Is the Economy hurting you? Tell me. UPDATED!

I have owned my business for 20 years now.. it has never been like this.. I used to do 50 to 80 houses per month now down to 5-10... the housing industry has been in DEPRESSION now for 3 years.. it isn't coming out.
My family has done this type of work since 1951... it has never been this bad..

"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
-Thomas Jefferson

I am more concerned about the return of my money than the return on my money. --Mark Twain

Well, I'm 21, there is currently no one hiring and businesses being shutdown pretty often. I had plans to be able to afford an apartment in a few months for me and my lady. So now I'm basically at a real crappy place and it feels like i'm stuck at times. Maybe it will get better in 10 years though, then I can have a midlife crisis =]

Well, we just achieved a record month - and my business is in the packaged/bottled/canned food industry. We have high-quality products at mid-range cost. No government stimulus here - I am in Thailand.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” -- John Quincy Adams

for the fact that the government has decided to take 1/3 of my income, and a considerable amount of my assets, and give them to my ex-wife, who decided that she wanted to be "free", and yet, still not have to work for a living in order to sustain herself. Although we are divorced, she feels that she should still be able to continue living off of me, and my income. And the government agrees. They don't want to give any kind of assistance to any woman, who doesn't feel like working, if there is a man that they can 'steal' the money from.

But I'm OK ! I will survive .... and thrive, in spite of everything !

My husband works for a waste collection company many of you would know the name of...anyway, the last 2 years, the last 6 months especially, he has seen a large drop in the tonnage of trash that gets picked up. We work from a skeleton crew now and in order for someone not to get laid off they kind of rotate who gets a day off or leaves early here and there.

He picked up Friday's residential route in 4 hours. That is amazing, picking up 1/4 of the towns trash in 4 hours. He went from working overtime each week to being fortuate if he gets 35-40. People are obviously buying less and have less to throw away. Many houses in town are vacant too.

"People demand freedom only when they have no power. "
--Henry Longfellow

(February rate well above the nation's 8.1 percent rate). We are treading water but somehow are above the surface. We just want our tax return as this will be used to get us caught up with mortgage/printers/etc..
I have a lot of friends out of work, but yet most are still employed. I just wish we could get out of this, I want my life back and my "American Dream" given an opportunity to see fruition. I don't mind working hard, I would just like to see the rewards of my hard work. It gets so discouraging and depressing...

The company I work for and own stock in is actually growing right now in Northern California. We provide rural wireless broadband internet.

I've been with the company for six years. 25 employees. I'm one of two VP's. No salary reductions right now.

My company has a recurring revenue model. Retail has gone downhill in the area and there are so many vacant retail fronts.

Furniture, Car lots and expensive dining, electronics stores don't have a chance in hell of surviving right now.

Dollar stores, fast food, cheap pizza, auto parts stores and smaller grocery stores stay busy.

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“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds” - Sam Adams

We were doing okay most of last year as I just started a new business and my wife had a seemingly stable job. I also had some investments which then began to drop dramatically so I pulled out of the market and have the remainder in cash.

Things are more difficult now though. My wife just got laid off and my company is likely much less viable because of the economy.

My wife is a teacher and has been laid off twice in the last 4 years. She was one of several teachers to go, and just before they announced the lay-offs the administrators all gave themselves raises. Yet another insult added to injury amid the current financial fiasco.

My savings will last us a little while but not forever, and we'll probably have to move to a new city. With any luck (and diligence) my wife will find a new job and I'll be able to get my new company off the ground so we can gain some momentum.

What bothers me about the current situation is that we Americans have been sold out. I've always been a do-it-yourself kind of guy and am looking for no hand-outs. I just want to have some stable ground on which to build my life. I pay my taxes and I expect my Government to use those funds to provide a safe and open environment in which I can prosper, not to squander those funds and abuse my rights.

It seems our Government is intent on establishing itself as a middleman with a hand in everything we do and at every stage of life, and when they have their foot in the door the steps they take from then on appear to be to extort money from us and limit our ability to bring about the full potential of our lives. They routinely use American finances, resources, and military to spread their toxicity throughout the world which is damaging on too many levels to mention.

Is it any wonder our Nation is crumbling?

I really can't describe how irritated I am about the narrow-minded focus on Wall Street and banks throughout this crisis. Not only because it's misguided, but because at the heart of their actions they're stealing from the people who had nothing to do with the cause of the economic devastation with the hopes that it will recreate the facade, but it won't work.

The simple fact is that I'm a small businessman with a little capital, my wife is an unemployed teacher, and my child is going to have to move away from her friends yet again. How can we consider ourselves a part of any community when we're constantly displaced? It's families like ours that are the backbone of this country, and so many of us are suffering through both the faltering economy, and through the nefarious actions of our Government and the Fed. If they want to help the economy they need to provide us with a means to rebuild rather than try to prop up the broken down debt machine we've become.

We have only one life and I'm a little tired of being told how and in what way I can progress through mine. That I regularly have portions of my income taken by those in power so they can create new and underhanded ways to infiltrate and inhibit my pursuit of happiness is even more frustrating.

To top it all off my area gets sprayed with chemtrails on a weekly basis. I know a lot a people avoid the chemtrail issue and view it as a conspiracy theory, but the conspiracy theory aspect only comes into play when you speculate on why certain things are being done. There is no way anyone could refute that planes are spraying the skies when they live in an area where it occurs. I'm out several times a day, every day, and can see the planes, the spraying, and the results. As I bear witness to such an insidious spectacle I can't help but feel angry, saddened, and repulsed.

I'm developing a great deal of concern for the welfare of my child in a world where powerful people so willfully corrupt much of what is beautiful about our planet and the life we've been given. Their actions inhibit the possibilities for evolutionary growth that we humans possess and they stand as examples of the lowly depths to which human integrity can sink.

What we have now is really no different than what we had back in primitive times, though it's become much more efficient and it's so easy to dismiss our situation by busying ourselves with more frivolous considerations and distractions.

Those in control of the force of law abuse the masses as they've always done. Can we come up with no other system?

I suppose we did and we founded this country on it, but we've grown used to "leaders" who choose to ignore the Constitution they swore to uphold.

Those in positions of power simply do not have the right to do most of the things they do. It's time to enforce the limitations on their reach in accordance with the Constitution and set to work restructuring and rebuilding the Nation we love.

My small stock investment has taken a hit, but I have been able to buy down at these low levels.

I am in the Army so am immune to the business cycle. Also getting an extra $700 a month for being in Iraq, plus $500 extra a month for being stopp lossed.

The service is not for everyone but I did it to get back all the tax money I would pay thoughout my life and get this amazing experience and the GI Bill.

Bash the military all you want, but it is one part of the Fed govt that is legitimate and needed.

ahead of disaster, and haven't lost anything. But, if there is another round of layoffs in the company Husband works for, he will be taking a 40% pay cut.