YES! The good side of the economy!

It's almost horrible, yet somehow very comforting. For the first time ever, poor people are happier than rich people.

How can this be, you ask? Well, it actually makes sense. If you're poor, nothing's changed for you, has it? Life was tough before and it's still tough. In fact, prices are coming down a bit.

But if you're rich, whoa Nellie! You're scared to death - you might lose your job - maybe you invested your big bucks with a shyster - maybe your stocks have tanked. You might become gasp MIDDLE CLASS!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-henry-sterry/poor-people-happier-than_b_164772.html

Now of course nobody's talking about the middle class - we working shlumps who go to school, get a job and then work fifty weeks a year fifty hours a week to make ends meet and try to afford a vacation once every five years or so.

We didn't lose anything with Bernie Madoff. Most of us don't have any stocks, except for maybe a 401K through work that's now worthless. Our lives go on as before, except maybe it's becoming less likely that our kids will be able to get the education we had. The other big change is that we're not talking about retirement anymore. We don't expect to retire. Even if we want to. We're going to be working until the day we die and we just hope we can stay healthy and keep going.

Maybe this economy will level out the playing field a little. Maybe it's time we finally realize we're all in this together - and maybe it's time to grow up, reach out and all work together.

Are you listening, Congress?


Thanks to the Huffington Post for this one.

They're Not Jumping Out of Windows, But They're Trying to Die

The stories I'd read on the failed attempts of a midwestern financial manager to fake his own death weren't terribly detailed. On the surface, they were downright funny. But there's more to the story and I'm not laughing now.

Marcus Schrenker apparently did try to fake his own death, did call in a false mayday from his single engine plane; did parachute out. But his journey nearly ended in a small tent as he tried to make his death a reality.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01152009/news/nationalnews/butchered_lam_150254.htm

There will be more of these pitiful stories - I know of two confirmed recession-motivated suicides in downstate New York so far. These are people who had it all - and now they're losing it.

Part of me sneers - they can't handle living like the rest of us? But the better part of me hurts for them - it's not just money. It's their reputation, their self-esteem, the lives they knew that they feel they're losing through their own mistakes. Money is more than currency - it's who they once were.

President Obama wants to jump start a dead economy. There may be more riding on him than we realized.