First off, Merry Christmas. Belatedly. I'm a whole day late.

Secondly, it's been about a year now we've been in this recession. We'll be in it for another year. I might make that same statement next year.

Did we expect to be able to spend beyond our means forever? (I say "we", I mean in the collective. I didn't expect we could, did you?)

We fueled our economy on the money we had - our paychecks and when they couldn't keep up, our savings, including the savings tied up as equity in our own homes. We then fueled it on money we didn't have - credit card debt and debt backed by hoped-for appreciation in our homes.

How far out on that limb did we think we could go?