I firmly believe that the demise of Sears started long ago when they eliminated their general catalog and the in-store catalog order department with real people behind the counter. I know that in our family, when you needed to buy anything, the very first thing we did was to look in the Sears catalog (and maybe Mont...more

I think people have the feeling that everything that they used to believe in is upside down. Institutions and corporations like banks, teachers, law enforcement, news organizations, telephone companies, airlines and even the clergy no longer deserve the respect they once had. Labor unions have shown themselv...more

I'm not exactly sure what the Occupy Wall Street protester's message is, nor am I sure anyone else is, either. But I think one protester who was interviewed got it right. He said "It used to be that when a corporation made money, everyone benefited. Now, when a corporation makes money, you lose your job." That pretty w...more

Not a big thing for us to go back to using cash, as we used to. I've just gotten used to using a debit card, rather than cash, but I never felt really comfortable with it and we're certainly not too far gone to go back to a cash-based life. Whatever they try to do to us, we'll be able to adjust and deny them any of the...more

One of the real problems with Social Security is barely mentioned in the article. "the so-called trust fund -- where payroll taxes not needed for current payouts are stashed -- consists of $2.6 trillion in IOUs from the U.S. Treasury. The funds have been borrowed over the past two decades to pay for other federal progr...more