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<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by <strong>sweetjasmine</strong> <a href="/community/forum/thread/1281197/does-it-smell-like-recession#post_16069170"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/community/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border:0px solid;"></a><br><br><p>OP, love your signature! I miss the old format, too. I do NOT like this new one!</p>
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<p>Anyway, back on topic, I'm a bit antsy, too. There are just not alot of good numbers/stats out there that warrants short-term optimism, imo. And long term? Not sure either. I hope I'm wrong but I have a feeling that the US glory days are over. Too many strong up and comers as far as other countries in the world these days and we just keep digging ourselves deeper as far as the economy, education, health, national debt, bipartisan fighting, etc. I don't know, it's like there's something around every corner. I'm leery -- and weary -- of the state of our country these days.</p>
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<p><span><img alt="yeahthat.gif" src="http://files.mothering.com/images/smilies/yeahthat.gif"> (and I hate how long it took me to get that smiley vs. just typing out the code--which is the same, but didn't work when I did it in another post
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<p>I just finished my Master's in education and the research on how long we've been miseducating the majority to be followers and unable to do any kind of critical analysis or research was so profoundly disturbing that I finally understood how our gov't was making the decisions it made (and why we rank 15th & 17th in the world among industrialized nations for academic performance). So I'm wondering how we'll manage to pull out of that pit.</p>
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<p>So much is changing. On one hand, it's a good thing: people aren't happy and they're making changes that need to be made. They're being as careful with their money as they should've been all along. People unhappy with our education system are sacrificing to be home and homeschool. And for many, as they start to think more critically about these other things, it's spilling over into their diet and health. All good things... for the individuals.</p>
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<p>But as a country... ugh. Greece had the EU to bail them out and even then, Germany played a major role in that because they had a LOT to lose if Greece defaulted. Spain and Portugal were next in line and now Ireland is on the chopping block. But all of them looked like we do now before the fall--and that's seriously disturbing.</p>
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<p>I'm thanking God EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. that we came into money that moved our debt repayment up two years and we are currently debt-free. I seriously couldn't imagine it getting worse and possibly having dh lose his job with that hanging over us. It was planned and in retro, it was the best way to accomplish what we did and saved our butts in other ways--but it's not a situation I want to be in again.</p>
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<p>BTW, I thought we had two consecutive quarters of positive movement in the economy? That's all they need to declare the end of the recession and therefore declare a "double-dip" if we go down again.</p>
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