Wednesday, February 04, 2009

More on the economy

All my life I was taught about The Great Depression.

As we sink lower and lower into the current depression, it seems to me that "great" is a misnomer for the previous one. "Really, really awful" might be more appropriate. Or "frighteningly terrible" or something like that. I'm aware of the multiple meanings of "great" but though the previous depression was large, it wasn't great.

And now? What will this depression be called? It doesn't look so great, either.

Today's paper mentions 200 layoffs at Swedish, the largest hospital (and the one I've received most of my treatment at) in the area.

It also says that Costco's profits are down. (This appears true to the naked eye. I went to Costco yesterday with a $20 bill from Grammy & Grandpa and instructions to pick out Tessa a new Easter dress. Eyeballing people's carts, they were much smaller than usual, and filled with necessities (food) more than those "oh I'll just grab a sweatshirt and a pack of flashlights and a few bottles of wine" that Costco is known for. What's more, I found parking easily, and there was no wait at the check stand. And, by the way, I paid cash for the dress, didn't buy another thing, and took my change with me. In previous years, I'd never have done that.)

These economic comments would not be relevant, except that they are small notes in a long list of economic problems. In our area, Boeing, Microsoft, WaMu have all announced layoffs, in addition to countless others. It doesn't look good.

So we are watching our pennies. We're in good company doing such, as so many others are doing it, too.

BearingPoint looks like it will be able to continue placing Ryan at projects, and we are prayerful that will continue to be the case.

But we're making rice and beans, and using it up, wearing it out, fixing it, or doing without, as the old saying goes. (Did I get that right?)

And the library has never seen so much of my business. Gotta love that!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is scary, isn't it? Everyone around me seems to be having problems now, and I am counting my blessings that I am not in that situation. But rather than wait until I may be, we're trying to cut back as well. Not as well as we should (since I've got debt too), but I'm making progress. No one knows what will happen from one day to the next. Or how someone else's misfortune could affect you (stuff like if my landlord had to sell our house to make money, that would affect us) even though we're in a good position. Today, anyway.

I'm actually thinking of not watching the news because I feel like it's almost bad in a law-of-attraction sense - if I focus too much on not having money or losing my job, I could attract that.

I say we just keep on doing the best we can do and somehow, one way or another, everything will turn out as it's meant to be.