Financial Health - At Individual and National Level

It has been more than a year in U.S. and more than anything else, the stint is useful for me and also helpful since my financial health is good. I never imagined days like these will come but the duration made more financial sense to me than any time before. A year in India just before arriving here had me paying my entire salary for monthly instalments to clear loans etc. It was very tough and dark but owing to factors working for me since a year, the days in U.S. cleared many of those past dues. These days are more to serve the self than serving the home country and everything else. You serve everyone else when you serve the self first. If working here can be more of a self-help, then there is no point to discontinue. I came at an opportune time when I am going to get better financially. The great nation that is U.S., played its part in giving the benefit. We need to see everyone is served well financially and no one goes broke. The main objective of any leader is to see the hard-working population is very good with their wallets. It somehow clicked in this nation this time around with the job and steady income and lower expenses. If not, it is a dejection on every earlier three occasions with only expenses, debt and no income to look at. Due to a strong dollar and despite a low salary range, I make four times the money I made in India in a month. If everything is good, this situation is great for people like me who basically works hard for money and for whose ilk money is gold. It would be good if you surround yourself with people who looks to help you. The big institutions, bodies and organizations should see that a common man like me is financially sound and without burdening debt. The point is, I would like to continue in U.S. as long as the tenure made financial sense to me and everything else is also good. 

While you work through the maze and get better financially, there is a definite scenario that the work would benefit the poor back home in India. When a person like me can climb the ladder and make progress, the work along will catapult the multitudes from economical poverty in home nation. I came from working on the Indian apparatus and doing good in a foreign nation. It is also through these pathways that problems related to poverty can be resolved in countries like India. While we made progress through the last few decades, the good work will hit the problem at its core by bringing the downtrodden and disadvantaged population in the path towards economical prosperity and progress. While socialism will spread the riches uniformly in a society, financial socialism which is at play will spread the riches to people with poverty. Rich people cannot become super rich and poor cannot remain poor. We are seeing a financial equity, inclusion and a sense of socialist economy where the fruits of goodness are spread across every individual. This wave should continue and beneficiaries like me should emerge which will lift people from a position of hopelessness and disadvantage. For instance, the good work happening in India has eliminated extreme poverty from the country as every person is eligible for free food grains, subsidies, direct transfers from the government to the tune of more than thousand rupees in a month per individual. These schemes have added up to people’s earnings and income which has eradicated extreme poverty in the nation as there is nothing a person would be prevented to receive help. The socialism at play by redistributing the wealth and government being the main enabler has been the reason for such an equity and inclusion.

 

While this helps me to become economically good and scores of others as well through the work, it becomes one of the reasons to remain in U.S. But there are conspiracies being hatched on my back by many to bring me back to India. These conspirators hail from India as well as from U.S. Their only objective is to feel better by restoring my state and location. These people work on three E’s - Elimination, Eviction and Extradition. One is to eliminate my livelihood or job, second is to evict from my home and third is to extradite to my home nation. By achieving these all together I would be nothing which would make these people feel better. The extradition is very much on play and I had to overcome these negating forces every week and justify my stay. While these people work on three E’s, I work on three D’s - determination, dedication and development in continuing to do what I am doing. Since it is more than a year, the people are occupied with the three E’s which can be understood but it just makes my job that much more difficult to stay put. I tried to suggest the rationale behind the stay in foreign country which makes more meaning and sense than retreating. The objective is growth, more overall growth and more inclusive growth. This is the area which will be hit by the three D’s than anything else. I would be good if this severity reduces but the times prevailing pronounce this type of affect and effect. 

I had spoken about the financial health of my own self. It is good in the last year which I owe it to the foreign nation and everyone who helped me all along. When the debt becomes zero and the person has very good positive balance, it becomes a very sound financial situation to be in. My main motivation to work is to become debt-free, pay my bills with good financial standing. I am not there yet but hoping to reach soon. When this goal is met, it brings internal happiness that your work has started to bear fruits. Every seeker should experience this fulfillment. The nations, those powerful and responsible should work towards this realization and meeting the financial aspirations of common man.

 

This financial health is at individual level and national level. Most believe in trickle-down economies where the nation’s financial health trickles down to common man. When the country is in debt, it becomes the norm for common man or an average median entity. The balance sheet of a nation should always be sound and positive which delegates to the ordinary citizen. While government debt doesn’t become citizen debt but there is a strong valid intuition that if government is in debt, then the citizens will also be in debt automatically. If government catches cold, the citizens will definitely sneeze. Living in U.S. makes me awestruck to look at the national debt of this country. The U.S. has a national debt of 31 trillion dollars which is highest in the world. It is more than twice of second placed Japan and more than three times that of China in third place.

 

Without any surprise, more than 84% of U.S. citizens has some form of debt. On a ground level, the country runs on debt, credit, building credit history and maintaining good credit score. This is utter non-sense and irresponsible to be in a position as a world leader in debt. I might be a lucky one-off person that benefitted out of this debt-ridden system. In any way, this is horrible macro-economics to tell the world that debt is good and follow by this leading example. Otherwise, how can the debt reach new heights every year and how come the debt ceiling is raised by the government more than 70 times in the last 60 years to borrow money and pay bills. It is a horrible scenario at a household level to borrow money and pay bills and the government is the household of the nation at highest level and did nothing to avert this borrowing. The U.S. government is week and meek without any control over the nation’s finances and practicing what no one should teach in theory. The practices of the government have become the practices of the citizens or vice-versa. In any case, the country which produces top minds of the world in economy should not commit these primitive, basic mistakes. The course should be corrected and the nation should maintain a decent financial responsibility and fiscal prudence not to come across as a macro-economic mess. The financial health is good at individual level for me but the same is not the case for the U.S. as a whole. As we discussed this issue, there are discussions going on to raise the debt ceiling of U.S. once again for the fears of default looms in horizon. It is inevitable the limit will be raised and more debt will be accrued but a difficult policy to implement to cut back on the money owed. The person that I am in the last year experienced positive balance sheet which should be extrapolated to the nation and hopefully the balance sheet of U.S. quickly becomes positive in years to come.