What do they mean by the Banking Industry?

The media continue to make the generalization "banking industry" when in fact they are referring only to a few Wall Street giants. There are other banks, hundreds of other banks in the shadows of the those giant firms, waiting for the fall of the skyscraping ivory towers made out of rickety unstable timbers called "credit."

Credit is a crutch. After the last depression people bought only what they needed, and then only when they saved up enough money to make the purchase outright.

Credit allowed people to buy things immediately instead of saving up enough to make the purchase later. If you had to actually sit down and figure out how long it would take you to buy a car outright by saving up part of your wages, you and everyone else would be outraged.

Try it out. Get a calculator and go through your credit card statement and figure out how long it would take you to actually make those purchases outright by saving up the hard earned cash.

Money is flowing out of your town faster than everyone in your town can earn it. The money is almost gone.

Interest payments to Citibank and other Wall Street firms, the purchase of products not made in your own state, gasoline, fast-food franchises in your state paying for their supplies to companies in another state and dividends to their investors who live elsewhere, and lease payments made by shopping mall stores to the property owners in Australia or Saudi Arabia.

It was reported on National Public Radio (NPR) that Walmart is starting the Christmas shopping season very early this year because more shoppers at Walmart are living paycheck to paycheck.

So the biggest hole in this sinking ship is credit. I was lucky to get out of it in 2001. Taking the time to make a budget and save up to buy things instead of using credit takes getting used to but it is well worth it.