War is costly. The Bush administration has been paying for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with “emergency supplemental” spending. Think of it as an “off balance sheet” transaction; it’s there, but it’s not in the annual budget and doesn’t go through the usual appropriations process. With supplementals, defense spending has grown to more than 700 billion dollars a year.

Not all of the advice given by financial experts Janet Bodnar and Pam Shortal made it into my story tonight. Here are some other tips they gave that didn’t make it to air but could still be useful to many families:

• Be Age Appropriate. A 3-year-old isn’t going to remember what the holidays were like last year, so you don’t need to explain to him or her that things are going to be different this year. For all intents and purposes, you are starting out fresh. A teenager, however, has probably already heard or read about the downturn in the economy, so you can be more candid about your financial situation. Teenagers who are applying to college will likely understand the future financial strain college tuition will bring. Nevertheless, as Janet Bodnar puts it, “You don’t have to give them chapter and verse of all your finances.”

When is a cartel not a cartel? When it has to ask for "help" to get a handle on prices. That's the situation faced by OPEC, otherwise known as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In my interview with John Kilduff, energy analyst at MF Global, John told me that we'll hear plenty about a "global coordinated production cut" when OPEC meets in Cairo this weekend for a hastily-called meeting. Kilduff says we shouldn't expect any concrete announcements on production cuts, but instead, OPEC will buy time between now and their next meeting in mid-December to bring Russia, Norway and other producers into alignment.

The Federal Reserve is on track to pump about $3 trillion into the banking and financial system.

Eventually, that money has to come back out of the system.

What then?

It appears the Fed is already thinking about that to a degree. That explains why the Fed is not buying assets directly. Rather, it is lending money to buyers and holding assets as collateral.

In a phrase, how do you sum up an unprecedented event that could cost the U.S. Government $7.76 trillion dollars (not counting billions more in investment losses and corporate failures)?

We came up with: “From Bubble To Trouble: The Financial Crisis of 2008.” And that’s what we’re calling NBR’s Thanksgiving Special, which looks into the causes of the current crisis.

The “bubble” refers, of course, to the housing bubble of 2004-mid 2007. It set the stage for the financial meltdown that we’re now experiencing (that’s the “trouble”).*

But how did some bad mortgage loans take the nation’s financial system to the brink of collapse -- and send the world into a deep recession? The verdict is still out, but our reporters came up with some possible explanations….in two separate reports.

It’s been a few decades since most Americans experienced a bruising recession. But, even though many experts say this one will be most like the ‘81-’82 recession, it’s likely to feel at least somewhat different. The unemployment rate topped out at nearly 11 percent following the Reagan recession. Even though millions will lose their jobs in this one, it’s unlikely to get that bad. (7.5 on the low end…9 percent on the high end). In the early 1980s, raging inflation and high interest rates took their toll. (Is it possible I remember CDs paying double digit returns?) Today, interest rates (if you can get a loan are quite low)….and inflation is more likely to be “deflation.”

A trillion dollars. Once upon a time that seemed like so much money.

Now, it is all in a day's work.

Today the Fed committed $800 billion to prop up consumer lending -- mortgages, car loans, students loans, etc.

That brings the total for the Fed to about $3 trillion.

I grew up in the southwest Florida area, and I always remember the name of the local Ford dealer: Hopper-Crews Ford. They sponsored a Little League team; they bought ads in the back of the high school yearbook; in short, the folks at Hopper-Crews Ford were a fixture in the local community. At one time, those kinds of community dealers were commonplace. Now, they're become less common because of trends in the auto industry.

As tonight's story shows, car dealers face hurricane-strength economic headwinds due to the slowdown of the economy. But the dynamics of the industry have been changing for years. Look at the data compiled by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA). Profitability for dealerships is now at the low levels of the early 1990s. The number of dealers has declined from roughly 25,000 in the late 1980s to just above 20,000 now. As the NADA statistics show, the number of small-volume dealers has been withering away for decades. High-volume dealers are steadily taking over the market share of the car-retail industry.

Remember Ben Franklin’s aphorism: “A penny saved is a penny earned?” I doubt Ben realized it when he coined that phrase some 350 years ago, but he actually came up with some good financial advice for those retiring in 2008 and beyond.

The reason: after the precipitous drops in home values and stock prices that we’ve just experienced, who knows when they’ll rebound? So those of us who plan to retire in the next few years will probably have to retire on less than we expected. That means when it comes to managing our retirement finances, our focus will have to shift from boosting our retirement income to finding ways to cut costs. Here’s why….

So Citigroup gets more cash from the Treasury. But homeowners and auto makers don't.

I understand the systemic risk issues. I understand that banks are like the circulatory system of the economy. If they stop, we all get a financial heart attack. I get it.

Still . . .

Why do banks get so much help and the rest of the economy, not so much?

Rep. Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee pointed it out: