So, who makes the numbers?

Lately as I've placed the nozzle into the gas tank and have watched the numbers spiraling on the fuel pump land on $22, it has left me puzzled. Why in the world have gas prices gone down this much?
Something is just not right.
I flash back to four years ago when I was 17-years-old complaining about gas being $1.50 a gallon. It's gone up to at least $3.87 since, only to plummet back town to about $1.61...
Something is just not right.
This leaves me wondering who was in charge of this decision. At first i was thinking that they lowered because of election year, or to try and help President Bush's approval ratings. Not.(to both the approval and election gimmick).
I'm really going to look into this when I have more time. It's quite amazing, this decrease of more than fifty percent. Strange things are happening.
And
Something is just not right.
The baffling part to me is that no one seems to be questioning it. It's only when prices go up that we ask questions. Not only that, the government is giving out trillions in bailout cash. Like an ice cream man handing out free Popsicles on the fourth of July, every one wants too cool off, but is there enough to go around? Really?
And what about the ice cream man...has he made enough money be able to give out Popsicles now and to buy more ice cream for later? Hmm
Where is he getting his funding from?

We did it!!

It's official: BARACK OBAMA IS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It's so crazy to think that a country which once fought a brutal civil war over slavery... a country that once thought Blacks were nothing more than property... that once did not teach African Americans how to read and write (perhaps out of fear, I don't know. Or perhaps that something quite like this--a Black man could be elected to the highest office of the United States, and could inspire many toward hope for the future)... a country that once hosed my ancestors for marching down the street to vote... To those who took beatings, lynchings and endured ridicule so that I could vote, And to those who could not live to see this day: OUR votes are in. America's votes are in.

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I believe people have been waiting for a leader, some one to stand up and say "enough is enough" and that every person in America matters. Their vote matters. Their life matters. and Their hard work makes a difference. Obama's inspiring words of hope surpass colors of all kind. I am ecstatic to live in a country with people who are looking past differences and elevating what really matters at this time of economic crisis, war and confusion: UNITY. We are, after all the UNITED States of America. We need a country that can back the president, and a president willing to back America, ALL of America. That is why I believe Barak Obama deserves this office, and why he is now the president of the United States of America.

Image is from: http://www.freshnessmag.com/v4/2008/03/12/obey-barack-obama-diy-paster/

In response to Obama's loss...

The Obama family has recently lost a family member, Barak Obama's grandmother, who helped raise him (from what I read in his book).

Will Repubicans stoop so low as to use it as a weapon against him?

They might try & throw out something stupid like

"Obama will be too distraught to even think about helping the country at this perilous time in his life..."

or

"He has too much on his mind right now to even think about trying to run a
country; he is in no condition to do so..."

This would be so lame.

I say that if they're desperate enough to call him a "socialist" and a "terrorist," you better believe somebody would do this, too. We'll wait and see...

It's done.

Washington has approved plans to bail out our American economy with  $700 billion dollars. This decision seems a little insecure to me because according to the article I was reading in the New York Times even the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., has warned that, "the American economy [is] at risk of the worst economic collapse since the depression." It's statements like that from a former owner the prominent Wall Street firm, Goldman Sachs,  that make me nervous because he's a guy that supposed to know or be an 'expert' on finance. I'm not sure how all this will turn out (this decision). The democrats seem all for it. To me it seemed to come to fast, and the senate jumped up just a little to quickly to put tax payers' dollars on the line, but perhaps this decision may help us all out in the long run and keep us from a less severe economic recession. We'll see...

Here's the link to the article on Fri. October 3,2008: 

By the way, nearly 160,000 jobs in America were lost in September. Food for thought. 

Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images; retrieved from NYTimes.com.

happy-SAD 100th anniversary GM!!

Wow, today I just found out that General Motors celebrates its 100th anniversary of being in business. But an even more surprising fact I found was (according to the Dallas Morning News article), their revenue has declined $70 billion in the last four years in North America!

What a happy/sad day.

Even more surprising, but not that much with everything being shipped overseas these days, is that at the Arlington plant (here in the Dallas area), GM has been shipping nearly half of their cars produced each day to the middle east were business is great. (Article said they est. good relations with Egypt about 80 yrs ago--guess they have some plants there).

This summer I saw how prominent they were (and I had no idea before going) in Spain, and perhaps even elsewhere in Europe.

Yet another case of things being shipped East were things are much cheaper. However, is this really increasing our wealth, or just deepening the hole of a productive yet declining economy?

Look at it this way: we're digging, digging, and digging thinking we're making so much progress, but do we realize were digging ourselves into a whole?

Oh, but happy/sad anniversary GM!!

Link to Dallas Morning News article:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/DN-gm100_14bus.ART0.State.Edition1.26c46fa.html

What is going on?

I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I turned on Good Morning America. One minute Diane Sawyer and (names here) were following the presidential nominees and supporters along the campaign trail, and the next they cut to an astounding breaking news alert.
Today two major financial firms, Merrill Lynch and Leman’s crumbled today under financial pressure in the housing market. Lemans has filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch, to save itself from the same fate hopes to sell itself to Bank of America for about $50 billion dollars. First it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac struggling to hang on in this financial crisis, now them. But luckily the US Federal government is doing what it can to hold Fannie and Freddie firms from collapse. Unfortunately for Leman’s firm, there was no more room on the safety net, and they have closed after nearly 140 years of being in business.
I watched as people walked out of the Lemans skyscraper building with their belongings in hand. Somewhere around 25,000 people lost their jobs, been laid off & were ordered to clean out their belongings Sunday night, according to the report this morning.
What will happen to these people? Where are they supposed to work now?

Because I doubt there are going to be enough openings in real estate market right now considering the way things are going.

This is going to sound really bad, but I feel sorry for whoever’s going to be the next president. I mean, look what they have on their hands: people being laid-off from top financial firms, a plummeting real-estate market/housing crisis, natural disaster relief efforts from the major hurricanes (not to mention the energy/gas crisis), and the blood of thousands of soldiers on their hands from a war in the middle east. WOW.

Thank you President Bush! I’m not blaming all of this mess on him. It’s a series of events and happenings unplanned. No one asked for the September 11 attacks. No one asked for those financial firms to be irresponsible with lending practices. No one asked for the US to be in a billion-dollar deficit. Some thing fell out of line somewhere. Now it is the next not only president, but congress people, and local govts (these are the people that can really make things happen closer to home) to sweep up the shattered glass from our economy, pick up the pieces and find a way to put it back together.

Photo courtesey of GoogleImages.

New awareness

I have yet to write about issues aboad (I promise, I will soon)!

I started this blog because over the summer I had the opportunity to travel to and study in beautiful Spain. Being there opened my eyes up not only to cultures beside my own, but also sparked in me an interest in cultures around the world and foreign policy.

For a minute, I got to step outisde the United States and see ourselves from outside ourselves. I heard perspectives from a pro-European Union professor teaching my economics class, and a Scottish international relations teacher who has lived in Spain 18 years. I really got to hear and see first hand what the U.S. may truly be...(from both inside and out).

Anyways, I have a new interest in foreign policy, and have been following CNN on world news, Foreign Affairs magazine, Newsweek, etc... And now I will write about my thoughts here. I feel it's improtant to know about what's happening in the world outside the U.S., and in reality, the things happening abroad do directly affect us here as the world becomes increasingly globally dependent.