Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Friday, September 12, 2014
Ponderings
Fio's all about economy and security. She turns off lights and locks doors.
*
Fiorella read an article about how grandmothers are opting for being called anything but Granny or Grandma nowadays. Since Fio's grandmothers died before she was five and her own kids have yet to propagate, she has no opinion in the matter. Although she would like to be a grandmother some day.
*
Growing older means trying to make sense out of an increasingly senseless world.
*
Fiorella read an article about how grandmothers are opting for being called anything but Granny or Grandma nowadays. Since Fio's grandmothers died before she was five and her own kids have yet to propagate, she has no opinion in the matter. Although she would like to be a grandmother some day.
*
Growing older means trying to make sense out of an increasingly senseless world.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Economy Forecast
Judging by the Georgetown Palace playbill, the economy is improving.
Fio remembers when the playbill, that little booklet that gives the audience all sorts of info about the play, the actors, and the support staff, also advertises for all and sundry--and two years ago the ads went sparse. Fio thought she sensed a change in the weather last year, but with this years's first performance, she was overblown by the advertisements, and not just the ones for public service entities. A couple of realtors are back, the audiologists are in full bloom (this IS Georgetown), the banks, local businesses of all sorts--even Southwestern University.
Hooray! As goes the Georgetown Palace, so goes the nation!
Fio remembers when the playbill, that little booklet that gives the audience all sorts of info about the play, the actors, and the support staff, also advertises for all and sundry--and two years ago the ads went sparse. Fio thought she sensed a change in the weather last year, but with this years's first performance, she was overblown by the advertisements, and not just the ones for public service entities. A couple of realtors are back, the audiologists are in full bloom (this IS Georgetown), the banks, local businesses of all sorts--even Southwestern University.
Hooray! As goes the Georgetown Palace, so goes the nation!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Money
Fiorella's parents, being children of the depression, were careful with money. Fio's father was a tightwad from a family of tightwads, and her brother is even more so. Fio admits to being somewhat fretful about money herself. She's even gotten up in the middle of the night to check that the family bank balances are exactly what they should be.
A lot of people's personal economies are in trouble right now because the national economy is in the tank. Other people just plain don't know how to manage their money. Fiorella wonders if the trend toward banking on line is part of the problem. It seems to her that sitting down with the bills and writing checks to pay them, then figuring out one's current bank balance, makes the money somehow more real.
Of course, no matter how one is banking, in order to have stable personal finances, one has to keep track of them and live accordingly. That's probably a problem for all of us.
A lot of people's personal economies are in trouble right now because the national economy is in the tank. Other people just plain don't know how to manage their money. Fiorella wonders if the trend toward banking on line is part of the problem. It seems to her that sitting down with the bills and writing checks to pay them, then figuring out one's current bank balance, makes the money somehow more real.
Of course, no matter how one is banking, in order to have stable personal finances, one has to keep track of them and live accordingly. That's probably a problem for all of us.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Hot off the Press
Hummers are bummers
And GM is sad,
But Impalas are selling
So it can't be all bad.
Chrysler is struggling,
Financial blues--
It might not survive,
But what else is news?
The top of the heap,
At least for today,
Is Henry's Ford's namesake
HIP HIP HOORAY!
Guess which manufacturer Fiorella has stock
in.
And GM is sad,
But Impalas are selling
So it can't be all bad.
Chrysler is struggling,
Financial blues--
It might not survive,
But what else is news?
The top of the heap,
At least for today,
Is Henry's Ford's namesake
HIP HIP HOORAY!
Guess which manufacturer Fiorella has stock
in.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Cassandra Spoke, but Did Anyone Listen?
Ah, the financial geniuses have finally figured out that the reason people aren't upping the economy by buying stuff is that they don't have the money to buy stuff because they don't have the jobs to provide the money to buy stuff. Well, duh!
Fio has an idea. She reads a lot of British novels and she's noticed that everyone with an extra dollar (translation: about half a pound sterling) hires someone to tend the lawn, someone else to clean the house, someone else to cook the food, whatever, which spreads the meager wealth around as far as it will go. Not that the hirer is that wealthy either--but then clothes closets are smaller in Britain.
Anyway, Fio proposes that we stop enlarging our wardrobes and start enlarging our hearts by hiring people to do whatever they can do around our homes and business.
I have to say that Fio predicted all this years ago when she realized how the labor opportunities available were being diminished by labor-saving devices. At home, why send clothes out to be washed when you have a great washer-dryer in the utility room? On the job, why hire twenty people when five--plus computers--can handle the same workload? Maybe Ned Ludd had something when he led a revolt again that new-fangled mechanized loom way back when.
Down with machines! Up with people! (Says she who's using a computer to writing this blog and everything else she produces.)
Fio has an idea. She reads a lot of British novels and she's noticed that everyone with an extra dollar (translation: about half a pound sterling) hires someone to tend the lawn, someone else to clean the house, someone else to cook the food, whatever, which spreads the meager wealth around as far as it will go. Not that the hirer is that wealthy either--but then clothes closets are smaller in Britain.
Anyway, Fio proposes that we stop enlarging our wardrobes and start enlarging our hearts by hiring people to do whatever they can do around our homes and business.
I have to say that Fio predicted all this years ago when she realized how the labor opportunities available were being diminished by labor-saving devices. At home, why send clothes out to be washed when you have a great washer-dryer in the utility room? On the job, why hire twenty people when five--plus computers--can handle the same workload? Maybe Ned Ludd had something when he led a revolt again that new-fangled mechanized loom way back when.
Down with machines! Up with people! (Says she who's using a computer to writing this blog and everything else she produces.)
Monday, April 20, 2009
Splat!
Madoff, Stanford, Pang--how the dominoes tumble. And now we know what we suspected all along, that all the big guys are crooks, that those fantasy lives are built on fantasy lies.
Like our parents always said, if it's too good to be true, it is.
If we want role models, let's look at Susan Boyle. She is rich in a way Bernie Madoff could never imagine. There just might be hope for virtue, truth, and goodness after all.
Like our parents always said, if it's too good to be true, it is.
If we want role models, let's look at Susan Boyle. She is rich in a way Bernie Madoff could never imagine. There just might be hope for virtue, truth, and goodness after all.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Glitz Glut
I guess it's time for Fiorella to weigh in on the economy since everyone else has. Fio doesn't have any solutions yet, but she does have a historical perspective.
She thinks it all goes back to the Reagan era, when Hollywood went to Washington. Jimmy Carter had ideals and values, but he also seemed a bit dorky. Reagan, on the other hand, had glamor--and the rest of us decided we wanted that too. All we had to do was use our credit cards. We deserved that bigger house, those snazzy duds, that car one step up from our neighbor's. We aspired to jobs we actually enjoyed, and the feel-good gurus told us all things were reachable. All we had to do was believe.
"Updating" was the name of the game as we eased ourselves into the HGTV world, in which perfectly good kitchen appliances are tossed in favor of more stylish stainless steel, perfectly good counters tossed in favor of more stylish granite.
Fiorella would like to tell you she hung back and said "Fie upon you and your false values," but she has always known she deserved to be a princess. That's why her appliances are stainless steel and her counters are granite and she's a little panicked about the future.
Oh well, Fio and Husband can always live off the land. Already they're harvesting lemons from the little trees on their back porch and gathering firewood from their acreage. Hmmm--maybe they can develop a taste for venison too.
She thinks it all goes back to the Reagan era, when Hollywood went to Washington. Jimmy Carter had ideals and values, but he also seemed a bit dorky. Reagan, on the other hand, had glamor--and the rest of us decided we wanted that too. All we had to do was use our credit cards. We deserved that bigger house, those snazzy duds, that car one step up from our neighbor's. We aspired to jobs we actually enjoyed, and the feel-good gurus told us all things were reachable. All we had to do was believe.
"Updating" was the name of the game as we eased ourselves into the HGTV world, in which perfectly good kitchen appliances are tossed in favor of more stylish stainless steel, perfectly good counters tossed in favor of more stylish granite.
Fiorella would like to tell you she hung back and said "Fie upon you and your false values," but she has always known she deserved to be a princess. That's why her appliances are stainless steel and her counters are granite and she's a little panicked about the future.
Oh well, Fio and Husband can always live off the land. Already they're harvesting lemons from the little trees on their back porch and gathering firewood from their acreage. Hmmm--maybe they can develop a taste for venison too.
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