[fintstone]

Originally Posted by Evans, Marv

Unfortunately I think the deficits are the only way to go now, & I wonder how all this will be paid off in the long term. I think it's also true a lot of people in the future will be in the same type of situation she's in at the same point in life. Most on here, myself included, can be thankful to have lived our productive years at a time we could make decent plans for our later years.

Yes. It seems that poor planning or mistakes take a long time and a lot of work/sacrifice to recover from. It really sucks when you are old and both are in limited supply. Best to do a lot of extra planning, working, and sacrificing when young to ensure a pleasant life when elderly.

I had a big reversal about 15-20 years ago (due to employment and financial mistakes I made)...and it took about 10 years to recover (much work and sacrifice). I learned my lesson and kept doing the same thing for the next 5-10 years and feel like I am pretty prepared for the next 20. Most folks I know live day-to-day...so they are ensuring that even a small problem will overwhelm them.

The problem with the massive deficits is that they are not necessary as we are going to start sending money all around the world to show how unselfish we are...an welcoming millions more people to take care of. Charity and compassion shown by the OP is wonderful, but even more massive government debt will reduce everyone's ability to provide for themselves and their loved ones in the future. Printing dollars is not the way out. It makes the savings of all worth less...so even more people on the borderline (with little savings) will crash and burn when their dollars will not buy much. The price of gas is up around $.40 in just the past month and is expected to go to $4 soon. $4 a gallon may not seem high in some places, but is double what many were paying across the nation and will affect the cost of everything (due to increased transportation and manufacturing costs).