It is amazing how this global economic recession has become a propagator of tales; tales ranging from misfortunes, financial wreckages, broken hearts, soberness, and more frequently an increased art of prudence. Everywhere you turn you hear stories of how people have been battered and tattered by the melt down around the world. You read new blogs, which the writers were forced to start since they lost their job, chronicling their lives with no pay and how they are attempting to make the best of it. Others share logs of woes that have befallen them, while seeking advice from a host of readers from the corners of the earth. Lives have been touched by the economic travails and many seem beyond redemption. But the stories that amaze me most are how much of a lie many people had been living when the system seemed to have been working fine. As much as the capitalist driven world laid its foundations on mere paper and had a sudden collapse at a little shove from a sector of one country, many people have had their illusionary cloaks stripped from them. Now nakedly they stare at an unforgiving world and wonder what happened.

New York. USA. Damien graduated from a respected Ivy League business school. He landed a job immediately as a financial analyst with a gold chip firm and started enjoying the benefits of doing this. Apart from a juicy salary for a young man of 29, he received wowing bonuses at the end of the financial year. After just six years of working, he drove a Mercedes Benz convertible, lived in a 3 bedroom apartment in Manhattan, bought another house in Stamford, Connecticut, and had a time share in Mexico. Every month he buys two pieces of designer suit worth about $1500 and made up for his appearance with accessories to match. After all most people in the world’s top financial district looked that way; he had to measure up. He attended a lot of lavish parties where champagne was bought from $450 per bottle, and he rolled with the happening boys on the street. Damien was living the life. He often procrastinated when it comes to savings and always assumed that he would put aside a significant part of his bonus every year. But he never did. The lifestyle needed to be maintained at a high cost.
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