Those people saw it coming and simply refused to believe it could happen to them. People with little money however, remain people with little money, so no change there.

The citizens that have learned coping skills are the ones that have very little. They are also the ones that develop survival skills and independent spirit.

A long time ago, a wise woman told me two things: 1. You can get along with ANYbody, IF you want to ( I was going thru a divorce at the time). 2. You can live well and be happy, whether you have lots of money, or very little money (I was looking at being VERY much less secure, financially). My financial security has followed nature—it changes constantly—- Those of us who have started with nothing, worked it up to something, took a step aback, and then the steps forward, and didn’t become complacent about ‘paying attention’, will find a way to get thru this….Those who placed their personal value on the amount of money they had in their bank accounts, might have some difficulty —— As many have, I too have lost the value of my retirement funds, and the value of my portfolio which used to take care of my monthly expenses….but I still have my friends who have been with me thru years of ups and downs , and me with them. I have plenty of practice on how to live with less, and how to celebrate with more—-it is the ‘quality’ of the life experience thru friendships, experiences, that we share stories about—-not how much money is in the bank account…..and many of those ‘stories’ really have very little to do with ‘how much it cost’, do they? What really concerns me is that this meltdown is happening so fast, and from so many directions, that the chaos is preventing timely solution and correction——we have the wild wild West in charge right now—-and instead of the perps standing down, for the sake of everyone, they are trying to grab more for themselves, and we cannot stop them fast enough…..

We are headed for a depression. We have been steadily heading in this direction for a long time and we are in too deep to avoid it. If you thought your retirement accounts lost money over the past six months, wait until the media spins this in the news that we are in a depression. Once declared publicly, the stock market will plummet. Anyone who hasn’t liquidated their retirement accounts before now and put the cash on money market had better do so now. This is going to be ugly. We were not raised in an environment that taught us how to live with less. I always wondered why my grandmother was so frugal. I wondered why she was against home mortgages. I questioned why she drove a 10 year old car. I was constantly amazed at how little she spent at the grocery stores and still managed to put wonderful, healthy meals on the table. She never went out “shopping” without a specific need in mind. The most amazing was her ability to give each of her grandchildren a gift of money for college expenses. We were her priority. She will always be my greatest role model. We have so much to learn from those who lived during the depression.

This isn’t new to many of us. But I am amazed at all the different directions the economic attacks are coming at us. Talk about terristic attacks…I had one of those bad morgages, I went to a foreclosure prevention specialist who informed me going into foreclosure wasn’t all that bad!!!! He didn’t have four children two on the Autism Spectrum. So I read the entire HUD document on foreclosures online, found out about the “Loss/Mitigation” offices which most morgage companies and banks have. In this office you can write a letter of hardship, present your budget and request your morgage gets set to a percentage you can handle to keep your home. Fortunately during this process I also found out I had 8 credit cards opened in my name….Identity theft which I am still in the process of fighting…..amazing! Some of the cards had been opened after the first cards were delinquent, makes me go hmmmmmmmmm. How were these people able to open up credit cards with all of these delinquencis on my credit file? Sounds like an inside job to me. I, of course wrote to my Representatives in my State and Congress asking them to stop allowing credit cards to be opened automatically over the internet and to put in place some kind of physical contact via through a bank or some other place where one must come in person to sign off on a credit card application. Anyway, last year I locked all of my retirement funds down into money marketing funds because of “back wash”- when you let a 2 year old drink out of your glass after eating dry cookies and there always seems to be cookie crumbs in your drink afterwards. The ‘back wash” that made me lock down my retirement was the moment I found out how the war was being funded by a runaway money borrowing train.

The after effects of Bernard Madoff’s greed coupled with the current economic pitfall has truly affected a large cross section of America. The first comment of this posting reminds me that there are many who do not see the whole picture, the damage that has been done to our larger society. This is not a scam that has only hurt the wealthy communities but it has also badly damaged the less fortunate, those in need, in unfathomable ways. Madoff’s action and lack of integrity bestowed havoc not only on individuals who trusted in his expertise but also on community service non-profit charitable organizations who depended on him to grow their foundations to continue their good works. I am Chairing the ECO Ball 2009, an annual fundraiser for Kids Korps USA, a youth volunteer organization of over 6000 members contributing service in their communities. We, like many other organizations, keep the doors open with the generosity of individual donors, corporate sponsorships, etc. Year after year we have celebrity presence, such as Ryan Seacrest and Larry King to assist us in drawing an enthusiastic audience. This year, our draw is influential humanitarian Millard Fuller, Founder of Habitat for Humanity and CEO/Founder of Fuller Center for Housing, but no celebrity. The Madoff incident has made it difficult for us to retrieve the same donations we have consistently gotten in the past. Many of our partners have been hit by this scam. Many people are now much more skeptical about the organizations in which they contribute. In turn, the social service projects and benefits that many organizations have been providing to communities all over the country are being scaled back if not cut off altogether. The impact of this recent discovery of greedy decisions by Wall Street has relevancy in all our lives, rich, poor, and everything in between. Marie Daniels Chair, ECO Ball 2009 Principal, Caelum Communication & Marketing www.caelummarketing.com

How ironic that for us at the opposite end we too are dealing with that cascade effect. My Christmas present this year was the letters that informed me that my SSI would raise by $37 while my rent would also increase by $61.00 and my food stamps would drop from about $6.00 a day for my granddaughter and me combined to about $5.50 a day for us. Christmas dinner was a bowl of popcorn, nothing for my birthday and New Years was the same as any other day. This was just a drop in the bucket of a whole deluge of bad news. I am so far down on the poverty scale that one way or another I do not even qualify for 99% of the programs, aides, etc. for the poor. I am just good for the standard Social Security/Welfare programs which are decades behind today’s economy. And sadly what few know muchless want to know is that when it rains for the rich, it’s a tsunami for the poor. Fortunately for me, though I am poorer than poor money wise, I am exceedingly rich in talent, kindness, random acts of kindness, smiles and compliments. Even when I am hungry (always LOL) I am grateful for my riches.

Christine you are an inspiration to everyone. Your outlook at the end of the day is the type of encouragement our society is surprised by when we are constantly witness to the greedy and wasteful evidence that lay in our path with poor decisions. Marie Daniels Chair, ECO Ball 2009 Principal, Caelum Communication & Marketing www.caelummarketing.com

I am not surprised at all. Here is a Quote by Ayn Rand: “honesty – the refusal to fake reality” I say, as humans, we have never been promised tomorrow and we leave this human life with the same thing we came in with — nothing. Nothing is reality. If these greedy people want to leave life, let them.

Miss Goldgerg,

I cannot believe that posts like the ones that are above me are all right. What is happening to America? This is not change for the better. Is this what you wanted? I am being denied my freedom of speech on this site. One that you are supporting. Why? What is this site really about? Was it not supposed to be about sharing with each other as women? Agreeing to disagree or is this just another yes site and if so why are you associated with this? I don’t understand and I cry everyday for what is happeing to my America. This is not better. This is turning into a nightmare. Please Miss Goldberg. Please start speaking out against what is happening. I beg of you please ….