Citizen Rights and Ownership Protection Laws (Depression)

My great grandmother belonged to one of the wealthiest families in Utah before the Great Depression hit in 1929. They were one of the first families to own automobiles in the state, they had a 130 acre property with two houses, and my great-great-grandfather owned several properties in states where he would conduct business in a trade firm. They had horses, orchards, semi arranged marriages, it was very old fashioned.

I remember hearing my great grandmother tell stories about her life before the depression and rarely would she ever hit on anything afterwards. One day my uncles and I were out there helping her clean her basement and garage after my uncle who was living in the basement had passed away due to kidney complications due to alcoholism (Korean War Vet).

We were all upstairs getting some water to drink, taking a break, and I went into the living room where my grandmother was watching Matlock (cliche). She incoherently starts in about how she came to live in the house she was living in, and why it meant so much to her and hit on the depression for the first time. I'm kind of a history buff, so I was excited. She ran over her family history and the lavish life they lived before the depression, and she started getting very shaky, with lots of breaks in the steadiness of her voice.

From what she told me, my great-great-grandfather was on business in North Carolina when the depression had hit. He traveled back to Utah to be with the family. Within a few days, there was a considerable difference in people's behavior, and she said it all came out of nowhere. She didn't go into great detail but from what she told me, the cars went first, then the horses, then the houses, then eventually the property in short order. Within two years they went from one of the wealthiest families in Utah, to as poor as everybody else. She described it being completely out of her fathers control. He was a stubborn old man and was constantly trying to make things work with what they had left.

After the dust settled, they went from living on a manor, to living with another family, totaling eleven people in a one bedroom apartment. Her father got back on his feet after awhile and made a comeback, but was never near as successful as he was pre-depression. They went on with their lives and never attained that sort of status, but settled for mediocrity, and that trend has definitely continued with me. It has taken me four years of dedicated work ethic to rise above the lower-middle class line.

I am not fearing my own downfall, but specifically that of my mothers. She's a single mother, she has a home, a mortgage, some credit cards, and a car payment and she's taking care of my little brother. They're not very much, and she's been current for as long as I was a little kid, but the near instantaneous downfall of my great grandmothers family is what scares me the most. they say this one is going to be "bigger" than anything we saw in 1929.

Shouldn't we be allotted some rights to our existing finances? How can they come swipe our houses and cars from us if we can't afford to pay them with worthless money, that would be worth nothing to their own debts? How is it justified to come take our things from us, when they do not even have the means of paying their bills?

Where are our rights?

We own these things. We pay our bills, if this hits us, how do we stop them from taking us for all we're worth?

There has to be some consumer laws against the total thievery of these things.

We should demand that our assets be off limits to those we owe, until solid currency is implemented to pay debts owed. I do not want my mother kicked out of her home. I do not want her things that she's worked so hard to maintain away from her. She had nothing to do with banks tossing out bad mortgages. She has nothing to do with the Federal Reserves lack of concern for a plummeting dollar and weak value. My mother has nothing to do with acquiring money for dishonest banks going under.

Why should we ultimately have to pay the toll for a very small, corrupt group of people's mistakes?

Is that just? Is that right?

What do we do?

I was looking through the internet to find the same information that you are looking for, so this is probably not much help for you.

I think I'm quite a bit older that you. My parents lived through the depression. They were not rich before, although one grandad had a race horse, before the depression; they had 13 children and the 15 of them we able to hang on to their house. It was a one room house. My dad jumped the rails and hitch hiked to Alaska when he was young. He couldn't find any gold, so he joined the CCC. My parents would seldom would talk about it. It made them extremely tight (even worse than the general population in the age group). Daddy told me once that they had only bread and lard to eat for years, while the government would pour out the milk in the streets (sound kinda familiar?), because no one could pay for it. So that's my greatest fear - to starve to death. I used to have nightmares of being a bag lady. I've gone to a few websites about preparedness. I don't have the money to do everything that they suggest, but I have hoarded a little food. And I've started a solar collector. Don't know if it will work and I don't know if I will have the time to finish it.

The depression started four years ago for me. In a sick way it's a little bit comforting to have other people in my financial situation now. But on the other hand, I don't get it either. I've worked two or three jobs all through my life, saved money as much as I could and still I'm unemployed, broke, scared, hungry and cold. How did this happen? I guess we were asleep at the wheel. I mean, I knew that the ARM loans were bad, and I distinctly remember to tell the young people that I knew to not do that. But I had no clue about how bad this situation was. Apparently, no one knew until it was way too late.

They (whoever "they" are) don't have to have a reason to take your life. They are threatening me that they will take my house for bills (everything else is already been taken - retirement, job, health). It used to be that they couldn't take your house for medical bills. I guess I missed that change too.

My personal suspicion is that someone got greedy for power. If you have noticed lately, a lot of our freedoms have disappeared. Medical "tests" are now mandated and cost an arm and a leg. And people are not just tight, they are greedy. Something has gone wrong on the top. I can't say if it was Clinton or Bush or someone behind the curtain. I just know that it's not good. I just hope we'll be able to help each other through. And remember that we were lied to in order to get us here, so maybe they are lying about how bad it's going to be.