Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Earthquakes, volcanos, floods...

Recently, there has been a lot of natural disasters occurring all over the world. One of the best places to read about this is earthchangesmedia.com . Next, global cooling. Millions of tons of ash from volcanoes shooting up into the atmosphere.
Some kind of other major catastrophe is close at hand.

Monday, July 28, 2008

That much for a taxi?

I have to share this. Yesterday I went to pick up a kid from "tap kids" at the Hampton inn hotel in elmsford. I walked in the door, found the kid (John) and he asked me how much it was to Westchester airport. $35, I answered. Then, a woman standing near the front desk yells, "$35 to Westchester airport? It's only 20 minutes away". Man, she caught me off guard there. All I could say to her was, "well yeah, every time I go to get gas, I say, but it's only oil pumped from the ground!"

What I should have told her was that my wife's Aunt was just charged $185.00 for an estimate for her home air conditioning system. What ever happened to "free quotes"?

What I should have asked her was, "what kind of work does you or your husband do?" and then compared the right to compensation for work performed.

By the way, it's not really 20 minutes, it's 40 minutes because we come back empty. 40 minutes of my time +wear and tear on taxi +traffic, +$7 worth of gas used, yeah, $35 is not that bad.

Stimulus checks for Oil?

Isn't it ironic that as soon as people started receiving stimulus checks from the government, the price of oil skyrocketed to record highs? Now, it seems everyone has used up their money, and the oil prices are coming down. This is just a "black helicopter" theory, but it does make you wonder. Was our money funneled right into the pockets of middle easterners? Was our money taken away from us so speculators could profit knowing that people would have to dig deep into their pockets to pay for much needed gas? Think about it.

Was I wrong? We'll see.

I predicted that oil would hit over $145, then suddenly, it dropped. Right now as I enter this info, it's at $123.00 a barrel. Watch, it will go to $145 soon. It's not over folks. Winter is coming, hurricane season and unrest in the middle east. I bet by the middle of August, it will be at about $140 a barrel.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Don't break out the bubbly yet !

Things seem great in the stock market huh? Don't hold your breath. Today is thursday July 17th, and some bad economic numbers should be rolling in from other parts of this "global economy". Enjoy this temporary good time.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Like I said, Dow dips below 11,000

Today, the dow dipped to 10,827.71 . At the same time, it was announced that oil dropped to around $138.65 a barrel. Don't be tricked. I bet by the end of today, the dow will close at around 11,005.00 oil will close at about $142.00.

By the end of this week, look at oil @ $145.00 a barrel. Instability somewhere will cause oil to reach about $155.00 by the middle of August.

There will also be some "not so good" job loss news by the last week of July.

Consumer confidence, well, what's left of it will be really bad news.

Watch your money in the banks

Hm. So indymac collapsed, who's next? Let's not forget this housing bubble started on the west coast and now this?

I'm telling my wife to reduce contributing to our mutual fund and we are going to watch our investments closely.

This economic situation is only the tip of the iceburg.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Over 2 weeks for Tarrytown taxi license

In late April I submitted all of my paper work to the village of Tarrytown to renew my taxi vehicle permit, taxi "hack" license and my business license.

Even though I submitted all of my paperwork in April, I had a hard time meeting up with the cop (Det. Byrnes) so he could take my fingerprints. It seems he is the only officer that can take fingerprints for taxi drivers? That makes no sense. Another thing that does not make sense is that he only performs this incredible feet on Fridays between 9:00 AM and 11:00 Am, um, if he's available. So being Friday is one of the busiest days in the taxi business, I just could not match up with this guy. I can't believe that no one else can do fingerprints.

One part of getting a taxi license in Tarrytown is getting your fingerprints done. What this means is a Police officer takes your fingerprints and ships them to Albany. When I asked Officer Byrnes why this is done he said "this is so we know if you have committed any crimes since the last time we took your fingerprints".

Funny, I thought to myself. I now that cops can put your name in a computer and find out all about your criminal record. I don't know, it just seems stupid. I also think that it is stupid since half the taxi drivers in Tarrytown don't even have taxi driving permits.

To be on the safe side, I went to Dobbs Ferry, applied for and received my taxi license in a week. The only reason it took this long is because the girl in the village clerk's office went away for 3 days or so. No fingerprints, no waits, just apply, pay and go to work.

So as far as Tarrytown, I wait and wait.

The dow will hit 10,000

I commented to a customer a few weeks ago that I wouldn't be surprised to see the dow dip below 11,000 and possible hit just above 10,000. Let's face it, the economy is getting really bad. I see more and more store fronts for sale or lease, more and more homes staying up for sale longer than 2 years ago.

I am also hearing more stroies of people having a hard time getting by. We won't know the real effect of the gas prices reaching historic prices for another 2 months. Everyone is using the evil plastic, credit cards.

Not only will we see the housing market continue to fall apart, come Late August, early September, we will see reports of people falling behind even more on their credit card payments.

We are in a recession, we've been in a recession. Being it is a very "political year", we can't take too serious government warnings and reports.

My first blog

Well, I figure with all the things I think and say and 95% of them coming true, I needed a place to post these comments to prove to myself and others that I am not as uninformed as some might think I am.