• My parents bought their first and only home in the early 1950′s when the average house price was under $10,000. Ours was an extravagant $16,000.
• The average mortgage payments during this period ranged from $50-100/month.
• Jobs were relatively plentiful then. After all, there wasn’t too much competition, Europe and Japan had been bombed to smithereens and they were still climbing out of the rubble of World War II.
• My father was an engineer and he basically had one job all his life.
• In our family there were 4 kids and my stay-at-home Mom.
• Credit cards didn’t exist.
• Aside from our home my father paid cash for everything, including the family car.
• My father was able to retire at age 60 in 1984 with a comfortable pension.

• Today a one dollar bill has purchasing power of just one nickel ($0.05) when I was born.
• Our manufacturing base has been literally uprooted and shipped off to countries like China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
• In the US today, the gap between the rich and the poor is the highest in any industrialized nation in the world.
• All over the world we are seeing economies collapsing under enormous mountains of debt.
• Governments worldwide are bankrupt and desperate to extract more taxes from already over-taxed citizens. Just last week Illinois governor Pat Quinn signed into law a whopping 66% state income tax increase.
• We are now seeing true unemployment at levels that haven’t existed since 1930′s.
• In the US the housing market has slipped into depression territory:

• And the icing on the cake, a huge wave of baby boomers is now reaching retirement age. It is inevitable that we will experience a complete breakdown of the pension system.

• “How much have I been able to save in the last five years?”
• “Am I better off now than I was then?”
• “Knowing what is going on in the world, if I continue to do what I am doing right now, what will my life be like in five years?”

PS Create your own business.