Marriage Assassin or Economy Assassin.

In his book, Right People, Right Place, Right Plan, Jentezen Franklin exposes things which can destroy a marriage.

He lists number 8 as Economic Pressure.

"Arguing about money can destroy a marriage. The thing that bought you together didn't have anything to do with money. When you were first married, life was all about being together. It's so easy to lose sight of that.

For many marriages, I highly recommend plastic surgery. That's when you cut up those plastic credit cards that are charging you 18% interest. Put yourself on a budget. Don't try to keep with the Joneses, because by the time you've finally caught up, they will have refinanced."

Good, simple advice.

It's interesting that the Western economy is teetering on the brink of recession largely bought about by people like you and me wanting more and more, so that we may keep up with the Joneses.
Banks and other lender have been more than happy to supply money to people like us because they were charging us ludicrous interest rates and, for quite some time, we were paying.
Then suddenly, well some would say not so suddenly as a fall had been predicted by those bold enough to say it up to 2 years prior, people could no longer afford to pay.

The Sub Prime fiascio hit the U.S.

This quickly spread across the world as the lenders in the States started revealing the depth of their exposure and the amount of their losses.
Banks in other countries slowly began to state possible losses because they too had exposure to the Sub Prime market. They too had been pouring money into, what had seemed, great cash producer.

Investors became nervous and started selling stocks and they kept on selling. The oil price rose and kept going and base metal prices started going south. The stock market is now a shell of its former self. Investors have lost millions and many Superannuation funds are a shadow of their former glory.

Would it be too bold of me to suggest that the state of our world economy today has been bought about by our need to over use that piece of plastic that we have secreted away in our wallet.
The world economy consists of a whole lot of smaller economies and they consist of smaller and so on, right down to us and our household economy.

How well do you manage your economy?