[fabsroman]

Don't get me started about economic stimulus. If we had all saved some money during the last decade, we wouldn't need anything from the government, all of which we will eventually have to pay back. I don't know what generation is at fault. There may be several to blame. Maybe the baby boomer generation for letting things get out of hand with social security, medicare, and medicaid, and the national debt. Most definitely my generation for not saving any money. I have a bunch of clients in financial straights, and it is all because they have absolutely nothing in savings and they cannot weather even the slightest down turn because they owe so much on credit that they need $7,000 to $8,000 per month to "live" which I guess "live" equates to avoiding bankruptcy or foreclosure.

Now, the government has to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and about 400,000 homeowners from foreclosure to the tune of $4 billion. The cost could end up being as high as $25 billion some say.

This entire fiasco has been brewing over a decade or more, and there isn't any one person or individual generation to blame.

Now, back to the original subject. When/If we build a deck on our next house, I will most definitely use TREX or a similar product, and put plastic railings on the deck. I love the minimum maintenance feature and cannot stand power washing and staining my current deck. I'm probably going to go with plastic fencing around the yard so I can avoid having to deal with maintenance on that, but I am debating brick columns and iron fencing.