I Know Nothing!

An article in this morning's Washington Post online talks about the Washington D.C. metro prognosis for 2009 based on the Post's recent Economy Challenge which assembled local business & economic experts to make predictions. The prognostications were wildly divergent in outlook. For example, some believe job growth will grow by 28,500 jobs and another believes they'll lose 46,000 jobs; real estate market will fall 20% to a median priced home of $265,000 or grow 20% to a median priced home of $400,000. There's more but why belabor it?

The more I read from the financial "experts" the more I realize "They know nothing!" as Jim Cramer would say. He knows nothing. How do I know? Every stock I've followed on his strong recommendation is in the toilet. While this is most likely true of most stocks and most people's recommendations, it just goes to show that it's easy to make predictions when things are going well. Not so easy when they are not. Who said that?

Anyway, I am like you. I don't know anything anymore. Not sure if I ever did. The older I get, the more I realize how little I really do know. My Zen-like minister gave a sermon yesterday, "Live in the Present". He stressed the importance of not trying to figure out where we'll be in two months, two years, two days. He advised us to live in the moment of how we feel now. It can be good, it can be bad. It is not permanent. This comes from a man just diagnosed with prostate cancer. He called it his "good news and bad news".

My husband and I have been going through a really tough time these past few years. He's had health issues that were debilitating and disabling. He's now improved enough to get back into the work force and there aren't any jobs, at least, none he's been able to find. We cannot live on my salary alone but we've been lucky with an inheritance from my father and a settlement my husband received from his last job. However, the money is running out and we are now faced with the question of "What do we do now?"

I realize we've been faced with this question over and over in our lives. Sometimes we've known exactly what to do; others, not. I do know that God has always looked out for us and we have survived and always become stronger for it. Comparatively speaking, we have been extremely lucky. I still live in my own home, have enough to eat, have health insurance, have a job. These small things are huge when you look at the rest of the world.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring. I do know I cannot be afraid. One of my favorite movie moments is in the 1951 version of "A Christmas Carol" with Alastair Sim. When he awakens Christmas morning, after the visits of the three ghosts, he is ecstatic to know he's not only still alive but he has time to change his future. He begins to dance around the room in his nightshirt & nightcap singing,

"I don't know anything,
I never did know anything.
But now I know
That I don't know
All on a Christmas morning."

"Men make plans and God laughs." Author unknown attributed to Yiddish proverb

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And I think we are all glad to say "Buh bye 2009". Oi vey, what a year! I had some good things happen...like my new job in tv sales. For the most part, however, it was rrrrrough for the nation (channeling Tina Turner here). I believe the media is concentrating too much on the negative and not enough on the positive. Need to get our hopes up again for better times. Congress can help a great deal if they do a better job overseeing the expenditure of all that cash they're handing out. Cutting corporate salaries, eliminating perks and bonuses would do much to restore faith that the government still represents the "little people" (that's you and me). They seem to be headed in that direction with the auto industry but what about AIG and all the big banks who still aren't lending any money? Hey! Wake up!

The newly elected President takes office this month. Thank God for that and may God help him in all his endeavors to get this country back on track again. That is the very best news of all this New Year's Day.

OPEC Bails Out Big 3 US Automakers !

Makes a great headline, doesn't it? After watching the interview between "60 Minutes'" Leslie Stahl and the Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia last night, all I could think was "If they have the biggest stake in the oil business, why don't they bail out the automakers?"

I'm now writing my congressional representative and both US senators as well as Nancy Pelosi and anyone else whose email I obtain to not stick us with this mess. Approach OPEC. After all, they stand to gain or lose the most in this crisis.

State of the Economy: It Ain't Necessarily So

My last entry discussed the state of the radio broadcast business and my recent escape from the downturn in that industry. The economy may not be as bad as everyone makes out but it seems the media have nothing better to do than harp on it ad nauseum. The presidential campaign occupied the press so deeply and so long, over 18 months, there's a huge void to fill. And filling it, they are, with gloom and doom and little to look forward to. Congress isn't helping. The $750 billion dollar bailout may be just the beginning of more economic woes, most of which will be heaped on the little guys: you and me.

I work with people in business on a daily basis. Northern New England is a cautious region when it comes to spending money. I don't think we are anywhere near as vulnerable as other parts of the country but we are subject to the same network and cable network naysayers who raise their ratings and the rates with negativity. Pointing this out to my clients doesn't hold much water when every Tom, Dick, Cramer and O'Reilly won't shut up about how terrible things are.

If we have to tighten our belts, how bad is that? Perhaps we can all step back and take a break and wait for the tide to turn. I just wish Congress would step in and help the average person...yes, Joe Six Pack, you, me, instead of rewarding these guys who mismanage their companies then come crying to Washington for a handout.

AIG Spa Retreat Meals More Than Twice Median HH Income of Maryland

Can I go just a little bit crazy here? I mean, what the f#!*# Is Congress insane? Do they think we're all idiots??? This AIG "retreat" just happened and now Congress is talking about more bailout money for these slime balls?

I don't know the economic ins and outs of the financial free fall we're in but it doesn't take a genius to know that this entire approach is wrong. In fact, I believe it's the so-called "financial geniuses" who helped get us into this mess. And who is paying the price? The average American taxpayer: you and me.

Where is the accountability? Why are these people allowed to get away with this? What the hell is Congress doing? Just taking lobbyist money to do the banking & insurance industry bidding? It sure seems that way. My perception is these are criminal acts committed against shareholders, the banking and insurance industries and most of all, the American public. Obviously this extends beyond our shores. Foreign banks have halted trading and cut interest rates but are sliding almost as precipitously as the Dow.

We are in deep and nobody knows what to do. I am sure there are reasonable approaches to this that don't include infusions of cash to the misbegotten. How about that idea that went around the Internet after the $700 billion was first bandied about: divide it among the population of America so each family receives a huge amt (I forget how much but enough to pay off a mortgage or credit cards or whatever) with stipulations to pay down debt. It certainly would stimulate the economy.

Nobody wants to use the "d" word except the pundits who want to stir things up. But, I'm wondering if we're not close to complete collapse. They won't say so, but when you see the brokers interviewed on CNBC, you see the desperation in their eyes and the fear this is so.

So now what?

McCain/Palin Ticket Nosedives Along With Economy

Wish I could say I am happy about all the Republicans tanking but...the economy is front and center and nobody is happy. We are, in fact, scared. These are scary times and I am glad my father, who would have been 98 this year, is not alive to see this. Dad lived through the Great Depression. He was not a child. He was working for Florsheim Shoes in downtown Chicago when the market crashed. He actually saw people hit the pavement outside his basement window in an office building. He never forgot the fear, the panic and the aftermath. Nobody who lived through those years forgot the aftermath. My mother-in-law, born in 1927, wore dresses made of flour sacks to school in Pennsylvania. She never forgot the humiliation.
My ability to relate to the Depression is through the stories of my relatives , photographs and books such as The Grapes of Wrath and Dorothea Lange photographs. The candidates studiously avoided characterizing the economic free fall we are in with the word "depression". They didn't even want to use the word "recession" although too late for that.
What I want to know is, who's going to be made accountable for this mess? We all know who is going to pay for it...we are. But where is the accountability? I mean, when you have CEOs appearing before Congress, such as the $186+ million dollar compensated CEO of Lehman Bros, Richard Fuld, wanting to know "where's our bailout?" without so much as an apology, you know we are getting screwed, blued and tattooed...and not in a good way.
Unless we, as tax payers, demand accountability and recompense for this debacle, we are going to watch our country become insolvent, our assets diminish and disappear and mortgage our children and grandchildren's future for some time to come.

I Don't Know What to Think

I watched the debate last night til I could stand it no more. My take, overall, was this: McCain was able to corner and bully Obama by repeatedly going on the attack, talking over his responses to the attacks, and belittling Obama for his "naivete" and lack of understanding (aka "experience"). I was devastated.

Do I buy into what McCain had to say? Hell no! But, do I buy into the American people buying into what McCain had to say? Hell yes! I'm in advertising, remember? It's not what you say, it's how you say it, how often you say it, and how receptive (or dumb) the audience.

Obama certainly came off as the more reasonable of the two. He showed incredible restraint against increasingly vitriolic accusations about his record on all fronts. I would have liked to have seen more passion, less restraint and more offense, less defense.

Keith Olbermann, God love him, thought Obama won. Mr. O & the rest of his MSNBC cohorts, including Pat Buchanan, thought Obama's show of restraint, grace and composure, contrasted sharply with the surly attack dog tactics of MCain. Several of them, including Buchanan (!) went so far as to suggest that McCain's pugnacious stances are exactly what America wants to get away from...more of the same of the past 8 years.

I hope to heaven they are right but, I just don't know.

Not Ready for Prime Time Players or Grandstanding?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26900453/?GT1=43001

Whaddyaknow? McCain is going to show up for the first debate tonight after all. I know it's almost October and we're waiting with baited breath for the Pennant races and World Series but John McCain's grandstanding is not the sort America wants to see. His stunt to "suspend the Presidential campaign" until the financial bailout is achieved was just that...a stunt. I have to wonder if his campaign simply doesn't think he is ready for the event and wanted an out. Of course, McCain's placing himself "above the fray of politics" to step in and act presidential smacks of the worst kind of hucksterism. The entire gambit has backfired and I don't think even the most die-hard Republicans are too pleased right now.

But what a great night on tv for the rest of us!

Where's the Beef?

This is my new mantra now that I've heard the Sarah Palin speech. Shakespeare's line, "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing" made its way through my mind as I watched her.

I do not underestimate her nor the American people. She has just the right look and delivery to gather many followers. But ask yourselves, what is she really saying? What are her policies? What are her plans for the country? How is she going to help the middle class? Just because she came from a small town and terms herself a "Washington outsider" doesn't give her credentials to accomplish anything. She has to have an agenda and lay it out. None of us should vote with our emotions. Everyone needs to take a long hard look at the issues and decide which candidate is best suited to: revitalize the economy; deliver a health care plan affordable to all Americans; bring home our soldiers; provide environmentally friendly solutions to our energy crises,;fix our educational system...it's a disgrace; stop taxing the middle class and start taxing the top 1%; stop giving tax credits to major corporations; provide tax incentives to companies that DO NOT OUTSOURCE.

Let's get real. She and John McCain represent the same old story. There is NOTHING new in anything they say. She tried to use patriotism and love of country as a weapon against the Democratic ticket. That is, if you're a war hero and you believe in the war in Iraq, you're a patriot. If you're against the war, you're not. That is utter nonsense.

Stick to the issues and lay out your plans Sarah Palin. Then maybe we'll all have something concrete to discuss.

Stirrings from the empty nest: The only thing we have to fear ...

Double click this post title to read a blog I really enjoy. Subject matter is pertinent to the work situation in this country today: people trying to figure out how much longer they'll be gainfully employed and what does it mean?