People with jobs can feel grateful while rest only feel powerless

No matter whom I talk to recently, I include one question: Are you doing anything to cut back on expenses?

Let's start with the funny ones. There's the friend whose husband proposed they cut back ... by drinking domestic beer. There's the Assembly candidate who, when the grocery store rang up a $7.99 pineapple, handed it back.

Despite the daily onslaught of bad news about the economy, a number of two-income, no-kids-at-home types don't feel the need to cut back.

Las Vegas housing prices may be dropping faster than any place in the nation, but if you already own your home, that's not going to affect you too much. Nevada's unemployment rate is at a 14-year-high, but if you have a stable job, that's not a worry. The stock market is falling and falling and falling some more, pulling 401(k) retirement plans into the dumps. But if you're not close to retiring, you can postpone that worry.

Obviously, not everyone is fretting.

However, if you're a construction worker or casino employee fearful of layoffs, the 6.2 percent unemployment rate is of great concern.

Pity the 25,000 building trades employees in Southern Nevada who have lost their jobs since September 2006. One welder told me his company now gets 25 applicants a day vying for one or two jobs.

Women's moderate-priced clothing stores are almost empty. I'm told the real estate women who used to come in and drop $2,000 don't show up anymore. Nor are they getting their teeth whitened. Or taking clients to lunch. And all of those things are having a domino effect as housing sales drop.

I worry that people are cutting back on medical care. It used to take weeks to get an appointment for my mammogram. Now they get you right in. That tells me some women are cutting back on preventative care, which is risky, reckless and potentially life-threatening.

Common sense tells me plastic surgeons are feeling the pain. Isn't that the first place you'd cut?

Las Vegas power couples are shopping at Target. Not Steve and Elaine, but others.

Wherever you go, you see signs that the economy is in the pits. Anyone with eyes can see that the Starbucks coffee houses aren't as busy as they once were.

A trip to a casino makes you wonder about the gamblers who just keep on trucking, but even their numbers are down. Thank heaven for foreign visitors.

While women are cutting back on clothes and cosmetic procedures, men are showing their manly values in a downward economy. They're cutting back on paying for sex. That hurts Nevada's legal brothels in rural Nevada. So, starting July 1, the Shady Lady Brothel in Nye County is offering $50 gasoline cards to customers who spend $300 on whoopee and a $100 gasoline card if you buy $500 worth of fun and frivolity. The closure of Angels Ladies and the Cottontail Ranch is another sign that men may be turning to less costly self-gratification.

People are feeling powerless.

A woman who didn't give her name or number left a message on my phone.

"We need to get people into homes, but we need to get people to vote to stop gas from going up and taxes from going up and food from going up and stop cutting the schools," she said. "If jobs go down and schools go down, we're not going to have money to pay for food or gas or even buy a house.

"We can't get into houses if we don't have jobs. We can't go to work if we don't have gas. If our kids can't go to school, we've got to stay at home to take care of them.

"You have the voice, please help us."

But I also feel powerless about today's economy. I have a job, but as I fill up my gas tank and buy groceries and pay my rising utility bills, there's nothing I can do to make any of those bills go down. When I talk to people without jobs, or whose home has gone into foreclosure, or parents with disabled kids, or a single mom afraid of losing her job, I feel fortunate.

But powerless.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.