I was perusing the New York Daily News and I caught this comment related to the economy:


"I have a job. I make $7.50 per hour and I have to work 55 hours a week just to make ends meet. I have a credit card debt over $20,000.00, mortgage over $35,000.00. Ask me how I make ends meet? I have to pay minimum payments evey month, I will 125 before all of them are paid off. I went to a debt company and gave them all my high balance credit cards and it is costing me more than if I was actually making my payments to the c/c company's but they say I will be debt free in 4 years. I have never been this bad off. But the cost of living is so dam high, I can't afford to eat good fresh cooked food, TV dinners is what I eat, forget lunches and cereal or toast for breakfast. This lousey economy has put me so far in debt and alot of people like me, we will neve see daylight again ever. I am worth more dead than alive. And don't think for a minute that I haven't thought of that either. What do we do??????????"

When I was a youngster Hempstead, Long Island was the "Hub of Long Island". Main Street and the streets nearby were humming with activity.

My mother wanted a "couch" - a "sofa" - a "sectional" for our living room. My mother marched into the furniture store with me in tow. She had a deal in sight. She picked out her beloved "sectional" that could go around a corner and take up part of two walls in the living room.

She snagged the owner and told him what she wanted. He was pleased to deal with her until Mom told him she couldn't pay for it right there and then. This was a 1918 Irish girl out of W96th Street, Manhattan talking to a Jewish merchant out of Brownsville, Brooklyn out in Hempstead - they spoke the same language.

Off the layaway the "sectional" came into our living room several months later - paid in full.

It was beautiful. It was so beautiful my mother covered it in plastic and wouldn't let anybody sit on it unless they were "company". We had no company, especially on weekends. The old man would sit at the kitchen table in his drawers and maybe his cigar while working the Crosley radio to get a race result. He maybe had a beer.

Jeez, I miss those days a tad. My parents had my sister and I face down in bed crying with laughter on a bad day.

The old plastic covered sofas..Knew them well. When I was a kid my mom got the new sofas done in the "gold tone" (cost extra) I remember watching the guy install using elmers glue and some stitching..After he left my parents admired the beautiful plastic covered couches..Nobody was allowed to sit on the for 3 days until it "settled"..Cost almost as much as the couches to hermetically seal the comfort INSIDE..Over the years the summer months would bring heat..heat was never a comfort in a home with 110 and no AC. Sitting on those plastic covered sofas wearing shorts and if I was lucky a good looking coed in a halter top...Yes we would spend hours sticking to the plastic.I hated those damn things..When they finally got old and cracked my mother removed them and was going to have new plastic covers installed. I appealed to them begged and implored..Even though I no longer lived home I was adamant they go au naturel..I won. The very first Christmas Day feast with naked couches my oldest son who was 10 months at the time spilled his carrots all over the prisitne 20 year new couch..Three months and two cleaning bills later I bought them NEW sofas..and yes they received plastic slip covers..

At what point does personal responsibility come into the picture? I'm sorry, u have a job that pays $7.50/hr but credit card debts amounting to over 20K? that has nothing to do with the economy, that's just piss poor mangement.