I have made some attempt here to "translate" the severity of the crisis into American terms.  This is what I did. I went into the city (Cluj Romania) and made of list of prices for some common items found on both sides of the ocean. ***With some mathematical magic I calculated prices here compared to someone in the States that earns a wage equivalent of $2000/month in hand. So what you see below are some examples, put in American terms of how severe the economic crisis is here. That is, what you would pay out of your $2000 if the crisis were transported over to US shores.

Big Mac at McDonald's

$32.19

ticket to movie

$22.45

gas/gal

$56.89

fill up 15 gal

$853.29

ream of printer paper

$101.05

ink cartridge for printer

$870.51

TV medium size, color

 $5,239.50

pair of adult shoes Kmart quality

$336.82

girls dress Kmart quality

$202.095

block taxes for family of 4 (trash, water, gas, maintenance of building)                       (summer)

$598.80

block taxes as above                                   (winter) 

$1,272.45

carrots/ lb

$9.36

1 orange

$4.49

1 banana

$5.24

vegetable oil (1 liter)

$29.94

butter/ 500 gr

$15.72

rice/ 2 lb bag

$14.22

potatoes/lb

$3.74

milk/ gal

$29.34

cheese/lb

$47.53

hamburger/lb 

$26.95

loaf of bread

$6.74

dozen eggs

$13.47

2 liter Coke

$20.96

sugar/ 2 lb bag

$14.22

tomatoes / lb

$12.01

dozen roses

$89.82

            It truly is a crisis! A bone crushing stress that my Romanian friends live with every day. Please join me in praying for those who are trying to reconstruct this country. Also pray for Christians to really shine during this very difficult time and that God really would in a very practical way provide their daily bread.   Pray too for comfort and strength for the majority of Romanians that are staggering under the immense economic stresses.  But we don't want it to stop there...we pray for God to break this destructive yoke of poverty off of His people in Romania.