Hi! If you're new here, welcome - I'm Steve, the author of brip blap! Take a look at my about page and check out a few posts. If you like what you read (and I hope you do!), please sign up for my RSS feed or sign up to get posts by email by clicking here. Send me an email directly - I would love to hear from you. Thanks for visiting!

I didn’t see that one coming. Then again, nobody did.  I’m a little bit shocked - our family’s net worth dropped about 10% in one afternoon, wiping out years of savings - but then again, I think the cure would have been worse than the disease.

In every analysis and op-ed I’ve read, I’ve failed to understand one point:  why should the government assume the risk taken on by private companies?  Yes, it’s all interconnected, and yes, there’s a trickledown to Main Street, etc., but wouldn’t there be a trickledown effect from taking on an additional $700 billion in debt?  The rule of capitalism is that risk is inversely proportionate to reward. Now we are seeing the market adjust itself to where it should truly be, sans government meddling.

I know the most likely scenario is a watered-down bill, similar but less expansive. That’s a good thing.  The pain we’re all feeling (and trust me, anyone with a toe in anything more complicated than a checking account feels this) is the cost of living in a capitalist society.  No socialized medicine, no socialized pensions, and hey - no socialized banking bailouts.  It’s philosophically consistent.

I’m tired of worrying about macroeconomics. I know that I’ve written more articles than usual on that subject, simply because it’s hard to pretend it’s not happening.  It is.  But let’s face it, the same things are true, over and over again, regardless of the Dow’s value, or the latest governmental power grab or the death throes of a theoretically conservative administration.  Here’s how the bailout failure does not affect us; you still need to:

1. Spend less than you earn. If you don’t need it, don’t spend money on it.
2. Find out ways to earn more. Don’t sit on your current income.  Hustle.  Make more.
3. Stay healthy. Getting sick in America is going to be a more and more expensive event.
4. Take care of your environment. Even if you don’t believe in climate change (and if you don’t I’m not sure what I could convince you of, anyway), keep your little corner of the world clean as you can.
5. Be kind. Not much else matters in your interactions with the world.  There is evil in the world, and it must be fought, but let’s face it - in most human interactions, a moment of kindness is worth a month of assaults.
6. Vote. I know presidential elections get all the attention, but let’s face it - yesterday’s events were the results of votes by congressmen, ALL of whom are up for re-election this November.  Make your voice heard.

So tomorrow try not to read the papers, and eat a piece of fruit.  The Vitamin C and fiber will do you good. Keep your chin up.

photo credit: pheezy

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I’m writing this Sunday evening when the bailout package has been finalized but not yet voted on. I’ve been stunned by the speed that this bailout has rushed through Congress, much like the Iraq war rushed through.  I stopped and imagined for a minute what would happen if we had an all-hands massive push combining the executive branch and both parties in both houses of the legislative branch to enact:

• Meaningful healthcare reform
• Decisive actions to achieve energy independence in ten years
• A comprehensive and complete revision of the tax code, eliminating loopholes for lobbyist-inspired deductions and adding good ones, like tax credits for hiring Americans (for example)
• A massive effort to audit and slash wasteful spending across the board for the federal government.

You get the idea. The frustration is enough to make you grind your teeth to the bone, isn’t it?

All of this furious rush to save Wall Street should demonstrate to everyone at least one small bit of absolute truth about life in America today:  the rich and powerful watch out for their own. The rest of us should learn that lesson and watch out for ourselves.  If your Congressman votes for the bailout and you don’t like what you see in the final package, make sure you remember it come Election Day.  Take your business away from companies if you feel they unfairly benefit.  Don’t be passive if you don’t want to be.  Imagine for a minute what would happen if we all stood up to punish this kind of excess just once.  It might not be the disaster they want you to think it will be.

photo credit: Porcelaingirl° {enthusiastic foolish}

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I watched the debate with great interest on Friday. I also dealt with some serious out-of-the-blue back pain starting Thursday evening.  The back pain was unusual since I have never suffered from back pain, so my best guess is that it’s time to start being slightly more careful when swinging Little Buddy around, now that he’s getting bigger (and stronger).  I hope that’s the reason (just a wrenched back) rather than stress contagion from my Wall Street coworkers.

photo credit: paolo màrgari

As a completely non-scientific aside, when walking down Wall Street and the nearby areas a few days ago - a little out of my regular route - I noticed that a lot of the little delis and news shops that make up so much of the street-level life of New York were shuttered. Wall Street still has crowds of tourists and bankers.  The former are more muted than usual, but maybe that’s just the season.  The latter are more muted than normal, but maybe that’s just the collapse of several major financial institutions.  Nonetheless, I think times are going to be tough in New York - not just for the glitterati of Wall Street but for the guys who sold them their Wall Street Journals and Starbucks macchiatos.

Being pressured for time, I’ll fly through my links for the week, from the Money Writers…

• $700 Billion Bailouts - Is My Money Safe?
• Don’t Compound Your Investment Losses by Investing Less in Down Markets and More in Up Markets
• Working From Home – Making Money While Working In A Job That Fits Your Life
• Sell Stock to Pay Down Debt?
• Seven Ways to Ruin Your Financial Future
• Financial Crisis In The Media: Is The Economic Crisis Overhyped?
• The Sunday Evening Blues

And a few others:

• The Quickest Route to a Six-Figure Job
• Fed Bailout Now To Include Foreign Banks; Will Amount To $1.8 Trillion.
• How To Get Independent Health Insurance
• Personal Energy and Frugality

I also participated in the latest Carnival of Family Life.

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As I mentioned yesterday, my second marketplace interview with Jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity and Lynnae of BeingFrugal.net is now available. You can listen to it here. You can also download an MP3 of the show here. If you like the interview, it would be a great help to Digg it (just click that link) or use some other social media to promote it. I think it’s a good interview - I hope you agree!

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If you remember, I taped an interview with Tess Vigeland of American Public Media’s Marketplace Money show that ran back in August. Today I was interviewed for a second time, once again along with Jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity and Lynnae of BeingFrugal.net.  The radio program is scheduled to run this weekend if they can get it edited in time.  This time we’re weighing in on - you guessed it - the current economic crisis.  If you missed the earlier interview, you can go here and listen to it online, or download an mp3 of the show.  I’ll put a link up to the next interview when I have it.

And if you want my two cents on the package, it stinks. Let me tell you that the company I consult for has no idea - none - how much exposure they have to these bad securities.  And the $700 billion figure is a GUESS (read that link, you’ll be horrified).  And this:

…it lies between the optimistic estimate of $500 billion and the pessimistic guess of $1 trillion about the cost of fixing the financial mess. But the $700 billion is in addition to an $85 billion agreement on a bailout of the insurance giant American International Group, plus $29 billion in support that the government pledged in the marriage of Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase. On top of all that, the Congressional Budget Office says the federal bailout of the mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost $25 billion.

link

(my emphasis)

I’m not sure why we are trusting the same administration that rushed us into a war we didn’t need to rush us into a bailout with minimal oversight, but hey, that’s our elected officials for us - always looking out for the best interests of the American people. It seems not to matter which party we vote for, because the end result’s always the same.

But we’ll see how it all shakes out, because at this point that’s all most of us are - observers. It’s an odd feeling to watch people debate how to spend your money for you, isn’t it?

photo credit: Nite_Owl

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