Yes the economy is bad. However, spare us the imagery and comparisons of today's financial crisis with the Great Depression. In the 1930's "Depression" meant standing in line for bread. Today's "Depression" means a person can't afford two new cars instead of one. Back in the "good ol' days" when we actually did walk to school in the snow most of us weren't "living" on credit, and we didn't buy clothes like groceries, and didn't makeover our homes to match the four seasons. We have become a country of irresponsible credit whores. Don't blame the banks or mortgage companies, or "predatory" lenders for "buying" something you couldn't afford in the first place. Look in the mirror.

I think the 1st thing Obama should do is come up with a plan to put the homeless people to work building bridges so they'll have a place to live! And more money for crack! I'm joking, I've been in there shoes to many times! Yesterday I was watching the local news in West Palm Beach.FL.They had on the mayor and she was explaining her plan to put local people to work rebuilding the city's parks, making new boardwalks and boat docks,roads,you name it? She says the county has always wanted these things done, but in the past things where to expensive to do these projects. Now things like concrete, iron and other supplies are coming down and its time to fix up the city! The money to do this has been sitting in a account waiting for the right time to get more bang for the buck and put local people back to work making a decent wage so that they can start spending more money that will help local businesses that will make more jobs and so on! Very Smart Lady! I think if Obama can free up some money for the local county and city level. We can get this economy going again! The way its always been is the state gets there hands on the money 1st and than we have a bunch of bridges to no where and alot of overspending for things we don't really need! Right now is a good time to contact our mayors and say "hey"lets go to work and start getting our people back to work now, while the time is right!" You dumb motherf&%ker!!" ha! ha!

To sophia5Some people work there whole life dreaming of owning there own home and no matter what they do it never happens.That's life,but these assholes came in with there sub prime mortgages and high interest credit cards and conned not only the people who couldn't afford these things but also the people like you to! They bundled these mortgages up into hedge funds and then borrowed money from the banks knowing that all these loans where going to go bust when the real estate bubble broke! they artificially drove house prices up and up! It was nothing but a big scam and they where all in on it and now we have to pay for it! I have no sympathy for the people that used there new home like a ATM machine. I Feel for all the people that got suckered into believing that they can have there little piece of the American dream and lost there life's savings and in some cases there kids future to these predators!!

Sophia5 you mix mildly reasonable statments with hostile statements that show a lack of contact with reality. I agree to a degree that we have become as you say "credit whores". There is no reasonable way that Americans should have reported negative savings over the past 2 years (at least). That is blatantly irresponsible consumership. However, you cannot possibly blame this entire mess on consumers because that doesn't jive with reality. Every person who is stuck in a bad mortgage didn't deliberately get in over their heads. Some surely made poor financial decisions and bought homes that they could without considering if they should. However, consumers didn't cause home values to drop by as much as 20% in some metropolitan areas of the last 12 months. And spare me the "when we used to walk to work/school" uphill both ways in a blizzard crap. This is unarguably the worst financial crisis this country has faced since the Great Depression so the comparisons are pretty valid. I wasn't alive in the 30's but a helluva lot of people that are more educated in financial/economic fields have been saying this situation is the worst since then.

This is absolutely appalling. Remember when being an American meant something? And people like sophia5 - I'm really glad you can sit in your ivory tower and judge everyone else. The credit card companies change the rules to suit themselves every day and there used to be laws against usury. Look it up.

"The Borgen Project has some good info on the cost of addressing global poverty.
$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.
$540 billion: Annual U.S. Defense Budget."

I have to partially agree with sophia5 - I know a lot of people who are definitely living beyond their means. They spend their money on stupid things to "keep up with the Joneses" or try to one-up other families, i.e. living in a house you could not hope to ever afford, buying a HUMMER when gas prices were over $3 a gallon, right before the summer spike in prices; buying your 9 year old daughter an iphone. Now how do these middle class people try to live like upper class millionaire wanna bes? By racking up hellacious credit card debt.

The mortgage mess is just the start, I think there is a strong possibility that the credit card companies are going to start calling in their markers and you will really hear cry from the masses then. We can trace our problems back years ago to our govt's decision to loosen the term "bankruptcy" and encourage people to just get further into debt, hence the mess they are in now. A lot of people do not plan for the future, just the instant gratification of now.

I am sympathetic to people who did not live beyond their means and perhaps lost their job, or if they were strapped with medical hardships. I'm fully aware that medical costs in this country are an outrage. I was making a point of how we got in this mess, how all of us share in the responsibility to live within our means. Let's all stop blaming the credit card companies. Nobody held a gun to our collective head and forced us to buy that High Definition TV, IPOD, or that new car. Those are not necessities. How many of you are in credit card debt and can't remember what you bought ? The walking in the snow part was partly tongue in cheek but actually true no matter how cliche it sounds. I would argue our current situation is more in line with the 1970's under the Carter Administration when we had odd / even days for gasoline and people where literally sleeping in their cars at the gas stations so they could be first in line to fill up the next day. My Grandmother told me stories about how in the 1930's they had to stand in line for bread and soup. That's hardly the case today ... yet ?

The outsourcing of jobs is another part of this puzzle. Because we hardly make anything in this country anymore, we have become a country of paper pushers, and I'm not sure how long our country can survive without a manufacturing base. Corporate America keeps telling us how unqualified the American worker is, which is a bunch of jive. I know several people who are qualified computer techs, yet they're told to train workers from India so they can move the jobs overseas. So I ask the question. If the American Worker is told over and over again no matter how much they study or qualified they are, jobs will go to India and China, at some point Americans will say why bother studying for technology jobs "there just going to move my job overseas.

Sophia5. we have people like you in colo.spgs. people who volunteer "clean up the river bottoms" on the weekends. To throw away the very last things a homeless person owns. The program was stopped (thank god). You ever been homeless??

grizzom I agree putting unemployed people to work doing lots of things that need to be done. It would be fabulous! And they would have a ball doing such important works. I read somewhere an idea that could have them employed installing insulation and weatherproofing in residences and hence lowering people's energy bills and lowering energy use all at the same time. As for we're not as badly off as they were in the depression well, give it time...it could very well get uglier. Let's hope that is averted, which is possible with ingenuity. Desperation often spawns creativity.

Let us get this straight. Hank Paulson, Treasury Secretary is worried about whether the mortgage modification plan proposed by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila C. Bair to help the housing market, would reward borrowers who bought houses they couldn't afford. Bair's plan would use federal funds to modify adjustable-rate mortgages.

Somebody pinch us so we can wake up from the nightmare! Worries about moral hazards and rewarding undeserving homeowners? -- Oh, pulleeeze!

This inaction and the seeming inability to help regular folk is very sad. They just don't get it. The Fed's actions in effect killed the real estate market to keep the price of a loaf of bread down. Like Don Quixote fighting windmills, The Fed's actions had no impact on the price of bread or oil. Their actions hurt everyone and their continued inaction is hurting everyone! The housing collapse can be traced to the Fed's reckless raising of interest rates. The net result - Hedge Fund Managers made billions. (So what do Hedge Fund Managers know that the Fed or the government doesn't?) Oh, pulleeeze!

Regular folk lost big time (higher adjustable mortgages payments drained savings, then decreased equity, then killed the real estate market, then forced foreclosures and bankruptcies, then caused CDOs to default which caused insurance companies to pay double and triple insurance proceeds, causing insurance company, bank failures and investment bank failures. Now auto sales slide off a cliff, retail sales plummet, credit cards default and there are huge employment losses. We are no longer shocked by these shocking headlines. What's next? Regular folk foraging for food like feral beasts? While the banking system's money pipes are clogged with taxpayer billions?

Stop the insanity! Help regular folk now! Lower their interest rates -- on mortgages, credit cards, auto and school loans -- down to 3.75% or lower if necessary (1% 2.75%margin for the banks-- or how about 1% direct to the regular folk and forget the banks!.) Help them/us get health insurance too. Heal thy neighbor...help them/us keep their homes. They/we are the backbone of the country and the economic engine of the world.