Irene, The Unprepared and Under-prepared

     No one is immune from a natural disaster in this world, at some point you will be exposed, that's a fact you can not change.

     While the above statement holds true and you can't change it you can lesson it's effects on you and your family with a little forethought. If you look at the situation this week and weekend on the east coast you know that far too many people came up short with some very basic items. This is nothing new and it happens every single time there is some sort of disruption in our daily lives and it just does not need to happen.

     We as in with many other things take far too much for granted and it has a nice way of turning around and biting us in the AZZ, I am guilty as anyone else being the procrastinator that I can be sometimes. I believe we dodged a pretty big bullet with this hurricane, yes there were fatalities but not quite what some people were predicting and less in this case is always better.

     One good thing that did happen was that many who were asked to evacuate did so, better to err on the side of caution if you can, still there will always be die hard's that will want to remain behind and that is their choice. With that choice though please be prepared and keep in mind "what are you protecting" stuff can be bought again so is it worth it?


   
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SHTF Is Not The Only Reason To Prep

Terri from SurvivalGoddess has an article out on a familiar subject, I do enjoy reading on the subject from a women's point of view, especially when us men seem to focus on a narrow field so please check her out if you have a few.

SHTF Is Not The Only Reason To Prep

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Dow Jones, today's causality

     Well today did not go to well for the American stock market, the Dow ended up -634.76 points to cap the day or -5.5% down.

     Asian markets took a beating as well last night and so did the markets in Israel, Global economy at it's best. You can say that the downgrading by S&P last Friday really rocked the world's financial markets and in a way that might be a good thing, yes I know people lost money and that sux but if you invest in what amounts to legalized gambling then there will always be those risks. The reason I see it as a good thing is that we have been  living beyond our means for some time and the reality of it all has finally come home to bite us in out collective ass.

     We never seem to learn a good lesson until it is too late, we are going learn a lesson off of this one way or another, I hope. I am not going to hold my breath though, common sense seems to have left the building a long time ago especially when it is something government is involved in.

     To me we are just one step closer to being in a world of hurt, I would love to know when or how far it will go but a psychic I am not so I will just go with the good old gut and ear-ball it. I will say though that we are in for some changes in the future and they are not the good hoe and changes that were muttered years ago by a certain person, time will tell. 

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Question for the readers

     OK everyone seems to have an opinion as of late on how the markets will fair when they open, it went terrible for the markets in Israel today and I have seen predictions that the Asian markets will not fair even better. What in turn does this mean for the US markets? Who knows but we will find out come Monday.

I do not expect for it to be too devastating but I would think it may not be too good either.

What are your opinions? I would like to hear them.

Update: As of 6:38 pm the New Zealand markets are already 100 points down. Yikes

Update as of 11:15 pm: all Asia/ Pacific markets are down, not terribly but they are still down and that may be a pretty good indication of how our markets may go come Monday, oh well such is life, the pied piper will be paid.

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S&P downgrades US debt from AAA

     Well I just saw a news blurb that the S&P has downgraded our debt from Triple A status, This should be interesting, it is funny how this is released late on a Friday after the markets close so I wonder how the markets will be affected come Monday. Are We SCREWED? Link below

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_DEBT_RATING?SITE=KYB66&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT



Edit to add: I do wonder how many people knew about this impending downgrade and if it can be attributed to the 500+ point stock market crash this week, Things that make you go HHHMMM

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This months jobs numbers, up, Really?

     So everyone is all excited about this months jobs numbers of around 117,000 + or -

Well on the front side yes it would look like things are moving forward for a change, pun pun.  I have one small problem though that ruins the party, the above number does not take into the account the fact that you have new people coming into the job market every month as well.

That number of new employment seeking individuals is roughly the same as the jobs added this month so I wouldn't call this report good at all, it just means we stopped the bleeding for one month and who knows what next month will bring. Now a good month will be a quarter or a half million jobs added followed by about four dozen months of the same numbers and I just do not see that happening either.

So where does this lead us? No where good that's for sure, the only place it will lead us is to where sooner or later and I am betting the latter we wake up and force Government to get the hell out of the way and quit meddling  and regulating us to death. It is tough enough to do business in this country as compared to other countries, now do not get me wrong I do not want out of control business practices that would harm the environment or workers but you have to be able to compete and we make that pretty hard right now. Another aspect that we really need to do is to shift our purchasing choices to more products made right here, that means jobs here. I really believe in taking care of our own workers first, I want to keep the money here. Will that product cost more? most likely yes but what is the cost of not buying it, lost jobs is the cost and you will pay for it dearly in other ways, food for thought....

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Question, Are We Really Broke?

     I was asked a question the other day, " Is the US really broke "

Now everyone has their own opinion on this and they are pretty varied. My answer to the question was pretty short, in fact I turned it around with my own question " You do know that the US BORROWS  about 5 BILLION  dollars a day right? "

Now I am no rocket scientist but to me when you have to borrow money everyday to support your habit and yes it is a habit then you have problems, namely that your broke right?


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