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not great, but good...solidly "middle class", if the cost of living wasn't what it is--and if we were a two-income household, which we used to be, but which has been blown out of the water by the declining economy over the past several years. But, I mean, I'm in what I would consider a relatively fortunate position as far as income...and I can't even afford to pay all the bills and feed us every month.
I'm constantly behind. The credit card is maxed out, largely from food and medical expenses, and we basically eat nothing but rice and beans for at least half of each month. It's been like this for a while. I have bought no new clothes for several years...not even socks, even though most of mine have holes in them and are fairly threadbare. I don't even have a car...we used to, but it broke down and we can't afford to get it repaired. I live in the city, so I commute on public transportation, but the cost of everything (especially rent) has increased each year in excess of the increases I get in my pay, so anything I save that way has been eaten up by other expenses. My s.o. hasn't been able to get a job despite sending out something like four resumes a day for some time. I contribute NOTHING to the "consumer economy", except the occasional alcoholic beverage right after I get paid. If I represent the middle of the road here, our economy is in way worse trouble even than is evident from the financial market crisis.
I feel like this massive bailout is akin to the last ditch, frantic efforts to save a dying man in the hospital. Or maybe the whole thing's pretty much been on a respirator for awhile now...but at this point even that isn't working, since various vital organs are failing all at once....
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