Likewise, fire departments are now composed mainly of volunteers as well. My mother still works as a schoolteacher but her school has also changed dramatically. Classes are held only Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and for only four hours per day. There are no organized extracurricular activities because the school could not afford to keep on any employees other than a few teachers and also because of the cost (and difficulties) involved in obtaining liability insurance. Teachers and students are now responsible for keeping the grounds clean and parents had to sign liability waivers as a condition of continued enrolment.

My older sister is an obstetrician, but she was laid off after people stopped going to hospitals for anything except life-threatening emergencies and acute injuries. She now provides check-ups and some medical services through house calls, either without compensation or in return for home-grown food or promises to return the favor or pay her "someday." She also asks her patients to sign liability waivers because she no longer carries any malpractice or liability insurance of any kind either.

The economic collapse of the United States also precipitated a worldwide depression. Initially, the Chinese and Japanese governments held off on demanding repayment of their outstanding U.S. debts, but as their own economies began to fail, they began seizing American assets to try to stabilize their economic situation....

This only exacerbated the already dire conditions in the U.S. By the end of last year, many foreign economic markets had also failed because they were directly (and indirectly) almost entirely dependent on U.S. consumers to generate demand for their products and services.
In some ways, social analysts suggest that when the American and worldwide economies eventually recover, this experience may finally reverse, once and for all, some of the absurdities that evolved (mainly in the U.S. first) whereby consumers purchasing became ridiculously irresponsible with respect to saving. Similarly, it may also reverse the patterns of consumerism that evolved (largely) in the second half of the 20th century whereby many goods and services fulfilled little genuine need, but appealed instead to the impulse to display one's wealth or status. The clothing, fashion, and luxury services industries in particular catered primarily to this impulse rather than to any actual need for their products.

Now that people have had the experience of not being able to afford (or even find) new clothes of any kind at all, one can hope that even after recovery, everybody will understand the absurdity of replacing perfectly good clothes every year (and cars every few years) for no other reason than changes in "style" orchestrated by those industries as an artificial means of creating consumer demand. I am fairly certain that is the case in my family at least.