Stimulus, Jobs, Federal Governments, Change

The stimulus bills all over the world, not just in the Americas, all are done to put tax money, literally, to work. Now, the question is, does it work?

With the cities and states and provinces all dealing with dramatic falls in tax income, the bridges, roads, hospitals, and other public buildings are also falling way behind in repair. One bridge here had a wooden under structure, and when someone used a fire to keep warm (at least that is the assumption here) the bridge caught fire and put hundreds of thousands of commuters out of a means to get to work.

There are literally hundreds of other bridges all over the world that need to be either replaced or repaired, so governments are putting money into these projects to make jobs and to get the building done.

There are other things that have been left to basically fall down until someone got hurt. Minnesota had one situation where the bridge collapsed too.

This is where governments are all focusing their stimulus. But, there has to be an integrity, a sense of “doing the job well” and certainly the people need to understand that shoddy workmanship is no longer acceptable.

Counting on any government to get the entire society out of this mess is foolish, at best. So … what to do?

If  I make kitchen cabinets, for example, then I need to step up my craftsmanship to make the best cabinets I know how, to push myself to making cabinets that will last 20 or 30 years. A lot of places did build shoddy products, thinking that there would always be enough money in customer pockets to buy more shoddy but pretty cabinets. Today, that has come home to roost with those who built crappy stuff, because the customers just flat don’t have the money to keep buying crap.

If I am a cook, then make damn good food, not just chemical soup, literally. Take the time to use food that is nutritious, tasty, and definitely far better quality.

I have worked in several industries, and the most valuable lesson I ever got was “go for the quality, do the absolute best you can” and you will learn to do it better and quicker. Too long have companies made things with built-in obsolescence and basically crappy products.

We don’t have the money or time to waste on these products any more. Would you rather buy furniture that you KNOW you can use for quite a while, that is made to be comfortable, and has covering that is easy to take care of, or junk that you buy every 3 to 5 years?

I have seen housing built that, within 3 years, needs to be repaired because the housing leaks badly. To me, that smells of a racket. I will not buy a house that is poorly constructed. Watching “Holmes on Homes” put that idea in my head when I saw the crappy workmanship and just flat out scamming that some “contractors” pulled. To hell with them!

Again, quality counts!

I worked in a furniture manufacturing facility where the boss insisted on speed over quality. Guess what? He is out of business, because the people working there were not interested in doing their jobs well, producing quality, and the furniture was rejected by the buyers!

If you are spending any money for goods that you need,  look for quality first. Yes, it probably means you spend a bit more for it, but when you look at how often you have to replace crappy stuff, then you actually do save money over time! Wal-Mart is NOT the place to buy durable goods, like furniture, appliances, clothing and especially goods you know MUST work when you need them.

The same principle goes when you are working, produce quality products. Even if your product is a haircut, waiting on tables, digging ditches, do it with quality and integrity.

Companies that ask us to make crap need a lesson too. To hell with companies that make poor quality products, so tell them with your wallet. Put the businesses that treat their employees like crap out of business, because there is a serious lack of integrity within the management there.

There have to be a lot of people out there that want to be their own bosses, want to do something they are good at, and want to make a real difference in their community. I am talking about those who are very good at dealing with people, dealing with machines or other goods like food.

Now may very well be the time for people who needed the time, to learn business procedures and to start making quality count. Go to the library, study on cash flow, tax law, business management and take that risk on you! Please, create businesses that are based on quality, integrity and best of all, create something worth buying!

If there is someone out there wanting to build housing, find out what it takes to make a home that is totally energy efficient! Learn about the innovations in hot water, solar heating and energy, windmills that produce power that can be used in residential housing, and about making houses that are high insulation value.  Build the houses with good quality and don’t buy crappy building products! People will put money into things they know are worth buying.

The most effective choices we can ever make is to do what we honestly enjoy doing, that just never does seem like work at all. Writers who get lost for hours writing, are working, but it is so much fun they never even notice the work in it! Woodworkers who spend hours in the shop, sanding, inspecting, sanding more and putting hours into polishing and finishing make furniture that draws awe from all of us, if we are lucky enough to see it. People who make simple clothing that fits, wears and washes like a dream are those who make the clothing because they enjoy the creation, the design, the feel of the fabric and love to see the clothing finished well.

No matter what you do in life, do it with quality. Push beyond mediocre and go for the best you can. We will spend our money, if you do that.

Producing goods with built-in obsolescence or that needs immediate repair is wasting more than just money, it shows us all contempt for the work we have to do to buy it, and ultimately shows just how little you value your own work.

President Obama may be one of the few international leaders that is showing the world that quality, integrity, and going that extra bit is worth doing. There are others out there, watch how they do what they do, then use those lessons to do your own best work.

I think it is high time those who were elected, all over the world, value our work, value our integrity, and above all, act with integrity, honesty, and value the position we elected them to. No more shoddy behaviour, no more “putting in the time for pension benefits” and certainly no more self-serving actions. Respect the neighbours and your international neighbours and the current mess will be one hell of a lot easier to live through. Do the opposite, create war and conflict and we all face a far more miserable future.

We need innovative thinking now, we need to have people who listen, who are willing to mentor those who have become lost, and we need people who make good decisions with honesty, integrity and above all, awareness that this planet is small, and choices ripple out to either raise the quality of life or swamp people and create disasters. Empathy is one of the most valuable assets we all have.

Obama, Slam Those Salaries, Now!

I knew at least two months ago that the CEO’s and other fat cat exec’s would find a way to circumvent the ceiling on their bonuses, their income, and get the money.  Quelle Surprise!

They made over 100 of the upper echelon in one company “partners” to get around this,in others,  they just thumbed their noses at the taxpayer, the government and took the money anyway.

I have yet to see anything to get those damned Credit Default Swaps under control, and with the serious lack of legal recourse, the fat cats are eating out on the taxpayers of the entire world. Remember, most of the banks do have international branches or connections.

President Obama, put those ceilings into law, harsh penalties if they violate, and make damn sure they do give you full disclosure on every damn cent of taxpayer monies they are spending. No excuses, no hiding, nadda.

If necessary, put a full investigation using every federal agency, including the IRS, the FBI, and the Wall Street agencies. Stop this abuse of trust now.

As for our own government here, there is an equally apalling lack of investigation, oversight, accounting, so I can gather the same is happening in Japan, Korea, the U.K., Belgium, Germany, and virtually every country tied to this disastrous mess.

Here is where diplomacy comes in, there MUST be an international cooperation, an international accounting, and definitely an international effort to kick these guys where, obviously, they need it, in the wallet.

Damn this is a mess!

New Year Gloom, A Better Tomorrow

We all wish each other “Happy New Year” and sometimes we actually mean it. Like most years in history, there is happiness, but often the new year brings in sadness, loss, and malaise. We all strive for a better tomorrow, that is as natural as breathing. How “better” is defined becomes the yardstick that is personal.

Better tomorrows are far more simplified in places where the essentials for life are scarce. Water, food, even shelter, may be the goals. Some have lived without these for a long time, and often those people are just looking for a better tomorrow in the very simplest terms.

Better tomorrows may be measured in having 3 houses instead of 2 for some, while others just believe in having at least some shelter that is affordable.

When we compare ourselves with others, we will always find someone who is better at what we do, smarter than us, or who have more than we do. It becomes a fruitless passion to compare ourselves against others. There are people who have lived through hell, and when we compare ourselves against them, we feel fortunate, but we still are engaged in a fruitless path.

There are often those who would point fingers, blame others for whatever has happened or will happen, and often our laws are invoked because of the resentment and anger.

Why am I even going through this discussion? Simple. Each of us has the ability to be excellent, even if it is as a barber, a farmer, a machinist, a mother or friend. When we use our energy, our own drive to be the best WE can be,  blame disappears, resentment often lessens or even goes away, and certainly we find far less time to blame.

Sure, work depends on someone hiring us, trusting us to do the work as well as we can, and we are, in a sense, dependent on them for our income. Losing a job can mean we feel betrayed, hopeless, powerless, and start on the path to comparing what we are, what we have, with thousands of “them”. What we forget, or just do not know, is that most companies that have to let us go, either by layoff or firing, don’t want to do that. They are feeling much the same things we are, especially when the company is depending on suppliers or buyers who have disappeared. Yes, the industrial and commercial world is built on cooperation, not competition, just as our lives are.

Companies depend on us, they cannot live without people working for them, people buying their product, and the social recognition of their existence. Companies NEED us. This is where some of the international flaws have widened into chasms and the financial earthquake that hit in the last few months is as natural as weather. Companies that believe that dollars are the base for existence are based on fallacy. Stockholders are NOT the lifeblood of corporate health, nor are those CEO’s who “manage”, but the ordinary people who work, often out of the light of recognition, YOU and ME.

WE are the ones that companies MUST learn they NEED. The Great Depression was NOT caused by the collapse of Wall Street, or the markets, it was caused by mechanization. Instead of having people making the cars, the goods people bought, machines began to do that work. When people were put out of work, the market for the goods faded, often dying because no-one had the income to buy. There is a parallel in our modern society. We have mechanized jobs with computers. Instead of having people write out the purchase orders, package the goods, computers have moved into doing those jobs. Basically, if taken to the extreme, companies could work with a tech support team and one or two people making decisions.

Personally I am NOT surprised that economies have gone down, mostly because I have watched the computerization of work to an extreme, without any compensating change for people needing to work.

The world economies have faded and probably will continue to fade, unless WE find our way to our own solid ground. This may mean we look at our own excellent abilities which each of us DO have, and trust ourselves to find the way to make a better tomorrow.

Oddly enough, the fade, the change in thinking, may be the best thing that could happen. It forces us to focus on what WE are, what we are part of. Nature SUPPORTS us, not the other way around. Farmers know this quite well. Those who work with nature know it. Our lives depend on nature, not cars, not plastic cups to drink from, not computers.  Water, air, soil, and the interdependence of all animals, including us, is nature.  This is the focus that Barack Obama has found, and for once, I am pleased.

So, each of us can make some impact here. Grow a head of lettuce, a hill of potatoes, or plant as many tree seeds as we can. Protect the endangered animals, the environment, and we all will have a better tomorrow, because WE DEPEND ON NATURE.

We live in cooperation with each other, our neighbours, our friends, our families, our communities, and most importantly, our world. Wars may reduce populations, but they also violate life, and history proves beyond any doubt, that violence using weapons will return to those who attack.

May our new year be one of reflection, spirituality, peace, and most importantly, a year of our own possibilities. Trust in our own inner drive, our own inner desire to have that better tomorrow, with the understanding that what we do can and does ripple out to affect far more than we know, may well be the lesson for this new year. Hope, acted upon, may just make our tomorrow better.

Vancouver Woman Burns To Death, She Was One of Thousands of Homeless

I am so saddened by the needless death of a human being when it was totally preventable. The woman was outside, the temperature was at least -10 C. or about 15 F with a wind blowing. She just wanted to find some way to keep warm under her meager belongings, and asked for a candle. Instead of finding an alternative to an open flame,  people told her “No, you cannot have a candle, and I will not give you any matches either.”

Somehow, that woman did find or get a candle, then borrowed a lighter, lit the candle and tried to sleep.  She was huddled under her grocery cart, with cardboard and other covering over that, and yes, the candle caught the material on fire, the woman burned to death.

One time when someone may have used some brains, maybe just gone out of their way to find her some way of getting some flameless heat, and that woman would be here today. But, no, people won’t go that extra step, even the people who worked for the local police. Yes, the police did TELL her to get to a shelter, but unless you know someone who has experienced the local homeless shelters or seen photographs of people sleeping on wooden benches and matresses that even gymnasts would avoid, as well as hearing about the theft and mentally ill people crying out all night because they have not had medication, you too would tell the homeless to get to one of these hellish places.

Some of the local agencies try their hardest to give some semblance of decency and respect to the shelters, some of the places are clean and afford a mimal amount of privacy, but the carts are the lifeline, the possessions, the entire storage for any food, socks, and other goods these people have, and the shelters refuse to allow the carts inside the buildings, and there is no means to securely store the carts anywhere.

Burning to death is a very harsh sentence for anyone, but when it comes from the very basic need for warmth on a very cold, humid night, it becomes tragic. Someone saw this, went in to call the local emergency and they were basically given a cold shrug, the same cold shrug that most of those living on the streets where millionaires walk during the day. Yes, the woman burned to death on a corner where the condos sell for over half a million dollars, there are boutiques and designer shops nearby.

This will just be a passing note, not even worthy of concern to our governmental agencies here, mostly because they figure the poor, those who are so impoverished that they become sub-human, non-existent in any monetary or political power, that this type of death can and will be dismissed.

The 2010 Winter Olympics are getting billions, the city is putting millions into window dressing, the province is pumping out ads that call this place, “The best place on earth”. There are millionaires here that will  lobby the government to reduce the purchase taxes on high cost property, yet every person who has volunteered for charity knows very well, they give much less than the poorest. Why? Because they all just do not give a damn, and the impoverished do not have monetary or political power, and certainly don’t have lobbyists working for them.

I guess the ugly truth is that the government will ignore this death, maybe count the money they might save now, and just carry on.  That is why British Columbia is nicknamed “Bring Cash”, because if you don’t have it, you will not survive here.

If anyone does give a thought to those who live on the streets, in Vancouver the agency that helps out these citizens is:

• Blankets
• Bus tickets
• Winter coats
• Long-sleeved shirts and thermal underwear
• Wool socks
• Sleeping bags
• Tarps (preferably small)
• Hygiene items (combs, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, nail clippers, etc)
• Boots

Donations can be made to Gather and Give, a non-profit charity. It is open Tuesday-Saturday, and is located at 105-418 East Kent Avenue South — just east of Main and south of Southwest Marine Drive. Or visit their website: www.gatherandgive.org.

Modern Slavery in Canada Still Exists

With all the economic news I did some research into the existing poverty levels in Canada, and found a very disturbing series of facts.

Did you know that if you are on welfare (assistance in some provinces) and you get some temporary work, you do not keep a dime of the money, and to add insult, any costs regarding transportation is up to you?

So, for example, a person works for 2 weeks part-time and gets a cheque for $350, that money is taken off the next cheque, all of it. Basically you end up working for nothing at all. Some incentive that is! If you finally find a place to live, and there is a deposit required, that money is demanded back from your welfare cheque too!

If you used the bus to get there, which costs $5 per day, you end up in the hole for $50! Yeah, good incentive to get a job, NOT!

If you are a single parent, you must also cover part of the costs of daycare, so that comes out of your income too. Going further into a financial hole to get some kind of work experience.

If you do have kids or even one child, any support money the other parent pays goes to the government, not the child, which means the children are paying for being poor again! If the child needs to join in any school activities or trips with the rest of the daycare children, they are out of luck because the government will take any funds away again.

The various provinces all will take any tax refunds, child or alimony support payments, and wages from those living in poverty, making the people who do work basically slaves! This is in one of the very richest countries in the world. Sad, ugly, and yes, disturbing. What is even more astounding is that birthday gifts of money or goods is also repayable, so if a parent gets some money to buy anything for the children, that money is required to be reported, then is deducted from the next month income.  What happens here is that the children are penalized twice, once from living on basically less than families got 10 years ago and having any support from a parent never seen, gone, with no benefit to the children at all.

In the US there are several states that force welfare recipients to work, but they get little or none of the money they earn. Food stamps amount to around $3 per day to feed an adult. What on earth do people expect the poor to eat on that? So, there are basically some American people working as slaves for their governments too!

There are provinces in Canada that have the most millionaires, yet those are the ones that have HUGE numbers of people living in poverty, and those same provinces are the ones with the HIGHEST number of children living in poverty. Keeping people in what amounts to socialized slavery is probably the best hidden secret in North America.

Bashing the poor, especially children who do have responsible parents who support the children as best as possible, is making a very harsh example for those children. After all, the message is that Mom or Dad going to work is going to put less food on the table, make things much harder, and the value of the work is nothing, worthless, because there is NOT ONE DIME more for anything.

This is deliberate, make no mistake. Some states and provinces scream out “welfare fraud!” when the statistics on any fraud is less than 2% of all people getting support, yet those same statistics are used to make these very harsh policies. Talk about damning all because of a very very few!

There are seniors living in cars, families living in tents or car wrecks, all looking to find somethings just decent, yet the states or provinces make it virtually impossible to get one single dime ahead. Some provinces insist that people who have nothing  go looking for work for a minimum of 6 weeks and show they did go around looking for work before they are even allowed to apply for support! Question here. How on earth do you go out looking for work when you don’t have a dime, have no address, have no phone number that prospective employers could call, and have no clothes to go out for an interview?

Actually, in some provinces, that 6 week rule applies to anyone looking for any support. Which means that single moms who are trying to leave an abusive situation must leave their children somewhere to go out to look, which basically can force them to leave those children with the abusive person. Lovely, friggin’ lovely.

As long as the work people do is deemed worthless, and the support for children is seized by governments, and any chance of getting ahead are thwarted, there will be more problems for all of us.

Look at this from a child’s point of view. They need new shoes, sorry, no. They are invited to go out with the daycare, sorry, no. They want to have a Christmas gift for Mom, sorry, no. The child need a new coat and boots, sorry, no. Any possibility of going to the local zoo, swimming pool, movies, or any other outing is gone. Their lives become so narrowed, so lacking in any enjoyment, it become pretty bleak.

This research made me wonder, about those who make these policies, about our society which demeans and belittles these people, and about our own idea of society at all.

The provinces with the worst support are, ironically, those with the most millionaires in them, Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. The rates for welfare in those provinces have actually gone down in the last ten years, making the support cheques worth less than those issued 10 years ago.

The golden rule says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or  “Do NOT do to others what you DON’T want done to you”

Guess some people forgot, or maybe we all JUST DO NOT GIVE A DAMN!

Power Savings Over the Holidays and Beyond

There are new lights out there that are huge savings in electricity use, and especially when people are trying to save money and still enjoy the season, these lights are a good way to do both.

The technology is called light emitting diode (LED for short), and until four or five years ago, just about the only place you’d see them was on VCR screens, microwaves and the occasional ancient calculator from the 1970s.

The first high-profile breakout from traditional LED applications appeared in Christmas lights in 2002. Nowadays an entire string of colourful LED holiday lights uses less energy than did a single old incandescent holiday bulb.

The working life of LED lights is measured in tens of thousands of hours, not just thousands. So, how long before LED bulbs become available for serious, interior lighting applications in lamps and overhead fixtures?

LED bulbs are particularly efficient and long-lasting because they produce light in an entirely different way from other kinds of bulbs. Instead of using electricity to heat up a metal filament or excite a conductive gas, LEDs produce light by channelling electric current through a semiconductor. In the most efficient examples, this approach converts almost 100 per cent of the electricity into light, with virtually no waste heat produced.

It’s now possible to buy LED equivalents for retrofitting various types of household and specialty light fixtures that were originally designed for incandescent bulbs. You won’t see many of these on hardware store shelves yet, but leading Canadian specialty suppliers are beginning to offer a growing line of LED bulbs. The only problem is cost, though that’s changing.

The price of an MR16 LED to replace traditional halogen designs runs from $35 to $60 for a single bulb. That’s about five to eight times more money than a regular halogen bulb, but the LED lasts 20 to 25 times longer while using 90 per cent less energy.

That’s why LEDs make especially good sense in applications where lights stay on a lot, where the heat buildup of traditional bulbs is a problem, or where it’s difficult to change bulbs after they burn out. These include commercial and high-rise residential applications, where lights are burning 24/7 — here I am thinking of hallways, stairwells and elevators.

They’re also useful for exterior residential applications, especially when changing a bulb involves climbing up a ladder. LEDs last for years and function well where it’s cold. They don’t emit UV rays, either, so they won’t cause fading of fabrics and surfaces.

I have bought some of these lights as emergency light sources at the local dollar store, and I found they are excellent to use when the power goes out. The small, round disks are lit by 3 LED bulbs, each connected to a AAA battery.

The market for these is growing, so if you have a bit of extra money to spend on lighting, there are some fixtures and lights available for everything from solar path lights to flood lights.

Considering these will last up to 20 years (yes I did say years) and use a great deal less electricity, they will likely pay for themselves at least twice over.

If you can find a good instruction book at your local library, you can also build home-made solar panels, and then you may well end up either breaking even or making money off the local power company if you can make enough of the panels and use LED and those wonderful new induction cooking tops.

This is the End of an Era

The Government is NOT doing what is necessary, there is a better way.

Well, after watching a huge number of news broadcasts, reading until I feel like putting every written word into a huge pixel black hole, I have come to see that the way things have been working for the last 25-30 years is over, done like our Thanksgiving turkey this weekend.

People have had the expectation that they could borrow up to 6% over their income and still keep going. That is bizarre to me. Spending 106% of your income and expecting to keep things going is expecting yourself to become more than you can ever be!

Housing prices have risen so fast that the costs have ballooned way over the true price, the real value, of those same houses. Speculators, agents who took fees to sell off the bundled mortgages managed to make the whole market balloon to the point where things went BANG!

Make no mistake, just like Milken, et al , the agents had no compunction about taking the fees, and putting ordinary mortgages into a highly risky place, leaving those who were the original lenders and the house purchasers in a position where it became impossible. There became a distance between the lender, the mortgage and the purchaser. The agents did not care, do not care, and will not care who the purchaser is or was, and furthermore the agents have their money and can walk away without even blinking.

The Paulson idea of taking out the toxic sludge is never going to work. Why? Because it is impossible to put a value on paper that is basically completely impossible to unwind again.

The markets should go down again this week. Why? Because the toxic sludge from the collapse of Lehman Brothers is going to be due. Those who were tied into that sludge are going to have to take some huge losses again.

There has to be a complete understanding from main street here. No longer can we use credit to solve problems, no longer can anyone expect to have a charge card without realizing they are literally borrowing money at exhorbitant interest without that interest being a huge balloon that also goes BANG! The worst thing that older people can do right now, in my opinion, is to take out a reverse mortgage. Why? Because they may end up with a home that is never going to be worth what they are borrowing against, and end up being forced to repay instead.

Whether this all ends up being a very long, very harsh road, or a bumpy ride that is shorter depends on how banks deal with the mortgages that are not in default, yet, and the people who have taken those mortgages out rewriting the mortgages to reflect the true price of the houses in THIS current market.It also truly depends on how the various administrations in the US, Europe, Britain, Hong Kong, Australia and others deal with this. They can either make it a hell of a lot worse or shorten the drop. My gut feeling is that, unfortunately, the advice that most of the governments, administrations and other are getting is wrong, totally wrong.

Unfortunately I have been watching this all happen and, some years ago, realized the way things were going would end up dropping like a huge boulder on house at the bottom of the hill. In other words, although this seems surreal, I am not all that surprised. The idea that capitalism is self-regulating is just flat silly. Greed cannot be regulated, only controlled, using laws and regulations. Yes, there are flaws to what humans do, but at least we all SHOULD be learning WHAT NOT TO DO!

This could get very, very ugly.

Too Simple Solution to Mortgage Credit Freeze?

Someone is usually correct when they say to keep things simple, tackle a large problem in smaller pieces.

So, here is one idea, maybe a solution for those banks with homes about to foreclose. Talk to the Fed, or some agency with some money to allow, then take that money and put it equally against the principle on the mortgages. Why? It cuts the amount of debt and thereby cuts the payments, even reduces the overall interest payable.

Small steps, but if Paulson could manage to get into the books at Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, then apply federal funding to mortgages that way instead of risking banks reintroducing those toxic debt items back, the overall economy would likely benefit better.

The way I see this is simple too. Any naturally growing thing needs to have the roots, the inner basics strengthened before any plant or animal can produce healthy growth. Like making the roots of a tree strong will keep the entire tree in better shape.

Actually the same principle can be applied to most things. Take care of the solid ground, feed the basic inner system and the rest will weather storms.

Example: Bank of Snow has 30 mortgages on it’s books, with at least 20 heading toward or in default. Fed or state funds are provided to the bank to be divided amongst the entire set. ($300,000) Bank of Snow writes down each mortgage by $10,000 meaning each mortgage is now in a much healthier position.

Example 2: Family of 6 has two adults, 4 children. Going out less, perhaps working part-time for babysitting or other services, the family is able to collect $2000. Then the two adults approach their bank and seek a penalty free payment on the principle. (Principle is the actually purchase price)

Not huge ideas, but with the way things are going, maybe one of the simplest ways to get more people staying in homes, cutting down debts and providing the banks with some room to move again.

There are a lot here that are using skills they have brushed off to make money on the side. Making furniture, sewing and mending clothes, working on cars, painting, babysitting, even gathering pop bottles (they are refundable here for recycling) and working in gardens, using their cars for neighbours to run errands.

Strangely enough, tough times are often when people become the most creative in finding solutions, and when things get tough, breaking down tasks to simple, relatively easy bits, often gets the job done.

Stock Markets falling, Recession is here

Random notes here, but they may tie in later.

People are all looking at the stock markets and the falling prices. Some are trying to figure it out, some are just scratching their heads in wonder. I had a though today that makes sense to me, although I may be the only one. Perhaps people are looking at the stock markets and saying, ” You want your cake and eat it too” by demanding government bailout money and investors too. So people with investments, like retirement funds, are taking that money and putting it into bonds. They are basically saying, “You may be getting my money from the tax rolls, but I am taking as much as I can back. You will not get a double benefit from me.” I may well be off here, but it makes as much sense as any of the explanations I have heard elsewhere.

Keeping your head above water in these situations means some creative solutions. One that struck me today was using your home to make money. It means you don’t have your total privacy, but it may just save your home from being foreclosed on. What am I talking about? Renting either a room or part of your home. It may mean you allow someone to share your home, but with the increase in income, you may benefit not only yourself but someone else.  If you do decide to do that, make sure you are asking for a reasonable rent, not because you want to be seen as a sucker, but because you need to try to ensure a long-term renter. Make it decent, not a rat hole, and make sure you do get references. If you would live in it yourself, and consider the rental space a decent deal, then you will likely fare better than someone who wants the money but not the tenants. Those days are soon to be over anyway.

Your car. Do you need it for work or can you get to work by transit? If you can cut down on your car expenses, or even sell it, then you will save a lot of money over time. Most people living in the urban centers usually can manage to get to work with transit, and yes, I know it takes longer, but when you are getting down to the necessities, then maybe this is the time to change your habits.

Second hand stores. These may be the boom area in the next few years. Yes, it means you shop for things that are not brand-new, but it also means you are not spending money on new things. That money can go into savings. In the short or median term, money in the form of cash is going to be king. Saving on things like cell phone calls, even high priced cable, internet, may well be the difference between eating and living within your means and finding yourself in deeper water.

Borrowing. Unless it is an absolute necessity, don’t. If your family is one of the millions that have lived decent, honest lives, maybe consider pooling money into a larger savings. Not to borrow, but to have funds growing for crisis that may happen, and if you manage your lives well, then you can have a pool of money. The reason for doing this? Bonds can pay interest, and if your pool puts enough money into bonds, you can all get some interest back. Building a pool like this means you all need to keep track of the money in it, who put it there, and be able to return the money at a later date.

Renting or moving down in property size and level. This is one time when you really need to take a hard look at the markets around you. If rents are higher than what you are paying on your mortgage, there is really no reason to move out, but if you can find a cheaper house that can be something you know you can live in, then perhaps look into that. Remember you do have to find a buyer for the one you have now, though.

Community Kitchens. These can be a very efficient use of energy (cooking a large amount of food on a stove or in an oven) than cooking small meals at home. The kitchens also can be a place where several families or people can combine ingredients to make meals that each person would not have the ingredients for, ie: stew. One person may have potatoes, another may have carrots, another may have access to cheap meat, etc. Combining them will provide families or the senior citizens with meals they cannot afford to cook themselves by sharing the costs.

Plan on gardening. If you have access to a 10 foot by 20 foot piece of land, you can grow a fairly large amount of food. Potatoes, peas, carrots, and a few others that are easy to grow will all fit in that space. If you don’t have a continuous area, using raised planter boxes is just as effective. Peas can grow up above the other plants if you put up netting for them to follow.

Internet. Most people now need to have access to it. Libraries have them in most areas, but if there is a place either in your home or in your community center to set up several computers with an access, then you can get together within your community and operate this center. What that will do is save most people the cost of the internet connection and still allow access. It may mean a small monthly charge to cover the use of the connection, but certainly not as costly as individual connections.

Computers. There are free operating systems available. These can be used by people who have had problems with their computers on paid operating systems. What you can do is take one computer, clean out the hard drive, then install the free systems. Ubuntu, a version of linux, is free to anyone, anywhere. In fact, if you contact them, you can get up to 20 free disks. They have no problem with you copying the disks, sharing them, using them, and even giving the disks to others. Linux has drivers for accessories, word processing which does “talk” to other operating systems, as well as a huge variety of other options. It may mean you need to download them, but as of right now, linux has no viruses, trojans or other malware problems. Europe is turning to Ubuntu and linux for commercial purposes too. When a demand for an application, accessory, or user need appears, then a world-wide network begins immediately on developing the solution.

Recycling. It is amazing what people have done with items out there, from using pop bottles for automatic watering (fill the bottle, turn it upside down and bury the neck into the soil) to making houses out of old car tires. Imagination is the only restraint here, but remember to keep things like mercury, lead, and other toxins out of your life. Recycle old batteries, flourescent light tubes, because they do have toxic chemicals in them.

Cleaning. Vinegar is cheaper than most of the store cleaners and also is an effective anti-bacterial agent. Dissolve vinegar in water, use it to clean glass. Add in some soap (dish or even hand) and make yourself a decent floor cleaner.

It is time to look at what we all CAN do, rather than see all the limitations.

Capitalism, Society, and the gap between them

Capitalism, by it’s very definition, by it’s very practice, guarantees a growing gap between those who have a lot of money and those who don’t. It benefits those who get wealthy by increasing their wealth, mostly from those who work for a living, pay taxes, have families and a social awareness. That is what capitalism is, pure money, getting more, and getting someone to give you their money. It is not a system with a built-in ethics in it’s truest form. It is a system built to drain money from society to make business larger, more profitable, and pay investors who expect more money.

Society is based on cooperation, not competition. If we had a society based on competition, none of us would have neighbours, friends or any real connection outside our sphere of competition. Society is built upon the idea of community, of knowing that the weakest need help occasionally, of knowing our ancestry, of having family that extends beyond parents and grandparents. Without society the human race would long since have become extinct, period.

We have all seen people go beyond their own comforts, their own family boundaries when troubles hit, like housefires, tornadoes, and even larger events. We have all seen people who have never met before working side by side to help out others too. Strangers working together in a real sense of urgency, a real sense of humanity.

Here are the two sides of the conflict within westernized countries. Capitalism is the “me first” and profit above all else behaviour. It puts the power of money into the hands of those with the most money, and the sense of helplessness in the hands of those who are broke.

Power, I have been taught, is THE ABILITY TO ACT EFFECTIVELY IN THE PRESENT. That is power. Not money, not flashy cars, or mansions, or bank accounts, not even the title on a plate in an office tower. My view is that all people do have power, if it means the ability to act effectively. Maybe those actions are things like writing letters to Bernanke to let the whole administration they are being very very carefully watched, that every action they take had damn well be in the interest of the taxpayers.

Maybe the power of action is to talk to strangers who have moved into your apartment building, to learn about them, to find their strength, to find out what knowledge they have you just might need. Maybe power is growing a plant or two indoors, to have some herbs, perhaps tomatoes, over the winter.

A friend of mine in Britain just got a huge shock over her power bill. She had wisely, she thought, made a steady series of payments to the electric supplier over the last year and last month saw the balance was in the credit side. She got this month’s bill and suddenly she and her husband were owing money. Yes, they were told the rates were rising, but when I did the calculations, the increase in no way was as high as her bill showed. Her power here? Several actions. Watch her meter every day, write down the numbers, and keep track of them over a month. Change the light bulbs to lower wattage. Turn off the computer when they are done. Check the wiring as much as possible for electrical leakage from wires being grounded. Clean the fridge on the outside, keeping the dust away from the outside.  Down the road, put aside a couple of pounds (money) to buy perhaps a wind generation system, solar panels, or some other way to generate electricity.

Yes, it means you have to learn, to change how you do things, and your expectations too. Perhaps that last one is the hardest. People have had the expectation that the world would keep their paycheques rolling along if they worked hard enough. Expectations that credit would always be available, that having a savings account, or even money set aside, was something for just a “rainy day”. Looks like, for some, the deluge is here.

What power do I have? The power to say “no” to those who are still hawking credit cards, reverse mortgaging, “buy now, pay later” schemes.  All of them get a swift and decisive NO! What else? Well, instead of going out to dinner as often as I used to, I am determined to learn to cook those meals I found so delicious, and eat in. I love to garden, but don’t have land right now to do it. So, I have a few plants in pots that I can grow and eat those. They are herbs, but I use them quite a bit, so I no longer have to buy them from the store now. Not earth shattering changes, but with the savings combined, I know I will be in better shape.

I bought shoes that were severely discounted, mostly because they were no longer the “style”. I WALK  on them, so why would it matter if they are from last year? Instead of paying over $120 for them, I paid $20. The rest is mine now, and going to be kept for a far better use than trying to keep my feet, of all things, in style.

This is where there will be an advantage to saving over time. The deals will really start showing up soon, and if we buy only what we NEED, instead of what is in style, then later, what we NEED will likely be there for us, and we WILL have the money.

Power, it is inherent in all of us. How we use it, whether we choose to act effectively or helplessly, is our choice. Yes, it is hard to keep your focus sometimes, but I have the power and so do you.