During the past year we have been watching quite a number of things go bad with our much touted financial institution. Last year will go down in the record books as one that should not be repeated, but should not be forgotten. Jump to the present and we are in a major recession and our national deficit is escalating at an mind boggling rate.

At this point 365 days ago gas prices were quite outrageous and people were singing the blues, if we thought that was bad fast forward to the present and we are wishing for something to change.

The domino effect began last September when many of our large banking institutions started to sink and started begging for funds from the Fed. This caused chaos for millions of Americans, untold amounts of consumers lost their life savings in the stock market. Speaking of which the market at one point sank so low consumers were frightened we were on the brink of a full on depression.

The next market that got majorly affected is the mortgage industry. Were now seeing all time highs in the amount of foreclosures and the worst most analysts believe has not yet hit. The scams being used in the sub-prime mortgage industry are what began this whole headache and still continue to bring the economy down. Many predict it might take up to a decade for the real estate market to be healthy again.

Finally the auto industry has run into some large problems. Many of the large auto institutions need bailout money or are filing for Chapter 11. If this is a sign of things to come it is quite scary.

Another growing problem for tens of millions of Americans is the rising amount of defaults on credit cards. Credit card debt has reached a record high as well. Many debtors are having a very difficult time trying to get out of debt. Thankfully there are debt solutions that can enormously assist debtors in escaping the endless cycle of monthly minimum payments. One of the more popular methods of debt relief has become debt negotiation, especially throughout the economic chaos. This program assists consumers in saving a lot of income.

The reason getting rid of debt is imperative for so many is because unemployment is also going up and up. Debtors need to keep more funds for themselves to budget their homes and keep them from bankruptcy. With such hard times saving money has become so critical, no one experiencing problems right now should wait on attempting to get their families out of debt.