And so it continues...

It's Sunday night. I should be sleeping - but I can't. Guess I'm too wound up from the past week and weekend. Been staying busy with homework, work and other stuff. I've been so busy the past two weeks or so, one day I crashed at 5pm and slept all the way through to 4am the next morning! Needless to say, I showed up to work VERY well-rested and ready to start the day.

I had a fairly productive weekend. I spent my Saturday fixing up the new deaf center that we're opening in 5 days. I enjoyed doing inventory, painting and putting my body to work, but boy I was sore by the end of the day! I twisted my knee somehow so it's been painful to get around lately... especially up three flights of stairs several times a day.

Enough about the happenings in my life. That's boring compared to what's going on around me. First off, gas prices have majorly dropped and is still dropping! The last time I was out (earlier today), I saw $2.78 per gallon!!! Earlier in the week, I saw prices dropping and dropping so I was holding out on getting gas for my car. At $2.99, I had thought it might not drop any lower so I filled my tank up. The next day, it dropped another 10 cents. I sure hope the gas prices keep falling - that's a huge help for most of us who aren't rich.

It's 1929 all over again. Stock market is crashing and crashing bad. When I saw the news the other day, it had started to climb a few points (a hundred or two) but was still dangerously low. Now's the time to start buying some stocks.. you're sure to make a quick buck once the stock market goes up again. Too bad I don't have the money to invest.

I've been blogs, news articles and TV interviews on the $700 billion bailout bill that the government recently signed. Some are positive and some are negative. I'm afraid I'm on the negative side. The bailout money is to help banks from crashing and closing - and therefore, losing their customer's money. The purpose of the bailout was to give the banks some money so they won't have to foreclose on a whole bunch of houses that are behind in payment. That goes for other kinds of loans (vehicle and credit) that people aren't paying on... this allows the people to still be in debt and the bank can say "oh, it's no big deal, pay us when you can, we have some money now."

They're taking $700 billion of taxpayer's money (not much of mine - I haven't worked much yet) and essentially giving them to homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments. Why should we have to bail them (and the banks) out? They are the ones who signed the loan contract and the banks are the ones who gave them the money. Why do we have to jump in and help them out with their dumb decisions? I sincerely believe that if people cannot afford their home, they should sell it and downgrade. Of course, I understand if people run into some hard times financially. I've had a few of those hard times myself over the past few years. People are getting laid off left and right with the bad economy - but that's why everyone should have a safety net. If you don't have money to fall back on then you shouldn't be thinking about getting a house. You should be focusing on building a savings account, retirement fund or any kind of cash to fall back on.

Of course, I won't be able to guarantee that if I was the one who owned a house and was having financial problems, I would feel the same way I do now. I might actually be thankful for the bailout bill - so I could keep my house. But I would probably feel guilty about having other people's taxes help me keep my house when I probably don't even deserve it in the first place.

Oh well - not much you or I can do about the bailout bill now. It's been signed and it's going into effect. I don't know much about business, finances and Wall Street stuff, but I think I can say that I don't think the bailout bill isn't gonna work. As long as the economy is doing crappy, the money is just going to disappear into thin air. The government will have to sign Bailout bill #2. Even that wont happen, a lot of people are going to fight against it I'm sure. At least I hope they do.