to all these people if they cannot declare bankrupsy or payback their debt? If they simply stop paying, what recourse to the credit card companies have that they would actually use? Court fees are axpenive.

It wouldn't hurt Americans to stop spending money they don't have and get their debt under control. Whether forced through bankruptcy, foreclosure, or just normal market conditions like a reduction in credit extention, Americans need to stop buying so much junk anyway. How many lead-tainted plastic gizmos from The Dollar Store, WalMart, and others do we really need anyway?

I confess, I've been a Dollar Store junkie for years now. But even I've grown tired of the same-ole-same-ole-made-in-china-last-year's-stuff.

I'm going back to glass because I can't trust the Chinese OR the American inspectors to keep my food bowls free of lead. I won't even buy toys for friends' kids anymore for fear of giving them a disease or forcing the parents to throw them out.

I want a high-speed rail here in Ohio so I can stop driving the traffic-laden I71, 77, 70,etc. corridors where the trucks still lumber along like dinosaurs at 55mph, hogging the right and middle lanes, while the rest of us experience road rage in the left lanes.

We need a national energy policy that forces corporations to manufacture all hybrids, and get the bugs worked out on them, within 10 years - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Reduce passenger vehicle gas consumption by 40%. It's a function of homeland defense, the environment, national security, economic security, increasing our disposable income, and stop killing and being killed for the oil.

Lastly, there are 3 required courses every high schooler should have to take before graduation regardless of what school they attend:

1) Citizenship: How democracy works; how laws are passed; and how stupid people get elected to office in the first place.

2) Economics For Dummies: what is capitalism really, where the jobs have gone and why, and how to start your own business.

3) The Power of Money: How to save, why we have to pay taxes, and never mind who's packing your parachute, what's your parachute worth on ebay by the time you're ready to retire.

We 'make' far less than we sell in the ethereal realm of financial, services, and intellectual property 'product'. I for one really don't care for manufacturing jobs because even in so called prestige jobs like car plants labor accounts for 8 or 9% of the total cost. In other words, we've made those jobs extremely efficient and so there are not that many of those jobs to worry about. I bet the housing crunch is going to put more roofers and power washers out of business than all the UAW workers laid off.

The repair economy. It has atrophied considerably under the onslaught of cheap merchandise. For example, a woman will buy a poorly made 20 dollar pair of shoes and call it a "value". The shoes last three months. She throws them out and buys another 20 dollar pair of shoes. After 1 year, these shoes have cost her 80$. Calculate that over three years. If she had purchased one pair of well made shoes and had the heels replaced by a local shoe repair shop, she'd have spent less and given a local a job to do. Now, add on appliances, electronics, garments, furniture, and so on, and we'd have a lot of people working.

Retail does not have to suffer if the contents of our bulging closets, sheds and garages cycled through consignment and thrift shops. Locals would be hired to man the thrift shops instead of the big box stores.

Thie would keep things out of landfills and the reduced need for packaging and long haul shipping would lessen the load on the environment.

The low cost of consumer goods has created a housing problem of sorts in that people move to ever larger houses to warehouse their cheap consumer goods. They'll spend tens of thousands of dollars to warehouse a thousand dollars worth of 10 dollar shoes and tee shirts. Perhaps a good bit of this current crisis is brought on by our incessant mall ratting.

So, we can have a vital and sustainable economy if we valued the goods we had instead of treating everything as disposable.

I'm going back to glass because I can't trust the Chinese OR the American inspectors to keep my food bowls free of lead.

Buy dishware made in Europe. It's unlikely to be contaminated - Europe still has some standards in place.

I'd say buy American-made tableware, but do we still make any? I mean, apart from paper plates and Styrofoam cups.

Strange stat, you can lose your home, just don't lose your credit card. No matter where you live you still need access to cash, (the home ReFi ATM is closed) and one of the first acts of the Bush admin was to change the rules on CC debt and bankruptcy. So its easier to walk away from your house.

Down the line lets pretend that CC rates come down off their perch, although that might imply some means testing, no more mailing new cards in envelopes addressed 'Occupant'. From the larger economic point of view reducing CC rates could stimulate the economy, and the credit bubble once more. (Is Congress listening?).

When I tried to start the Free Gasoline for Everybody Party, people laughed, but what is free credit? Same thing. The government has all the advantages when it comes to creating credit, (they never have to pay back the money they owe) so far they have wasted that advantage in Iraq, and other places. If you put the trillion we've spent in Iraq in the pockets of American consumers, what would the economy look like now?

Used to be when your TV broke you could bring it in to get fixed, or you could throw it out. But now - it's a big heavy flat screen you can't take down so the repair man has to come to you. At $100 to walk in the door, minimum. And the TV's too expensive to toss out so you HAVE to get it fixed. So now instead of one nerd at a workbench you have a whole industry of nerd techs in vans driving around fixing stuff.