Where might this have been written? “For years the typical homeowner has enjoyed a combination of easy debt, rising house prices and record-low inflation: all three have now vanished, and all three are unlikely to reappear any time soon. The big squeeze is set to be a long one.”

Sounds a lot like many parts of the United States, right? Answer: The Guardian of London. We are by no means alone.

Adds the Guardian:

“The British are adjusting to a new, expensive era. They feel it when filling up their cars, or doing the weekly shop. Mortgage bills are soaring, while wage rises are nowhere near as forthcoming. This is the big squeeze, and we shall feel it for a long time to come.”

And so will we in “the colonies.” The world is going through a horrendous economic struggle that has been heightened by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes that will take decades to overcome. In the United States, we are plagued by fires in California, periodic earth tremors in the Reno, Nev., area, tornadoes such as the ones at Greensburg, Chapman and Manhattan and indescribable flooding in so many locales to our north and east.

When one considers the costs of transportation that factor so heavily in our daily lives, the picture is staggering. Some American communities will need years and years to recover and recoup and some may never get close to where they once were.

There is, as the British comments point out, more than enough misery to go around and the only solution is for all of us to live more prudently and wisely and do everything we can to assist those less fortunate, wherever they might be but particularly among our American family.

If there is any trace of beauty in all this, it is the realization that for years and years Americans have found means to retool their ways of getting things done and so far have managed to survive better off than those in others parts of the world.

We have to keep telling ourselves this and reassuring ourselves that we can prevail as we struggle to overcome the massive obstacles being thrown in our paths.