Anyone can look out the window and see that the economy is bad. Where I live the economy is getting worse. Both my husband and I could lose our jobs at any moment. We are stressing everyday but keep going as long as we can. The electric bill has more than tripled, the grocery bill can no longer be kept under $75 per week, our rent went up. It is totally insane. How do these companies expect us to keep up when our salaries are not changing? My kids have been taken off of free lunch at school and now the lunch lady is getting ugly with us.

My husband and I both work over 40 hours a week and we are raising 3 children. Also my husband in is the National Guard. There is no more time for us to work more hours. I truly believe that even if we both were to get another full time job, we still would have a very hard time making ends meet.

We have sat down and downgraded everything that we can, but our largest expense continues to be gas to get to work. That is an expense that when it goes up, we really have a hard time pulling it together.

I have been trying to make a few dollars online but it is difficult and slow. I provide a service as personal shopper to a few clients. I have a huge network of companies that I go through and sell products for about half price.

I also write articles online and do alittle affiliate marketing,(which I am not very successful at). I tried selling on ebay but only got people who tried to scam me. It is horrible out here on the big web for the ones of us who are just trying to do our best.

I apologize for going off topic. My answer is yes, the economy is bad and I feel like it is getting worse. I pray that my family can survive it.

The economy is in my opinion in its bottom phase of its plummet, what we are seeing at this time are false turns as it seems to bounce at the bottom part of the curve. Unfortunately I do not see the economy worldwide making that upward turn till at the earliest mid spring of 2010, if we are lucky and the governments take decisive actions to address not only the current state but the reasons why they allow these things to happen again and again.
Locally, and I mean at a very local city level we may begin to see sectors of the economy make that turn sooner than others but until the housing and manufacturing areas improve it is going to be a drawn-out process.
Fingers crossed and with all hope that the turn happens soon and there is plenty of steam under it to push the economy to recovery fast.

As the effects of massive government spending during a time when we can not afford it begin to make themselves felt, we will soon enter into economic hard times like none we have ever seen. Watching our foolish government spend billions and trillions of dollars that we don't have can only drive us further and further into debt for which we cannot pay, and as more and more people lose their jobs and their homes, they will become unable to feed and clothe themselves. If we are to have any chance whatsoever, we need to stop spending like drunken sailors and reverse as much of the foolish spending as we can. We need to cut taxes so that people can afford to live.

The short answer: You ain't seen nothing yet.