If you want to survive the next great depression please listen to those who went thru the first one

My grandmother, living in S. California through the depression, grew up poor, met her husband and moved out of California to where my grandfather worked in a lab making paint chemicals and she got a job with a man who was a tailor. She learned to sew from him, and over time she built her own business sewing curtains, cushion covers, etc. She became well known and those with money hired her to decorate their expensive homes. She became a well known interior decorator. As a child we grew up with her working in our basement sewing for the people along the Gold Coast of Chicago. My father grew up on welfare, didn’t like it, and spoke about how his father, an Italian immigrant brick layer, couldn’t find work in the city. He would send my father out to the empty lot down the street from where they lived in public housing of Chicago to collect gardoons, a dark green leafy ‘weed’ where they would fry up the tough stalks to eat or use the leafy part cooked in oil with garlic and tossed into pasta with some potatoes. He and his brothers would also steal from the back of bread trucks delivering bread to the local stores. When the war hit he entered underage and was deployed to the Pacific. He came home a wounded vet with a purple heart disabled from a 50 caliber bullet entering his leg and exiting his foot. After one year in the hospital he returned to Chicago, got a job in a local grocery store and from there worked the stock yards. Learning to butcher he moved up to bigger grocery stores and when my grandmother taught him how to make a pie crust he became a very good chef. For 12 years during my growing up he held a second job at night in one of the most prestigious restaurants where frequently he saw well known, well paid professional football and hockey players come to dine. He bought a few duplexes where, in his spare time made them better and collected some income to add to his savings. He taught us to work hard, save your money, move up in your employment to better yourself. Don’t gripe about your not having, but find a way to make it better. I chose to cash in all we owned and with our savings bought a sailboat. Home schooled our children, fished for our meat, bathed in the salt water rinsing in fresh, at times did laundry in a stream found on the islands we sailed to. Our home was 44 feet long by 12 feet wide at the widest point. We mostly lived out doors on our deck or roamed the beaches far away for ‘treasures’! We were separating our garbage aboard our boat, prepping for long voyages stocking up on what we could find at local markets, hauling and saving water when we could find fresh drinking water, cutting our own hair, taking care of our own medical needs (some serious), long before it became popular in the USA. Upon our return after almost 7 years away and circumnavigating the globe we returned to a country we barely recognized. The computer age was setting in, there were malls, restaurants everywhere. I noticed people were overweight, complained about having to work, do laundry, and spent everything they made on ‘toys’ or clothes. We were shocked our people had become shoppers, eating fast food, uneducated about finances, spending money they didn’t have (credit cards), and complainers about what little they had. I on the other hand was in love with my washing machine and dryer, what ease I had. I loved our car (decades old rust bucket and used) that got me to the grocery store where I was overwhelmed by all the choices, more ease for me, just walk down aisles with a cart you put your purchases in. No more walking a few miles with back packs and canvas bags to the open air markets putting a few canned goods in our bags if we could find them of tuna fish, tomatoes and vegetables. No more hauling fresh water and filling our tanks. No more doing laundry by hand. Upon our return, we found employment, a place to rent, worked hard, saved and bettered ourselves over the years. Our children learned from us and our lifestyle aboard our boat and in turn are now teaching their children to be self sufficient, hard working. Wow, our nation become a soft people, unhealthy, no idea how to take care of their own bodies using their money to go to a doctor for the littlest ailment, whiners about the job they have, looking for the next iphone to posses, needing someone else to hold their hand, then complain about how much they don’t have, always needing to be entertained. If only they could see the way the third-world countries lived that we visited they would see how rich they are! They would see at least here they can do something to better themselves. Unfortunately they have been taught wrong, grew up with no responsibilities for their actions, with parents who give them everything, not learning to do for themselves. Should any of us be surprised at the uneducated, lazy, drug and alcohol filled, TV, iphone, computer watching children that have been raised? There are a lot of stupid people here. I’ve said it before, get rid of those phones, turn off that TV and pick up a book. Save your money to build your nest egg. Open your eyes to what is going on around you in our country where we are truly headed for the days of the 1930’s bread lines. I’m am so saddened for the children who have been raised as young adults who are not motivated. They have been indoctrinated in those public schools, is it any surprise to any of us what we have raised?