Mixed messages about the economy

Many young people today can't understand what it’s like to have to conserve due to being pressed by the outside environment. Worse yet, when they have reached a time in their lives when they should be contracting their spending habits, such as now, they are being fed mixed and contradicting messages by society.

On one hand they are being told that unemployment rates are rising, and their future outlook for employment is not as rosy as only a few years earlier. On the other hand, they are being told that consumer confidence is rising, that more people are optimistic about future employment prospects and that change is occurring in the marketplace.

Those who not gone through extremely difficult times, such as the Great Depression, don’t fully understand what it is like to live in want and be forced to practice the fiscal prudence and dedication that are needed to rise out of a national quagmire in this Great Recession we're now facing.

Instead, this generation has been given a passageway to live a double life, and be OK with it. While they face outside pressures of the job market, they are being tempted with department sales that are providing what one would normally deem as conspicuous consumption at semi-affordable levels — or should I say, levels tempting enough to buy. Claims coming from the White House that things are getting better allow them to ignore harsh economic reality. They are not consistently encouraged to take a look at their personal financial life to see the things that should change and change immediately.


Williams can be heard nightly on Sirius/XM Power 169 from 9 to 10 p.m. EST.

Visit www.armstrongwilliams.com .