Gift Cards beoming Worthless?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/06/gift.cards.worthless.ap/index.html

With many businesses at the risk of closure or bankruptcy there is not much use for those little plastic cards you got for Christmas. If any business files bankruptcy they no longer accept gift cards as cash and you may be out of luck. However that is not to say that all gift cards will become useless with a company filing bankruptcy, some businesses acquired through chapter 11 bankruptcy still honor gift cards from the previous business owners. Pretty much if you have a gift card you should use it as soon as possible. Never know when it will become worthless.

I think this could be a big problem because as the article says its estimated to be around $75million dollars in gift cards that are at risk of being worthless due to business closures in 2008. Also they expect it to be a record high in closures. What does this say for the economy? We are doing horrible. Something needs to be done, not just on a state-wide level (like Michigan needs) but on a nation-wide level. The unemployment rates aren't going down, in several places they just keep going up and business closures are proof of that.

Wow! That is not good at all! Gift cards are so popular and useful, or I should say they were useful at one point. I mean now I would probably not buy a gift card for anyone. Since nowadays any store or business might close down, because the economy is so bad.
Economy is going down, unemployment is going up, and many prices are going up like gas for example. This is just not right, and definitely someone needs to do something about it, I mean can you imagine what will happen when gas get to 4 dollars a gallon?!