When I first moved to the United States in 1992 the country was recovering from a widespread recession and I was totally unaware of it since I was only nine years old. Then ten years later another recession occurred and I was attending college and once again lived through it without caring too much. Today there is a lot of talk about the coming of the next recession and I am sure it will happen again since the economy is cyclical. We are already seeing a slow down in employment and massive losses in the financial industry and the stock market has come down about 10 to 11% since the October high. So what will I do in this coming recession?

cheap brand name viagra — I am not going to sell all my investments just because it is going down right now. Panicking and selling long term investments is probably not the best thing to do since I really don’t need the money right now. I will also continue to contribute to my 401k despite the volatile market. The reason for this is that eventually a recession ends and the market goes up again. Selling a stock or fund at a low is never really a good strategy.

cheap brand name viagra — I will be looking for cheap investments to buy if there is a recession. There are many great companies that will survive through a recession but their prices may be depressed by the general mood of investors. So I am sure there will be bargains. Additionally the real estate market is falling almost everyday and if there is a reasonable bargain I may purchase real estate. Basically, I will keep an eye out for things on sale.

cheap brand name viagra — The general consensus is that the tech industry is still fairly strong, but a recession could change the outlook rapidly and there may be a great Silicon Valley Job Massacre again. I think the key to keeping your job is to be good at it, and I will try my best to be “unfirable”.

cheap brand name viagra — Sometimes being a great employee is not enough and people still get axed because the horrendous economic situation of their company just can’t be salvaged. This is why I think everyone should have a backup plan to survive. I’m not sure what I would do yet, but I imagine I could be a consultant or just blog full time. I also have a pretty big emergency fund that could help through a period of unemployment.

cheap brand name viagra — When times are lean, it’s even more important to be debt free because it may be harder to reduce debt with less income. I will make sure I don’t take on any debts I can’t pay back.

cheap brand name viagra — If our income falls drastically we may need to cut expenses. There are many areas where we can be more frugal right now, but since we’re doing fairly well in savings we’re not living an extremely cheap lifestyle. For example, we could move to a smaller apartment, but it would be less comfortable. However, if we really had to downsize we would be fine with a smaller and cheaper apartment. I think many people live in houses that are way too big for them and if times are lean that’s where they can save the most. They can rent out part of their home or just move to a smaller apartment.

cheap brand name viagra — I read an article some time ago that said charitable organizations receive less donations in recessions. This is understandable because if a lot of people lose their jobs they would be unable to donate. I will try my best to maintain my donations.

Anyway, my outlook for the next recession is that it probably will not affect me and the hubby very much and I probably do not have to change much of my lifestyle. If we both happen to lose our jobs I think we are still fairly well prepared to live through it. What are your plans for the coming recession?

A couple days ago I read an article that stated and America is the happiest place on earth! The article gave many reasons to the bliss of Americans including wealth and religion. (I do agree with the reasons given.) I personally think that the general ignorance of Americans about current events and their own personal financial situation also makes them happier than the rest of the world. After all, ignorance is bliss, right?

When I was three or four years old I had very little knowledge about how my parents paid the bills. I didn’t worry about money because I was unaware of my need for it. I think that’s a big reason why children are generally happier than adults. Children aren’t concerned about making money, responsibilities, or the future. For children the ignorance of adult affairs such as financial management is normal, and I think it is quite fine and healthy for a child to worry more about the next episode of his or her favorite cartoon than fussing over paying the rent. Unfortunately I think a lot of Americans carry this blissful ignorance well into adulthood and are happily irresponsible about their money.

For example, I have read quite a few articles from multiple sources on how most Americans are not saving enough for retirement. The numbers of American adults reported by the press as not being well-equipped for retirement ranges anywhere from 100 million to 150 million (this is roughly 50% to 75% of the adult population). The question is, how many of these people actually know that they don’t have enough for retirement? I imagine not many actually know the extent of their financial health. The simple fact is when people do not know that they are not saving enough for the future they won’t save more. The bigger problem is that some of these people won’t believe you if you tell them that they will not have enough to retire. I don’t think this type of stubborn ignorance is healthy, but at least most of them have time to correct their course.

It really seems that Americans are happy as long as there is enough to live on in the current moment. This is why the minimum payment on credit cards is such a psychological trap. The minimum payment is only 1 to 2% of the entire debt and almost anyone could afford it from month to month. Meanwhile, the interest piles up and the debt follows the minimum payment customer forever. If you watch the Secret History of Credit Cards you will see how clueless most consumers are about how credit card companies make money. The banks bank on the consumers’ ignorance, and keeps them happy with low minimum payments.

Additionally, ignorance also played a huge part in the housing bubble. Many people wanted a home and didn’t do adequate research on their purchases and loans. A great number of these homes are going into foreclosure, but some of these people who bought homes at the inflated prices are still happy homeowners because they’re unaware of the current housing crisis and they can afford their homes. After all, the easy loans gave  people an opportunity to own huge new homes, and a good number of people don’t read the news and don’t really care that their property has dropped in value. Quite a few of these homeowners are also extremely optimistic about their home values in the future. I think in general optimism is a good thing, but I would never endorse the act of falling into financial ruin due to ignorance.

I would count myself as one of the happy people living in America, but I think my reasons for being happy is more due to religion and family. I would argue that even though ignorance can be bliss at times, knowing as much as you can about the world around you would better prepare you for the times ahead. None of us know what will happen in the future, but to be completely clueless and happy in a disheveled financial present is not the path to a enjoyable future.

about an unlucky Guatemalan made me so mad and sad that I had to write about it.

For 11 years, Pedro Zapeta, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, lived his version of the American dream in Stuart, Florida: washing dishes and living frugally to bring money back to his home country. Two years ago, Zapeta was ready to return to Guatemala, so he carried a duffel bag filled with $59,000 — all the cash he had scrimped and saved over the years — to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

But when Zapeta tried to go through airport security, an officer spotted the money in the bag and called officials.

“They asked me how much money I had,” Zapeta recalled, speaking to CNN in Spanish.

He told the customs officials $59,000. At that point, U.S. customs seized his money, setting off a two-year struggle for Zapeta to get it back.

I am not a supporter of illegal immigration, but I think this hard working man was robbed in broad daylight. Currently he faces deportation and a Floridian judge has concluded his case and decided that the United States government is entitled to $49,000 of this man’s sweat equity. I personally didn’t know there was a law that says I can’t carry more than $10,000 of my own money out of the country without telling the government. If I did carry more than that amount, would the government also confiscate my money? Another thing I don’t understand is why didn’t they just inform him that he had to sign a form? He has not gone out of the airport and he should be able to obtain a form and fill it out. At first they detained him as a drug runner and held him on drug charges until he produced pay stubs proving he earned all the money through work. This means that even if Pedro declared his money the government probably would still have held him on bogus drug charges. How can any immigrant transport his/her own savings back to his country especially if it’s a country without a very secure banking system?

It makes me sad that Pedro is treated this way, and the fact is many immigrants in this country, whether legal or illegal, face many financial injustices. Here are a few of them that I am quite familiar with:

cheap brand name viagra– In the CNN article it stated that Pedro never paid income taxes, but actually I think taxes were deducted from his pay because the Floridian Judge found that Pedro paid more taxes than he should. In the judge states:

The Court rejects the United States’ argument regarding tax evasion or other law violations allegedly committed by Claimant. As noted above, Claimant has not been charged with any crimes, and the evidence indicates that some taxes were in fact paid, when perhaps they did not need to be paid.

Pedro’s income was very low and Florida does not have state income taxes, so he probably did not have to pay any federal income taxes if he did file. Like Pedro, a lot of immigrants pay more taxes to the United States coffers than they should. For example, if any immigrant is paying for social security and medicare taxes and intend to go back to their home countries then they will forfeit 100% of their money. A lot of immigrants are also not extremely knowledgeable about taxes and do not file their taxes either out of fear or ignorance. In fact, if they did file their taxes some of the lower income immigrants will get a return. I also think it’s an injustice that the Internal Revenue Service can classify you as an US person for tax purposes while the Immigration and Naturalizaion Service has not yet given you permanent residency or citizenship. Myself and others I know have been in this situation where we paid all the same taxes that a citizen pays without knowing whether or not we can actually stay in this country. I don’t think it’s fair that immigrants facing uncertainty about their ability to stay are paying for the social security benefits of the current American retirees.

cheap brand name viagra — Outsourcing and H1B visas are hotly debated topics in the United States. The immigrants and foreigners are almost always painted as the villains that steal jobs from hard working Americans. The fact is that corporations are always looking out for their own bottom line and wants to hire immigrants because they are more likely to accept a below average wage. No one denies that most of California’s agricultural workers are illegal immigrants and most of these immigrants are paid below minimum wage. Additionally, a lot of construction positions are filled by day workers who are illegal. In the Silicon Valley, an H1B visa is usually a way to keep a high tech worker working for a company for below average pay. It is pretty much legalized indentured servitude because the deal is that the foreign worker works for a company for six to seven years and hopefully earn the right to stay in the United States. When the internet bubble burst in the beginning of this decade many immigrant workers were laid off from their companies and had to go back to their own countries. California is an at-will state and that means a company can fire a worker at any time so an H1B worker isn’t always guaranteed their American dream. It is true that the law states when a company helps a worker obtain a green card they must pay the worker a certain wage, but there is a prevalent abuse of this law since the H1B worker can be fired at anytime and isn’t likely to complain about their wage. I have heard cases of companies that do not consider American workers because they know they can keep an H1B worker longer and pay them less. It is completely illegal, but it’s quite a common practice. In Pedro’s case, we do not see that his employers suffered any legal consequences for hiring an illegal immigrant. That seems like quite a double standard on the part of the United States government.

cheap brand name viagra — The banking and credit system in this country isn’t very friendly to immigrants who do not understand much English. From my experience, a lot of immigrants also have an inherent distrust of the banking system and end up keeping a lot of cash in their homes. Pedro actually kept all of his money in a sack around his home according toUsually you can’t open a bank account, investment account, or obtain loans without a valid social security number so illegal immigrants tend to keep simply cash. It’s very dangerous to do this but they have little other choice. The credit system is another odd beast. It seems that in the recent years it has been so lax that many immigrants were victimized by shady loan peddlers.

Immigration is an important source of people and income for this country and I do not understand why it is so hard for the United States to accept all the hard working honest immigrants. My personal experience with immigration is so bizarre and dramatic that it deserves another few blog posts. If you speak to me in person you’d think that I was just another young American born Chinese woman, but the truth is that for a long time I was so jealous of all my friends who were born here. I got my green card just two year ago after growing up in America for the last fifteen years. In many ways, I am more American than I am Chinese, but when I read stories like Pedro’s it just makes me sick how immigrants are treated in this country.

So tonight on the way home I heard about a game called “Financial Football”. The plug is this: “cheap brand name viagra” When I heard this I thought, wow, what a horrible idea for a game. What kind of kids would play a game called Financial Football? Additionally, it seems like a game that’s geared towards boys since most girls I know aren’t really into football. It was really funny because the news report ended with a man saying, “many people in the NFL are on their way to leaving their careers penniless because they do not know how to manage their money, and we’re hoping that this game will teach kids about finances.” Anyway, curiosity got the best of me and I looked up the game online. Apparently

The game starts off with choosing your teams. I picked the Patriots and the Raiders. Then the “Kickoff” starts and a series of finance related trivia questions are thrown at you. You only have ten seconds to answer each, and some of them were not very easy to answer in ten seconds. For example, one question asked how much interest would you receive if you had $100 and it compounded yearly for 2 years at 10% a year. I got the correct answer of $21, but it’s not super easy to answer in 10 seconds. Some of the questions are so long that it’s hard to read it all in the strict time limit. I was surprised that the questions covered a very wide range of topics including insurance, mortgages, interest rates, credit cards, and simple economics. It even had a question about the . However, this is my favorite question out of the entire game:

cheap brand name viagra

A. 10 years

B. At the end of the year.

C. When you retire

D. Never

At first I picked C and the game said that was wrong, and then I picked D, and that was the correct answer. I’m glad to see that Visa is being brutally honest with the children of America.

I didn’t agree with some of the questions and answers in the game. For example, one question asked which investment was the riskiest and listed corporate bonds, corporate stocks, and money markets. Their correct answer was corporate stocks, but actually I think some junk corporate bonds are much worse. Besides that, I think this is a good game for parents to play against their children even thought I am not very fond of the football elements throughout the game. It also contains too much trivial information such as whose face is on which coin. The radio newsclip said that teachers are using Financial Football to teach middle school students, and I’m not sure a lot of these fast paced question and answer sessions will stick. Hopefully some of the good things in this game will be absorbed into the young minds of the future. Anyway, if you’re bored, try your hand at some and tell me what you think.

So the hubby and I signed up for a Netflix trial since we no longer pay for cable TV. The trial includes unlimited DVDs and also an instant watch option to watch movies and TV on Netflix’s viewer. It’s quite funny but Netflix recommended that I watch , which is a documentary on debt in America. So I took the bait and clicked the “Play” button. After watching it a while I felt like I have seen it before, and I was right. Quite a few juicy and informational parts of the movie came from the award winning Frontline episode , which is available for free at PBS. Both programs featured lengthy interviews with the dewy eyed and passionately outspoken Elizabeth Warren, who is a Harvard Law School professor who researches bankruptcy. I think she’s very interesting, and I first heard of her when I saw the book . Her research is quite eye opening and I guess that’s why she’s a featured interviewee.

After an hour into the movie, I felt that Maxed Out was a bit more disorganized than the Frontline report and focused more on individual credit nightmares. For example, the movie showcased several people who committed suicide over their debt. It was sad to see the families of these people retelling the tragic deaths of their loved ones, but I’m not sure how helpful that is to people who are trying to learn about credit cards and debt. Another woman was charging her mortgage onto her credit cards and eventually lost her home and I didn’t know if I pitied her or wanted to slap her. The movie also had a banker-educator figure named Mr. Money, who was teaching two youngsters about credit. That part was quite funny because the movie makers juxtaposed Mr. Money’s sage advice with the actual actions of the banks.

Maxed Out did point out that the United States government is making some horrible choices and increasing the national debt instead of attempting to reduce it. The federal government actually ran out of money a few times in recent history and that’s quite alarming. I want my tax dollars to be spent wisely, but that’s basically a cry in the dark. I suppose the only thing I can do is to save as much of my after tax income as possible.

So in conclusion, I have to say that Maxed Out was an eye opening but rather depressing movie focusing on individual credit card debt. What I took away from the movie is that consumers are not educated enough about credit cards and fall into the traps of high interest rates and ridiculous fees. The government is basically owned by the banks and consumers are at a disadvantage so we have to empower ourselves with knowledge. If you want to learn about the credit card industry you should definitely watch The Secret History of Credit Cards at PBS which contains an awesome interview with Ben Stein. I am really waiting for someone to make a documentary focusing on housing foreclosures and subprime lending because I want to understand how that happened.