit that though I have in the past and could again, I do not put up the firewood myself and just buy it instead. In the time I would spend cutting, hauling, and splitting the firewood I now make more money than what the purchased wood costs me. So I just do other things that are safer for the exercise instead of putting up my own firewood.
We do burn a little wood but mostly heat the house with propane. As long as I buy the firewood anyway, we feel that we might as well just enjoy the comfort of gas heat at about the same cost as the wood heat. But it sure is good to have options.
Chapter 5
Both I and Karen have concerns about the world situation. Things are somewhat odd in the world. Pretty much all the world economies are at least somewhat shaky. And the world has never experienced so much debt. World debt is over two hundred trillion dollars which is about three times the whole global economy. And if you added the world derivative market which is estimated by some to be over one and a quarter quadrillion dollars it becomes just bizarre.
And then you have Russia, China, and the United States playing games with each other. All three of these countries are nuclear super powers. All have the capability to destroy the others. And supposedly that is what MAD was all about, Mutual Assured Destruction. The “you destroy me, and I’ll destroy you” scenario.