Okay…the wheels come off. NOW what?

So I’m driving along the other day, and my daughter starts asking questions about stuff she’s heard about in the news. She’s thirteen, and painfully aware of the sucky economy, polarized political situation, Obama, and so forth. She looks at me and says, “Dad…if the wheels do come off and we have another Great Depression, what happens then?” Out of the mouths of babes. That stopped me for a moment. Or three. I said, “Honey, I don’t think anybody knows. The world suffered through one Great Depression. We can do it again. It won’t be the end of the world.” That was about as comforting as I could get, because I was turning the question over in my mind, wondering about it just as she did. Only I have the benefit of reading a lot of history, talking with my late parents and grandparents (who lived through it), and knowing that things are a lot different now than they were then. Sort of. So the question remains, what happens if the wheels come off?

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