The “New Generation” needs to speak up!

The Environmental Defense Fund is asking for our help again. They have begun a campaign to ensure that Global Warming, Alternative Energy and other Environmental issues are included in the presidential debates, and not pushed to the wayside by typical politics. Think about what concerns us most, especially if you are in Generation X or a Millenial. This economy and multi-trillion dollar debt will affect our lives and our retirement, and add to that the possibility of ever-changing weather due to climate change, and we face some major issues as the Baby Boom retires. We need to make sure that our issues are heard, so we have a clear choice of who will lead us into the future.

The current administration has stalled our growth by reducing spending on capital in the science and technology sector, and we need to get it back before the rest of the world catches up or surpasses us. In Europe, they are in the large-trial stages of stem-cell transplants, and in the Scandinavian region, countries have tidal power, geo-thermal power, hydro-electric power, wind and solar power. Feeling a little behind? Well, they are also driving on electricity, CNG, and ever-reducing their dependence on foreign oil. One of the reasons Japan lost WWII was an oil embargo against them. How would you function if the world all of a sudden had a beef against us, and decided not to sell us oil?

Alternative Energy sources are a major part of National Security, and this administration has ignored it. Sign the petition to keep the Environment on the list of issues during the Presidential Debates.

In ECON 201 today, I became more depressed about the state of the US economy. I wish I could put my 401K money under the mattress right now, but I'm going to "ride it out" like the "experts" keep telling me to. This $700 billion bail-out is absurd. Instead of thinking what is "bad or good" for the economy, think of it as "easy or difficult." The bail-out is the "easy" way out, which is not always best in the long run. Think about it – stopping terrorism "over there" instead of dealing with it "over here" seemed like an easy answer, but look at where it got us in the long run. Are we any safer from domestic terrorists than we were 7 years ago?

Bailing-out the banks is an easy way to STABILIZE the market for RIGHT NOW. It does not guarantee the prevention of a slide in the near future. It will only "open up" the credit market, or so they "speculate." It will not prevent a recession – at 6.1% unemployment we are already 1.1% ABOVE the "preferred" unemployment rate, therefore we are already in a recession. The bail-out will create inflation, as it makes the dollar weaker. It will make it harder to buy the essentials, much less pamper ourselves with Starbucks and HBO. And as a Gen-Xer, I can live every day for the rest of my life, knowing that my 5 member family donated $10,000 to corrupt bankers who made horrible decisions, so their credit market could be re-opened. Every day, for the rest of my life – I really hope my kids forgive us if we let this happen. If you haven't written to your Congressmen/women or Senators, do it now.

Think about it, if every "bad" mortgage was re-negotiated at lower interest rates, people could afford their mortgages, the banks would end up getting most of their return on investment, and real-estate would not sit empty as homelessness rises. It is difficult for the banks to sit on their bad debts and wait over the long run for a return on those investments. So they would rather the US taxpayer buy those bad mortgages, re-posses the properties, and hope that someone buys them as they sit, empty, at prices just out of reach of many Americans. How strange would it look to the rest of the world as houses sit empty while "Bushvilles" pop up across the nation?

If you look at the raw basics of this crisis, it is not a difficult decision to let "Lassiez faire," or let the markets be free, in good times and in bad. And if the big boys can't play right, then they need to share the profits with the debt-holders. At least raise the tax rate back to what it was in 1999, and start paying off some of the debt that already exists.

– $ 9,795,674,339,326

Economic Bail-out should spark a letter writing campaign

I wrote to my Representative and Senators today, asking them to postpone a vote on the Economic Bail-out, and debate it on the floors. The last plan they hastily pushed through Congress was the Iraq War and they claimed it would be easy and pay for itself. Remember? Everyone should write one as well, because we have Inflation coming. That was the subject of our first lecture in ECON 201 today. Our country is in economic trouble and we are about to make it worse for the individual worker.

For those of you who are fortunate to know someone still alive from the Greatest Generation, ask them how much a loaf of bread was during the Depression compared to their salaries. We are about to socialize a HUGE debt and bail-out executives who made HUGE mistakes.

We will not even socialize medicine, but it's okay to socialize the banks' debts without socializing their profits. Here's a copy of the letter I sent, please send one of your own:

We already know with the bungled results of the Iraq War that hasty votes by Congress can become large mistakes. Please take the time to ensure that the Executives responsible for these companies are fired, make golden parachute deals illegal, and regulate, regulate regulate!

It is not fair to my generation or my children's that we socialize debt before we socialize medicine and profits. Please do not hastily shove another one of the President's Best Guesses through. Too many Americans will have to pay in inflation and retirement fund sacrifices for too many generations to come. And those executives who come out with millions from all of this don't even pay their fair share of taxes.

When is Congress going to stand up for the majority of workers instead of bailing out the minority of large earners from their poor choices? I thought that's what a Democrat majority was supposed to produce.

Thank you,
Amy Lucas

Wall Street went down, down, down, down

As I am sitting here, the stock market is dipping and dipping. I don't even want to know what my 401K is doing, but hopefully my hypocrisy investments in "Natural Resources" are keeping it afloat. Despite the pain it will inflict on the economy, I am glad the government did not bail out Lehman Brothers, and I hope they tell the auto companies to "Suck it," too. What? The more wealthy citizens will finally feel a pinch like the rest of us?

Don't chide me for the loss of jobs, I realize this is a bad thing, but in the last 12 years, we have let M.B.A. salaries skyrocket past those of doctors, physicists, most lawyers – you get the picture. These C.E.O.'s and C.F.O.'s have been paid hundreds of times, sometimes even thousands of times (as in the case of Wal-Mart), the salaries of their lowest paid workers, and most of these salaries aren't even based on performance. They have been allowed to make bad investments, slash the skilled workforce, slash bonus programs for workers, and run the companies into the ground. But they get their parachute bonuses before leaving the companies, and I'm sure they are immediately put into tax shelters.

They are rewarded with golden parachutes of millions if their company is sold during their time as CEO. So what's the best way to get multi-millions without having to work? Simple, get an MBA, become a CEO, run the company into the ground, break it up and sell it off in pieces, then get your golden parachute. This happened to my husband, after 20 years of loyalty to a grocery chain, we watched his management bonus get smaller and smaller, while workers' wages were frozen, and the executives' were paid more and more. Not long after he left to run his own business, the company publicly announced its financial troubles, and was sold off in pieces. The executives were rewarded quite comfortably, while thousands of workers lost their jobs.

I really wish John Edwards had been able to keep his pants zipped, because this is a major example of the two Americas that John McCain doesn't want to acknowledge. To the autoworkers in Detroit – leave now. Go get a job with Toyota, or another car company willing to listen to the consumer, and act responsibly. I never thought I would buy a Japanese car, but if GM and Ford aren't willing to build the efficient cars we want, then we will go elsewhere. The government needs to recognize that bailing them out is just enabling more poor decisions by out-of-touch CEO's. For those CEO's to say that saving their company from their bad decisions is the only way to save the American economy is nothing but offensive. America has prospered through its past tough times with ingenuity and aided with innovations by Academia.

This de-regulated CEO thinking is dinosaur, get-rich-quick thinking, and it's time that a new generation of workers, who are familiar with the business and skilled in management, begin running the companies. Just because you have an MBA from Harvard doesn't mean you know what's best for a hospital or a grocery chain (or being President for that matter). Let Wall Street reel in its bad decisions, let the market slide to where it should be, and maybe next time investments are made, history will be examined before money is blindly invested.

Update: I went into my funds and heavily diversified yesterday. I moved some money around and hopefully, some positive choices I made will leave me with at least as much retirement as I put in.