"Tis better to build a fence at the top of a cliff rather than a hospital below," or at least that is the way I remember the saying...  Today cliffs seem to be numerous.  Just last week, Warren Buffett said our entire economy has gone off one.  I suspect there are a lot of us who could have told him that a while back.

But what I find remarkable is not the lack of fences above our many cliffs; it is the absence of hospitals, ambulances or even Band-Aids below.  Recall the tragic story of the husband and wife from LA.  After both were laid off, they chose a most insane and horrible solution.  I remember as bodies were being removed from the home, someone said they should have sought help.  Easy to say but how do you get help when you are suddenly in the midst of a scenario you never contemplated?   Where do you go when all of the systems were not quite set up for the dilemmas of 2009?

While I can never understand their decision, I look at my own situation and can understand the helplessness and desperation that couple must have felt.  A year and a half ago, I was a productive member of society.  My retirement savings was twice what it is today and I merrily went about my life, unable to see the enormous chasm that would be the "crack" I would fall through.  I couldn't see that months later I would be out of work.   I did not know that because of a technicality in the law I would be without any unemployment benefits.  I had no idea that any draw down of ones 401k to eat would result in a penalty because starvation does not qualify as a "hardship."  

But today here I am.  I look up and hear the voices of those above me, out in the working world, on the TV, and well beyond this valley in which I now find myself. They seem to understand there are dangerous cliffs out there but they do not seem to understand how far is the fall and how dark is the valley floor. 

I look around dreaming of how it could be, down here and up there.  Down here, I dream of triage centers for those who fall.  Up there, I dream of fences, walls and safety nets.  In both places, I dream of new laws and codes; not ones that never contemplated an entire lost society but ones that are written for the workforce of yesterday's "new" economy.  I dream of a new TARP; not one to protect banks from troubled assets but one to protect troubled Americans from failed systems. 

I dream for help and hope for all, regardless of the cracks they fall through...