As the economic crisis proceeds to envelop America, Houston area teens begin to feel the effects of the predicament.
While the subject arouses many questions and heated opinions, teens find themselves making cutbacks and arrangements for their futures.
“I’m looking a lot more for a job and I’m trying to find a job in an industry that’s not going to go anywhere,” said Meghan Spector, a senior at Carnegie Vanguard High School. “I’m going to go to college. I’m going to have to start paying my own bills soon and I’m trying to find a career that will be there –even if the economy is not.”
Spector, a recent American exchange student expresses the sacrifices she’s had to make since she arrived back home from Poland in August.
“I haven’t been to the movies since I’ve been back. I haven’t really been shopping. Most of my activities actually no longer involve spending money because all of it goes towards my gas,” 18-year-old Spector said.
Even though she lived in Europe for almost a year, the Heights teen hasn’t seemed to have taken her concern off of American politics.
“It just seems so crazy,” she said. “It gets to the point where private people and their income and government taxes have to bail out of private institutions. I just don’t understand it. I’m not happy.”
Spector conveys that she feels the government is handling the economy in a non-productive way.
“They say they’re going to put money into the economy and the economy seems to go good but it’s still dropping back and forth, back and forth,” Spector said. “It seems like if the government is agreeing to bail them out, they’re still not doing well. But what’s going to make it start doing well?”
Despite her strong objection to the bail-out plan, she relentlessly thinks that it is the only option the economy has to save itself.
“I think that this time the government has to do the bailout. The government should take a share of the private enterprise,” said Spector. “I mean, yes, private enterprise as in –yes, that’s socialism and not the American way, but bailing out private companies isn’t the American way either. I think that the public should have a share in the companies they allow.”
In a similar instance, take northwest Houston teen, Ben Walton, who has needed to make cutbacks as well.
“I need to reprioritize myself to cut back on any and all recreation to fulfill my needs to get as much money as possible –that includes my job,” the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts senior said.
Walton, an 18-year-old artist, expresses his concern for the way the economic crisis is affecting him.
“It’s eating away at my funds for college and I have to work extra hard now artistically to get as great as a scholarship as I can for any school at this point,” he said.
Walton said he even feels that the crisis is taking a toll on his personal life with the thing that matters to him most –his artwork.
“I work a lot artistically,” he said. “I find myself now having to cut back on that in order to get done all that is necessary – all that I would feel colleges would like to see more so than the things that I enjoy. It’s done some damage to my well being because it’s put a lot of pressure on me.”
As he watches the prices of art supplies soar, Walton regretfully feels that there is nothing that can be done to change the priority art has in his life.
“I just like to create art –that’s what I do,” he said. “I’m always just working out ideas, trying to find my mental and spiritual balance through creating artwork.”
But Walton cannot avoid thinking about how difficult it will be to find a solution to the crisis.
“The people of my generation could potentially be paying off this debt for the rest of our lives and that could even leak into our children’s lives,” he said.
Despite his frustration towards the national economy, Walton suggests that Americans overcome the crisis together.
“I say that we raise the taxes on all people so that our country can regain stability,” said Walton. “Yes, it will hurt every individual but when we’re all suffering the same at the same pace and the same rate, I think it will help the country as a whole and then we can help rebuild ourselves and re-grow together –not as a lower, middle and upper class, but just as Americans as a whole.”