Monthly Archives: October 2008

Lower Credit Limits Can Mean Lower Credit Scores

OK, so I am just another ticked off  consumer some days. I can’t imagine that it is any fun to work for a credit card company these days. I mean, I do feel some sympathy for the people who are having to talk to the public every day and explain that while the federal government keeps slashing interest rates, credit card interest rates keep going up.

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Surviving A Recession

We are all facing tough economic times. There is not denying it, though it seems like until the last few months, the politicians and big business leaders have tried! But now that everybody is forced to face reality, let us look at a few things that consumers can do to survive these days of a falling stock market, tight credit, and bank instability.

Posted in Personal Finance | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Largest US Job Cut in 5 Years Fuels Worries

September, 2008 Job Cuts Top Expectaions

Most people were expecting about 100,000 jobs cut from the US market, but the bad news is in.  The labor department reported that 159,000 US jobs were cut in September of 2008. This is another worrisome sign that the economy is headed for a deep recession.

This is the 9th month in a row that jobs have been cut, and it is a symptom of the housing market woes, combined with tight credit. Tight credit affects business as well as consumers. Many small businesses are doing very well, but are having trouble with their day to day operations because of tight credit.

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How Much Is The Bailout — Measuring 700 billion dollars

Are you having trouble wrapping your brain around the concept of 700 billion bucks? Me too. Just how much money is that, anyway? I mean, the obvious answer is that is is $700,000,000.00, but that is such a big number it is really hard to grasp. It is certainly a lot more than I have in my savings account!

Well, you have heard of NASA, right? In 2009 they plan to launch a lot of people into outer space, and to keep space stations running. They have a planned budget of less than 18 billion dollars. That number looks a lot smaller than 700 billion dollars. So the bailout plan money could keep NASA going for about 4 decades at the current space program budget.

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