Personal economic indicators

This morning, I watched a video clip by Jim Jubak about creating your own economic indicators. This idea made perfect sense to me. When I was in the restaurant business, I could tell where the economy was headed based on the behavior of my customers.

It is because of that fact that I say that the economy has been in trouble for a long time. We only recently officially declared a recession. But from the ground floor, the recession has been here for a long time.

The economy started to look sluggish before 9/11. I was already cutting loose employees because sales were down. Then 9/11 happened; and in the space of an hour, the economy jumped to what it was going to be two years in the future. And from where I was sitting, it never actually recovered (official numbers say differently; my customers would have disagreed).

I was using this personal economic indicator, as well as the rent and house prices in my neighborhood, to time my own personal entry in the real estate market. I knew that based on those indicators that we were in a housing bubble. My wife and I brought our house when the prices softened.

Personally, I wanted to wait longer until the bubble broke, but I could not afford to. My rent was going to go way up if I stayed in my apartment another year; as it was the rent on two apartments (me and the wife were only engaged at the time and living in separate apartments) and the art studio was the same amount as the mortgage payment we ended up with.

And in hindsight, the timing was right (despite the fact that we currently have an upside down mortgage): little did I realize that the economy was going to go so far south that I was going to lose my job and end up in college to earn a degree while the economy recovered. Fortunately, we brought a house that we could afford if one of us had employment difficulties (though I admit that I thought it was going to be her and not me).

But those of us on the ground floor saw it coming. As Jubak points out the official numbers are boiled and diced (my description, not his) and become misleading and confusing. So I agree with him that we all need to develop our own set of economic indicators for investing and business purposes.

South Park as satire

The other night, I was watching a rerun of South Park. And I was reminded about the fact that South Park on one level is satire.

The espisode was about time travelers coming back in time to our present to look for work. Or so it looked like on the surface; I occasionally write science fiction myself and I am a big fan of it, so I realize that science fiction is almost always about the present.

And this espisode was all about immigration. "They stole yer job," was the big line of the espisode.

I did find it amusing that one of the suggestions to fix the problem was to improve the future so that the time travelers would stay in their own time period. This sounds like my idea that perhaps we should invest and improve the lands of our immigration problem (if it is a real problem), so that the immigrants can find work at home and not have to come here.

The other solution, the one that South Park had fun with was "lets wreck the future, so there is no future." Reminds me a great deal of what actually happened in our economy. I wouldn't go into detail about how they planned on wrecking the future, but many will feel that the CEOs of banks have done exactly that to us.

Ironically, now that our economy is in the tank and circling the rim, the immigrants are starting to go home. Grats CEOs---you have screwed all of us.

Remember to vote

I would like to remind everyone that is registered to remember to vote Tuesday. This election, no matter who you support, due to the issues is a very important one.

Give me 7000 dollars please

Last night, I heard in passing that the little bailout for the banks is going to cost each one of us seven thousand dollars, and that is provided that we pay for it right now. (So actually because we are not paying off it upfront, it is like putting 7000 dollars on a credit card).

Now, I am not sure if the figure is correct. I don't care. But it did get me to thinking:

What could I do with seven thousand dollars?

My quick answer is that seven thousand is about what I am borrowing every college semester for living expenses. It is also about five mortage payments. It is also a lot of cat food, gas, and vending machine meals.

I wish that the government would just give us poor people the money, rather than bailing out the rich. And besides it is not like the money is actually going to keep us out of a recession.

Political jokes

At one time, the American people were given a three-year long vacation from Presidential politics every four years. Once the Presidential election was over, you didn’t have to listen to any more Presidential campaign ads for three whole years. Those were the good old days. Nowadays, Hillary Clinton is already starting up her 2012 Presidential bid, and her first television ad is scheduled to appear the day after the 2008 election.

I am bored with the Presidential campaign. It seems to have been going on as long as John McCain has been alive.

I have timed Obama’a speeches, and he has been saying the word “Change” every 5.1 seconds. If someone else was doing this, it would qualify as a compulsive-obsessive disorder.

If a protestor was not seen or heard by a delegate, or the media, were they still protesting?

Peace and Islam

This was my response to someone who thought that there would be world peace if the entire world converted to Islam.

Even if the entire world converted to Islam, there would still be war and fighting. When the radical Muslims are not bombing and attacking us, they are bombing and attacking other Muslims who they do not believe are Muslim enough. They are like every other religion when they don't have an outside enemy, they fight amoung themselves. The only way there will ever be peace on earth is if it becomes a burnout cinder orbiting the sun.

Oh My Obama!

The 19th August 2008 cover of

CCD Campus Connection

the student newspaper of

the Community College of Denver

Is political correctness a danger?

Are we placing too much faith and hope on Obama?