Change is in the Air: The Economic Crisis Affects Everything
The economic crisis is challenging long held assumptions in all the facets of our lives. After a lost decade in the financial markets, retirement portfolios are no higher than they were before the dot com boom and bust. The real estate market has likewise reduced wealth challenging the notion that homes are a means to middle class wealth. Higher Education is seeing significant reduction in their endowments and beginning to realize that the rate of increase of tuition over the last three decades is now putting education out of reach for many in the middle class. Similar unsustainable inflation rates in the health care industry will almost certainly require significant austerity measures in the next few years. Despite the growth of the health care industry, it fails to cover 47 million Americans with insurance (and perhaps many more as a result of the recession.) Universal health care insurance is almost assuredly on its way. The spike in oil prices and the change of consumer behavior provided what could be the final nail in the coffin for the American auto industry.

"Most prefer the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar security."  Sheldon Kopp