Global Economic Recession: 6 Important Things it Has Taught Us

The buzzwords on everyone's lips is the global economic recession and the harsh realities that we have been taught about our financial sectors. Many people's lives have been altered dramatically due to the recession, but have been taught many important lessons in the process. Economic lessons that we live with us onto the end of time or until the latest fashion or technology trend that will get people to spend money that they do not have, just to keep up with the Joneses.

1. The global economic recession really is global - everyone has been affected by this recession, people in the US, China, England, France on the way down to the people in third and fourth world countries such as Haiti have been affected. It seemed that no country has been spared the wrath of this monster with everyone everywhere speaking up or check cutbacks and spending limitations.

2. All economic classes are affected - from the very poor to the very rich and everyone in between have had their pockets pinched by the situation. Every day you hear tales of billionaires losing millions and trillionaires losing billions of dollars, with even the average professional losing their life savings and contract workers losing their jobs.

3. When things go bad, the cat is let out of the bag - every day we hear new stories of seemingly upperclass, well respected businessmen being accused of fraud, money-laundering, embezzlement and a host of financial charges stemming from them "cooking the books." Ken Lay of Enron, John Stanford of the Stanford group and Bernie Madoff were all well respected and trusted within their respected financial communities until it all came crashing down.

4. You cannot have everything that you want - a lot of people have grown in a culture of buy and spend to your hearts content, while racking up enormous amounts of debt in the process. Many people simply were living above their means and now that the debt collectors are calling, they find themselves in trouble because they cannot repay. This is simply a warning to us that we cannot purchase everything that catches our eye and tickles our fancy exactly when we want. The age of conspicuous consumerism, irrational and emotional spending, and living above our means is simply over.

5. Never trust your Broker - your friendly financial advisor who had all the accolades, a perfect track record, graduated from the best school seemed to have gotten it wrong just like everybody else. Many of these financial advisors and companies pitch the line that they care about you and your financial interests, but this has shown to be false. We always knew that they were in business to make money, we just didn't want to listen and wanted someone else to do the hard work that comes with investing.

6. Money is an infinite resource, value is not - this is the most important thing that we have been taught, though many people still have not really come to grips with the gravity of this simple statement. Money can be printed by the Federal Reserve at their discretion to be thrown on the problems, but inflation will always correct this and items will always generally hold their true value.

When we as people on the earth finally stop waiting for our leaders to fix our economic problems and finally begin to think with common sense, we will properly use the lessons taught to us by the global recession and use them to improve the life of everyone on this planet by moving forward together.