Just want to see how the economy is directly affecting you guys.  People have been making comparisons to the great depression, but then again the way I eat has not changed a bit.  People starved back then.  I am a student, so it wouldn't matter, but I know everyone around me is doing OK.  So is our situation THAT bad or going to be THAT bad? How has it affected you and what are your expectations of this crisis on the future?

(NOTE: Let this poll be ongoing so you are allowed to change your vote after you make it.)

in my opinion, it's far worse than anyone realises. It's like a cancer that has now been diagnosed, but will only be fully felt in the coming months. The world markets have lost a quarter of their value in a fornight, with more losses to come.

Iceland is bankrupt and is likely to ask for IMF assistance. 'Letters of Credit', the basic currency of import and export, are no longer being upheld, and at ports around the world, commodities are piling up because they can't be shipped. Consider this from a major finance blog:

"I have been more than a tad concerned about near-paralysis in the money markets and imploding equity prices. But this e-mail, from a well connected international investor not prone to alarm or (normally) the use of capital letters says that the banking crisis is staring to bring international shipping to a halt.

By way of background, letters of credit of various sorts are essential for trade. For instance, imagine the difficulty if you are, say, a Chinese manufacturer who wants to sell his wares to buyers overseas. How can he be sure the goods he ships will ever be paid for? Imagine the considerable difficulty and cost of chasing a deadbeat in a foreign country. Letters of credit. issued by banks, assure payment. They can also serve to finance the shipment (ie, fund the inventory while it is in transit).

Not only are banks now leery of lending to each other for much longer than overnight, they are also starting to refuse to honor letters of credit from other banks. From the above-mentioned reader:

    At the end of the day, if every counterparty is bad then you don't have a market and you don't have an economy. I spoke to another friend of mine this afternoon, whose father has been in the shipping business forever. Pristine credit rating, rock solid balance sheet. He says if he takes his BNP Paribas letter of credit to Citi today for short term funding for his vessels, they won't give it to him. That means he can't ship goods, which means that within the next 2 weeks, physical shortages of commodities begins to show up. THE CENTRAL BANKS CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN OR WE HAVE NO ECONOMY, LET ALONE A CREDIT SYSTEM...

The credit crisis is spilling over into the grain industry as international buyers find themselves unable to come up with payment, forcing sellers to shoulder often substantial losses.

Before cargoes can be loaded at port, buyers typically must produce proof they are good for the money. But more deals are falling through as sellers decide they don't trust the financial institution named in the buyer's letter of credit, analysts said.

"There's all kinds of stuff stacked up on docks right now that can't be shipped because people can't get letters of credit," said Bill Gary, president of Commodity Information Systems in Oklahoma City. "The problem is not demand, and it's not supply because we have plenty of supply. It's finding anyone who can come up with the credit to buy."

So far the problem is mostly being felt in U. S. and South American ports, but observers say it is only a matter of time before it hits Canada.

"We've got a nightmare in front of us and a lot of people are concerned it's going to get a lot worse," said Anthony Temple, a grain marketing expert based in Vancouver....

Access to credit is key to the survival of maritime trade and insiders now say the supply is being severely restricted. More than 90% of the world's trade by volume goes by ship...

"The credit crisis has made banks nervous and the last thing on their minds is making fresh loans," Omar Nokta, an analyst at investment bank Dahlman Rose, said in an interview with Reuters.

While shipping has always been a cyclical industry whose fortunes rise and fall with the global economy, analysts said the current crisis over the drying up of credit is something they have never seen before.

Jason Myers, head of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, said exporters across Canada are getting caught up in the turmoil as customers delay payments, forcing them to shoulder the cost."

There's way more that I could post here - the derivatives tangle has some analysts estimating that the so-called 'toxic debt' may run into the quadrillions. http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/coming_derivatives_crisis_150.html

Yup.

My house is paid off compleatly, as are my two cars that get 40 and 45 mpg. I can heat my house entirely with wood and I have two cords stacked for the winter. I drew about half of my IRA two months ago and put it into a savings account. I have zero debt. The resort timeshare I work for is presold for the next five years so my job is secure...

 I'm ready.

you can put lipstick on experience, but you

Sarah Palin 08

I've been feeling the pinch for a while now.  Three years ago, I lived in Michigan right when things had REALLY gotten bad up there.  I'm an Escrow Officer (title company) and they were slowly laying people off in all the departments.  It was only a matter of time for me.  They later closed down.  My husband found a job in Tennessee and we jumped on it.  It's a good job and he is secure (programmer analyst)  but I've been looking for something and haven't had any luck yet.  It's a tough market right now.  Now, I really have to conserve the money, even holding back on driving anywhere to save on gas.  This drives both my teenagers insane since they always want to go somewhere or spend money on something.  Don't get me wrong, we are doing ok, just watching the money very close.  We don't use credit and one of our cars is paid off so we were smart in that area.

Probably the main effect the crisis has had on me personally, is the huge hit on the Australian dollar. 3-4 weeks ago, the Australian dollar = 1 US dollar. Now the Aussie dollar is at about 62 US cents. So in effect, a third of our currencies value has been wiped out within under a month. This doesn't greatly impact me in Australia but it means when I travel, the australian dollar buys a lot less.Some of the developing countries have had an even bigger impact in their currency. The brasillian reis has dropped a stack as well. Mind you, I am not complaining as so many people will struggle in so many areas and essential life areas too, so my little whinge is so trivial in comparison to many others.

It has really surprised me how this crisis has flowed on like a stack of cards falling down throughout the world. I cannot think of one country that has been untouched. And the worse thing is that IMO this is only the tip of the iceberg. I would expect that there will be a global recession for the next 3 years or so. Which won't affect me too much but I really feel sorry for the people who are not equipped to handle it.

There will be job losses, people losing their homes, people losing their investments etc etc. It is really sad because the majority of these people have done nothing wrong. They are just innocent victims of this crisis.

The elderly who don't have a big earning capacity will be hit hard as well. Governments have been encouraging people to invest for their own future, and not to rely on government funds for their living post work. These people have put money away in shares and stocks to provide for their future, only to see the value of their nest egg lose a third or so of its value within a month. And these people were doing the right thing by society.

The worst bi product of these kinds of climates is not what actually happens but the panic that it causes. People read the newspapers and think it is doomsday. They stop spending, investing, travelling, eating out. And the flow on effect hits many businesses and in turn many employees.

I am a huge fan of capitalism and have always been a strong advocate for it over socialism. But it is moments like this that I feel embarrassed about it. Not so much about the system, but about the greed by a select minority that can cause capitalism to produce such a tidal wave of financial hurt.

Hopefully Governments will learn from this and facilitate proper banking reform to put in proper checks and balances so that loans don't go to people who have no hope of paying them back or have no buffer or comfort zone. When the economy is booming, property values are soaring and things are looking rosy, nobody bothers to worry about common sense checks and balances. Unfortunately, many people will pay for that now.

I really don't see it as an either/or question. I would not recommend a centrally controlled command economy any more than I would total Laissez-fair unbridled capitalism. It seems to me that capitalism vs socialism is often a misleading paradigm. IMO, the fact that elements from each system continue to exist in practice signifies that both have value to them. To say that the market will deal with inefficiencies is just as over-simplified as the statement that regulation is 'good'. In any case, I would say that it's dangerous to run things according to ideological as opposed to pragmatic principles.