For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.
Rudyard Kipling 1892

Whats going on in the States is definately trickling down here into Canada.
Although my investment's weren't effected ( i deal mainly with Canadian stock) my parents weren't so lucky.
Their investments were almost 80% with American companies, thus taking their nice little nest egg they had down to less than half.

Fred Thompson on the economy.....this guy says it all:
http://patriotroom.com/fred-thompson-at-his-snarkiest-best/

On the other hand, others have had it worse.

I recall my Dad once talking about having to eat lard sandwiches for school lunch during the Depression. The butter and eggs had to be sold in town to keep things going.

Or ... on this day in 1944, the Battle of the Bulge started. Many of our troups were deployed in summer gear in one of the most bitterly cold winters in decades. 19,000 Americans dead later, the Allies finally prevailed. The Germans lost over 15,000 killed.

My dog grooming business has not been affected at all, I have been extremely lucky. I am still booked about 3-4 weeks in advance. Training business is slower, nobody seems to have the extra money. On the MSN homepage dog groomer/vet tech were one of the top 10 ten jobs to not be affected by the recession.

My husband on the other hand is in sales for exotic metal.December is his slowest month and he has lost a few million dollar accounts.

My parents are retired and have lost over half of their money in the stock market.

How are we going to rebuild this economy when the Federal deficit is over a trillion dollars? Instead of bailing out all these big businesses how about helping out the little guys who really need it!

I am in Michigan...shouldn't that say it all?

Seriously though, our housing market is shot. I bought my house in March of 08 for half of what the previous owners paid. My BIL is job hunting and finally settled on part-time work at Tim Horton's...putting his college degree to good use.

Luckily, my job is unaffected. I work as a teacher/tutor/vision therapist with kids who have learning disabilities. Cost about $100 /hour to see me...tells me that the schools are going down the drain!

My immediate family is incredibly fortunate...we are just hanging on, and can live a moderate lifestyle, not extras but all necessary stuff is good.

We will see what happens with the auto companies...unfortunately their failure would mean disaster for my area, regardless of all the f-ups they have made in the last decade (or more).

The house is warm and the cupboards are full; as long as I can maintain these two things I'm happy.

I work in healthcare, and healthcare is being hit hard. My floor usually has lots of overtime available, and they've cut it all unless absolutely necessary. They're talking about increasing the nurse:patient ratios.

I just recently gave my notice to do some travel nursing for an assignment or two, to decide where I want to go next, and this is the worst time in the history of travel nursing to travel! There are very few jobs, as hospitals cut out this expensive service; and there's lots more nurses looking to travel, because it's great pay and they pay your housing/ utilities and travel expenses! You get benefits day one usually.

I'm left rethinking that plan of travelling. I'll still try for a short while longer, but if no job comes up soon I'll stay where I'm at for the time being.

Hate to say it, but the big "D" has entered my thoughts a lot lately. This has been a long time coming, and it's not going to be over in a few months. Scary times, but we've (our country) been through them before.

Work has been slow. Happily we're a privately owned company whose owner has assured us right now we're one of his few investments turning a profit. That said, business is bad. We are usually ending the week about 3-15k under budget. My hours have been slashed back to 32 a week which is the bear minimum for full time. On the fun side of this it means I made so little money this year I actually can attend college for free now. So silver lining on my little cloud.

As far as the rest of the clan. My sister who is a public school teacher lost all of her assitants for her K-5th grade special ed class. My brother in law is taking next week off as forced unpaid leave (aka we could just fire you.) My dad has been notified that the county is considering closing the branch of the health dept he works at. My Mom and my older brother who are accountants so far are the only ones not feeling any pain at work.

It's interesting to watch things swing. I've known thanks to my enviromental economics teacher for quite a few years that the swing when it did happen would be drastic because the market had been over inflating for years. We haven't seen bad yet though. When imports stop because the US dollar value plummets that's my sign to start stockpiling on top of the emergency pile.

I've owned multiple corporations all involving real estate. I'm semi retired now and will be fully retired in June.

I thought I saw pretty much everything in the past 39 years. I enjoyed all the good times and survived all the bad times.

You all don't need me to tell you this "bad time" is very different and far more serious. It is global, it's developed many vicious circles, everything being attempted by the government isn't working and it isn't even close to being over.

Our children will be studying this crisis in history books forever. The easy to borrow money era is over. Rapid home appreciation is finished with some experts predicting for at least 20 years.

I spend at least some time regularly, at the end of my career, trying to help innocent friends and acquaintances attempting to avoid foreclosure.

My wife is a native Costa Rican. She is there visiting now and tells me the hotels are only half full and there is wide spread layoffs in the tourist industry. Reservations after the holidays are even bleaker.

I'm one of the fortunate ones who won't have to deal with this mess much longer. But I understand the hardship many are going through right now.