Another Fake Response from the Bush League

Remember when George stood outside a blue-lit government building in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and pledged to rebuild New Orleans and address the problem of race relations in America?
Remember when Dick Cheney assured the country that the war in Iraq would last no longer than a couple of weeks, tops?
Now we have the grand announcement [...]

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Dizzy Yet?

Fans of Wall Street drama should be forgiven for reaching for the dramamine this week. A rally over an unexpected increase in sales of existing homes slowly gave way to more nervousness over the rest of the bad news, and honestly, there was lots of other bad news, and it just keeps on coming. Home [...]

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The Fed Again… Time to Freak Out?

I’ve been kind of neglecting this blog lately. It’s not that I don’t have plenty of doom and gloom to spread about financial conditions and the end of life as we know it on Planet America. It’s just that ever since I finally made the leap and decided to devote most of my day to [...]

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Why America Needs a Vision for the Future

I’ve been thinking lately about all the doom and gloom in the country right now, and the Democratic primaries, and how hungry people are right now for change. The main political focus is on some horrendous problems that are causing significant and continuing hurt for most working people: the subprime mortgage mess, the tight credit [...]

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One Small Step for Pam, One Giant Step for, Um, Pam

Today is the first day of cutting back to part-time at the call center. I’ll be working 9-1, M-F for the bank, and also one day every other weekend there. The rest of the time I’ll be trolling the net looking for writing projects. Right now I’m finishing up two projects writing articles about hypnosis [...]

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Exxon and Other Oil-Related Musings

The punitive fine being proposed for the Exxon Valdez oil spill is about three days worth of profit for them, or $3.5 billion. Even so, they are protesting that they have suffered enough already over this accident, and should not be held to account indefinitely. Yet, without hefty punitive fines for this kind of ecological [...]

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Job Opening: Human Punching Bag

This week is my last full-time week at the call center. Starting next week, I go to four hours a day. If I’m very lucky, sometime in the coming year I’ll be out of there altogether. My spouse and I were discussing customer non-service this weekend, and we decided that, along with almost every other [...]

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Oil hits $100 a Barrel

Everyone knew it was coming, and now it’s here.  $100 a barrel oil. I clearly recall a financial pundit saying in an interview early last year that there was just no way oil would ever hit $100 a barrel, that he doubted it would even peak as high as $80 before stabilizing. I have given [...]

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Rebuffing Buffet

Warren Buffet’s offer to back municipal bonds insured by MBIA and Ambac has been rebuffed by at least one of these giants, and will likely be rebuffed by the other as well. Bond insurers don’t want selective help, they want a total rescue that includes the crappy sub-prime mortgage backed securities that are running their [...]

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How to Survive Hard Times

I thought for a change of pace I would try to put a positive spin on my fascination with the American Apocalypse by making some constructive suggestions for how to get by while the country falls apart. Here goes:
Cultivate Multiple Sources of Income. 
The cash cow full time job is about to go the way of [...]

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