I just get depressed watching this go down.

I have a number of colleagues who are currently unemployed, and don't deserve to be. It's depressing talking to friends who have now been out of work more than 6 months. One of my friends, a former Oracle account exec, has been laid off more than 1 year. When it was a person or two, I tried to pep talk them, buy meals, tried to encourage them and keep 'em going. But now I have enough friends out of work, I'm just really scared about my own job.

The posts depress me further because it's evidence that this isn't just Dallas, TX in the dumps.

It depresses me because, with the exception of family and church, computers have pretty much been my whole life for more than 20 years. I've worked with computers since 1982. I've worked on a hell of a lot of different platforms, from mainframe to IBM PC to Unix, and I'm mad as hell that the bean counters think I'm not worth anything anymore. I do things in days that it takes many departments months or years to do. I wrote an ANSI X12 tokenizer, segment validator in C++ last week for an EDI demo next week. I wanted to write the transaction set validator, so we would have a complete parser, but was stopped short by my boss, the owner.

It would be like being a doctor, a damn fine surgeon, for 20 years, then having someone walk in one day and say, "When you finish this surgery, you're done. Pack up your things and go home." No doctor with any pride is going to let that happen to him. Yet, I feel powerless to do anything. I don't have an AMA or certification to fall back on, to defend me against the PHB.

I don't know what to do with the rage. I'm a committed Christian, but I can't just say "oh well, my career is now worthless". It makes me angry.

My wife is a nurse assistant, currently working on a Physician's Assistant degree. But she's barely done with pre-reqs. She needs at least 4-5 more YEARS of education before she's going to be bringing home any significant amount of money. I have 3 kids, whose demands for food and stuff just seem to grow and grow.

I need to make what I'm making 3-4 more years, yet we're deferring major purchases at home ( new floor, furniture ), because my wife is very concerned that we'll be in linc's situation in just a few months. Our furniture is now 9 years old, and we're sewing it back together every month. Our new wood floor 5 years ago is now ruined from water stains (it wasn't done well to begin with), but replacement tile is $4500. How do you even think about a purchase like this in our environment?

In 2001, we had a 3 year old car, and we bought a 1 year old car, thinking we were "smart". Now, I wish we would have kept the 1994 Saturn, or even the 1985 Cutlass, both sold at 95,000 miles. Either car would have about 170,000 miles now, but we could have kept back the $17,500 the 1 year old car cost. In 2003, we keep the same cars, even with 0% financing. We'll be driving our cars a long, long time.

George W. sent me a $1200 check a couple of months ago, to encourage me to spend money. The only way I'm spending is if I can be assured to have a replacement job at at least 80% of what I'm making now (which certainly doesn't look like it's very possible). So, thanks for the check, I'll save it to pay my own unemployment, later.

All the while, I hear of a war costing 50 billion dollars, a government debt so large it would take the entire GNP of the country for 3 years to pay it off. All the while, we've committed to pay for the retirement and medicare of a whole baby boomer generation (which I was born just AFTER), and the savings that was supposed to be there ISN'T. It's flat out fraud. We should jail the whole of Congress. The lincoln articles keep coming. Something's gotta change, and THIS ELECTION!

I don't want to vote Democrat, because I'm a conservative Christian and don't agree with pro-choice. I don't want to vote Republican because they're the ones who are feeding from the till of the rich and selling off the country for their friends. By the way, the if the Republicans don't sell off the country, the Democrats will.

So, who do you get behind? Especially when you realize that the best 3rd party candidate effort in modern history got Bill Clinton elected?

I'm sorry Brian and Ross, but I really would rather bury my head in the sand be pretend it's all right, because, in the end, I realize that there probably isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

I'm one man, and as long as the R-rated movies, beer, TV shows, and football flow, everyone will probably go on living, pretend it's all right, and vote for a Democrat or Republican. Sadly, our economy will be gone in about 20 years. I guess I need to forget about the Texas Tomorrow fund, and teach my kids how to hunt and fish (and prepare game), 'cause that may be the only way they get fed.

Do Lincoln and DeSitter, how do YOU change this? I don't see how...