Stock Market

Given how the market closed today, I don't think that its going to be a quiet night at the White House. I am pretty certain that they will be burning the midnight oil looking for ways to calm the market. If I owned a Pizza shop near the White House, I wouldn't be closing early tonight.

I believe that the market is responding the way it is because of the lack of leadership in Washington. This snowball started when Congress wasn't able to pass the bill right away.

The best solution right now is to put some certain into the marketplace, what are the plans over the next 90 days. The market likes some certainty. Give the market what it wants.

If nothing happens over night, expect another 200 point drop tomorrow..

There's some good opportunity right now, there's plenty of good stocks to buy and a great time to start a business! Think Positive and Act Now! If not now, when?

Rules of Congress

Some rules about Washington that Wall Street needs to know:

• Never give Congress a deadline
  Unless there's enemy tanks on the Washington Mall, don't expect Congress to rush into anything. They do things there way.
• Never ever give Congress one option on a bill.
  Every Senator / Representative will want to add something to it. Giving them the do or die option will always results in... die...
• Never rely on Congress to bail you out.
  That's not the role of Congress, it was until the 16th Amendment (Enactment on February 3, 1913) to the United States Constitution that they had any money control.

However, a 777 one day drop does call for some action. So expect so breaking news overnight to calm the markets.

Anyone else ready for Post-Season baseball??

Cobweb Theory

Perhaps Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson need to review the famous Cobweb Theory of Economics.

End of iKitchen.com?

Looks like its pretty wise to avoid iKitchen.com! The above is from a email that I received this morning. I discovered that other people are having problems with iKitchen.

I wouldn't order from them again, I am waiting for a shipment of 4 Aqua Globes that were on sale in July. I ordered it on July 7th, and half of the order arrived on August 6th! I am still waiting for the other 2 Aqua Globes.

If you are considering purchasing from them, I would highly recommend avoiding them. Your better off buying from other companies. Also make sure to watch your credit card, they say that you won't be charge until it ships, but that isn't always the case.

If you are charged and they say that they are back ordered, you should contact your credit card company and request a refund or charge back.

Tough Day on Wall Street

It's going to be a tough morning on Wall Street. There's some tough news in the financial sector that may have some investors thinking bear instead of bull this morning. Early indicators have the market going down 300 points.

The fall of Lehman Brothers and the sale of Merrill Lynch are signs that the fall out of the sub-prime market isn't over yet. There's speculation that there's some more casualties on the horizon.

The interview this weekend from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan about how the economy hasn't bottom out of economic downturn won't fair well with the market. Some say that we are in this situation because of the Mess that Greenspan Made.

I'll post an updated graphic on how the market did later today.

Today the market closed was the sixth worst close in US history. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

FedEx Experience

This morning I spent 30 minutes at FedEx waiting to pickup a package. Here's the whole story:

Yesterday, I got a FedEx Door tag that they attempted to deliver a package but needed a signature. So this morning, I decided to goto the FedEx center on my way to work.

I arrived at FedEx on 151 3rd Ave in Needham, MA at 8 am when they are scheduled to be opened. However the doors weren't open and I waited for about 3 minutes with someone else. Someone who worked at FedEx arrived and called inside to get the door open.

Finally the door opened and the lady let us inside. The other customer went over to the package counter to fill out some form for a package that she was going to send. I walked over to the other counter to give the lady my FedEx door tag. The lady that opened the door was opening the curtins and didn't pay any attention to the people that open the door.

When she finally took my order she said that she would have to go in the back to get the package. I said, 'Ok' and stepped a side. The lady then took the other customer order and then disappeared in the back to get my package. She came back and said that someone was looking for my package and they should have it in about 10 minutes. So I waited and waited.

After waiting for 20 minutes, the lady went into the back and came back and told that they were going to need another 10 minutes to locate my package. I decided at that point that it wasn't worth my time waiting.

I don't know why FedEx would think that customers were willing to wait 30 minutes for their packages. They are not. Some might if there's a long line, but waiting because FedEx is unable to find it in their own building?? I guess FedEx is not efficient as they use to be.

America's Famous Street Addresses: The Parks

Here are the street addresses of some amusement parks:

Pareto Principle

If your a familiar with the Pareto Principle or commonly known as the 80/20 rule, anything a few (20 percent) are vital and many (80 percent) are trivial, you may have heard of Joseph M. Juran. He was the one who educated business about implementing the Pareto Principle. You'll be sad to learn that Joseph M. Juran died on February 28th at 102.

Some Examples of Pareto Principle:

• 20% of your daily activity accounts for 80% of your productivity.
• 20% of your employees account for 80% of your revenue
• 80% of the economy is controled by 20% of the population

Your can find information here:

• Wikipedia
• LA Times

Troubles of your Job

I found the following text while cleaning my office earlier this week, not sure where the orginal source is from:

Be thankful for the troubles of your job.

They provide you with about half of your income.

If it were not for the things that go wrong, the difficult people you have to deal with, the problems and unpleasantness of your working day, someone could be found to handle your job for half of what you are being paid.

It takes intelligence, resourcefulness, patience, tact, and courage to meet the troubles of any job.

This is why you hold your present job.

It may be the reason why you aren't holding down an even bigger one.

If all of us would start to look for more troubles and learn to handle them cheerfully, and with good judgment, as opportunities rather than irritations, we would find ourselves getting ahead at a surprising rate.

For it is a fact that there are plenty of jobs waiting for men and women who aren't afraid of the troubles connected with them.

Companies swing jobs axe in 2001

More than 400,000 job cuts have been announced by late August, 2001 as companies around the world wrestle with slowing growth and plunging demand.

Here's a list of companies in the Technology and Telecom sector that announced layoffs in 2001. Note this list was created before September 11, 2001