These are the times that try men's souls...

That quote from Thomas Paine came to mind last week as the stock market was crashing, and the whole western financial system seemed to be seizing up. It certainly did not help to be unemployed during this crisis. I don't doubt that we will come out of it eventually, but it looks to be a fairly long and bad downturn. Some people were even using the "D" word--depression. I'm not ready to subscribe to that train of thought yet, but we are definitely tightening our belts.