Unemployment is a tad under 4%…according to the graphs I was looking at, it’s only been that low twice in the last almost-50 years. What’s that mean? Broadly, if there’s anyone out there who wants a job, there’s one to be had.
Unemployment is down, the markets are doing well, confidence in the economy seems high. This is exactly the time you should be nailing down the acquisition of preparedness items and getting things taken care of.
It’s a lot easier to prepare when you have a good job, the economy is strong, and all seems rosy than it is to prepare when the market is tanking, you’ve been unemployed for two months, and you’re down to your last twenty bucks. Sure, that bonus you’re going to collect in two weeks will buy you that jet ski or 60″HDTV… but when we hit the other side of this moment of prosperity (which we always do) you’re gonna wish you’d used that bonus to pay down your debt, put away food, fund your HSA, or just tucked away in the bank. I’m not saying you can’t enjoy the current situation, just that you might want to use it to your advantage for later down the line.
So, just a reminder: this is the ‘fat’ season that you should take advantage of to put away for the ‘lean’ times. Could be guns, could be food, could be gold, could be cash in savings, could be paying off the house, could be getting those nagging dental issues fixed, could be paying off the truck……but now is the time to get ready for what may be coming next.
Still one of my favorite prints. An artistic representation of the Ant & Grasshopper fable. The grasshopper, the girl with the mandolin who spent all summer playing music and not working, faces the harsh winter and must beg to the ant, the industrious woman with the well-fed household, for help. Note the looks on the two women’s faces…the scorn, the humility.
unemployment numbers as reported are straight B.S. Look at the number of people of working age, that are not working. Something, like 94 million. Remember Trump in the election, said the unemployment numbers were a liar, now good. LOL LOL.
Use the time wisely.
“What’s that mean? Broadly, if there’s anyone out there who wants a job, there’s one to be had.” The key work there is WANTS a job. I used to work in an area of this state that some of the masses took pride in the fact that they were paid by the government to basically exchange oxygen. The working populance was/is not amused.
Taking this message to heart CZ, Florence EMS Stand-By FEMA money is paying off either a truck or a recent large preppy purchase. I try to grab all the over-time I can to get parts kits, springs and things or more containers to put away more staples of food.
Every time I get a larger windfall and have a temptation for say a new TV or a better stereo in a truck or something, I remember watching “The Grapes of Wrath”, a scene where the family pulls into a camp and the children all beg for food. The Mamma takes some of the last bacon fat and frys up some of the last of the flour as fry cakes just for those children. Having been out of work for four years, having lived under some bridges myself, I knew that kind of desperation when I watched that movie again, after my dark times. It is easy now, since I’m the black side of the ledger, to try to forget those lessons. But they always come back. And so I go back to the gun shows and buy those Hardigg cases and fill them with more #10 cans of the staples, I put more flour in those gamma sealed buckets and I put back more beans as seed for next years garden.
Now I am a polished professional at work and an aloof person in society but more often than not, I’m still thinking from that space under the bridge in Atlanta, eating from the bags that Taco Bell employees threw to us, instead of the dumpster.
Your caption states “…and must beg to the grasshopper, the industrious woman…”
The beggar is pleading to the “ant.”
Love the richness of symbolism in these old steel engravings. The ax and split log at the “ant’s” door, the apples in the child’s toy wagon, the lute, now useless, providing nothing of value, even the shadowy group in the background, doing a “King Wenceslas” moment, gathering winter fuel.
Yup, got me on that…I messed that one up. Gotta go fix it.