By "our", I mean US. So, who's feeling the pinch?

-avatar!

Not me!  I'm thankful the dollar is so weak right now, since I'm paid in yen.  When it comes time to transfer my funds back to America, I'll be all the richer!

I got royally screwed by the exchange rate, transferring my entire savings back last summer only to have the yen go up in value (or dollar drop) drastically since then.  Yeah, those extra thousands of dollars would be REALLY NICE considering my currently having no job.

i plan to refinance my home this summer so i hope we dont miraculously pull out of this recession too soon.

stocks have dropped, but im not too concerned, considering the original investment was a gift back when i was in high school, its not money i ever really saw

I'm diversified, I'm relatively young, and I don't own any house or property. As such, I have no great expenses other than rent and insurance. I'd say I'm riding this down trend rather well compared to a lot of people. I also know how to live within my means.

Edit: Mike, perhaps the Fed will actually put us *in* to a recession. Then you'd be good to go.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1204162 … mmentaries

Same here.

Stocks and the housing market all do the same things - go up and down over time.  Eventually, those with houses end up with equity and the stocks do well over time.

I'm generally too poor to notice how bad the economy is doing, from firsthand experience anyway.

But our economy, IMO, is going to get worse and worse. Which scares me. The Federal Reserve has gotta go.

The U.S. dollar is impressively weak when I had to go to the U.K. for a business trip.  It was 2 USD for every 1 GBP, so my dollars did not buy much of anything over there.  Getting my expenses reimbursed was fun.

I think the euro / USD ratio is now at some sort of record.

My situation is similar to Bamatone's, so its not affecting me directly either (though my family could be doing better.)

I'm actually doing better than I usually am, at the moment. Still officially in poverty, but so it goes.

My income has actually increased by $1100 so far this year. I'm not talking about the DVDs I sold earlier. Strictly at my job, I have earned $1100 more so far this year than I earned last year. My hours have not changed. I also didn't get a raise. I'm still at the catering company and overall, the sales are markedly higher than last year, so far. In fact, I have more free time to write than usual.

Lucky bastard!
I have to deal with transferring to Euro's which earns me JACK.
It's not like 160.000 yen a month is that much anyways...

Ouch, I make twice that!