The Big Three Auto Manufacturers

Lately on the news channels and in the news papers, there have been talks of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler going out of business and failing. They are talking about a bail out plan to help these three manufacturers right now. I don't know if it is going to go through though. Many small cars lots and used dealerships are already out of business just because nobody wants to buy anything right now. But the weird thing is that it is a great time to buy right now if you have a steady job and consistent income. Dealers are very willing to give cash back on new car purchases, especially for their pick up trucks. I have seen Dodge advertise their Ram pick up on sale at $10,000 off in the newspaper advertisements. I was also looking at buying a quad right now. I don't know whether to buy new or used. But there are a lot of them for sale right now. People seem to need cash right now. Probably to pay off a little bit of debt they might have or to help towards their house mortgage. Also, on a major street by my house there are cars lined up on the side of the street parked with for sale signs on them. They are on both sides of the street. I guess that is a popular spot to sell cars. It is also a great time to buy stock at the moment. Prices are so low right now. They are eventually bound to go back up. It just might take a few years to do it though. Most stocks have had their price cut in half. So if you bought them right now and in a few years if they go back to their price of a year ago, you would have doubled your money!

Black Friday

When ever you think of Black Friday you imagine great bargains on millions of items throughout stores nationwide. The day after Thanksgiving is probably when people do the most shopping in one day. We are all out there to hunt down the great Christmas gifts to give to family and friends. Many stores open as early as 5:00 a.m. and they remain open all day. Tomorrow will be my first experience to be on the opposite side of things because I have to work that day. We are having the biggest sale our little hardware store has ever seen. I heard that most of the things on sale will sell out within the first few hours. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

I actually have never gone shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. But I always look in the advertisement section of the news paper anyway and wish that I had so many of those items. My mother and sister will probably go out to shop though. Like many families out there, they do most of our family Christmas shopping for us. So, hopefully you can find some good deals out there on some Christmas gifts for your loved ones.

The Economy

Have all of you noticed that some gas prices have finally made it below $2 a gallon? It seems crazy that just a few short months ago, they were in the mid $4 range. Personally I like this new change as well as many of you do. But it hurts the economy. Ideally, all prices are supposed to gradually go up. It is bad if prices are jumping up and down off the charts. During the 1990s and early 2000s, prices grew at a very steady pace making for a great economy. Now the stock market contains about half of the money it did about six months ago. Also, the unemployment rate has grown a lot. About a year ago, it was hovering around the 5% range and now the last I heard, it is at about 8.3%. And I heard there are over 1 million people in California who are unemployed. People are not buying trucks as much either. A lot of the big dealers, Ford, Chrysler, and GM are handing out great deals on their trucks right now. I still really like the big truck image. The classic V8 in your truck or car just seems so much more fun to drive and own. If you have ever ridden or drove a lifted truck, you know it is a blast and I think the gas is worth it. They come in so handy also. They are great for making the occasional trip to home depot or to tow a large trailer or to haul a heavy load.

Southern California Culture

There are a lot of people in southern California who own quads or dirtbikes and go riding on the weekends. This is the time of the year where you start to see more trailers and motorhomes heading out to their destinations on the freeways. Our family also does this and last weekend we started preparing our motorhome to go to Dumont Dunes. I always get excited when fall comes. We cannot go to the desert in the summer because it gets way too hot. So we usually never get to ride for about six months out of the year.

We also did a little bit of maintenance work to our quads like changing the oil and those sort of things. Every year there are more and more people who go to Dumont. Sometimes it gets too crowded and it might not even be a holiday weekend. On the really big holiday weekends like presidents day or thanksgiving, motorhomes and trailers seem to be parked bumper to bumper and there are thousands of people there. That's why I don't like going on those weekends. For a lot of people including us, this is a family outing and my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents also go camping with us. This is rapidly becoming part of southern California's culture.

Where's All the Cars?

I have noticed, along with my boss from work, that there just aren't as many cars driving on the streets as there were a few years ago. Gas prices are just now starting to come down which is good in my opinion. I work for a small family owned Ace Hardware store in Rancho Cucamonga and business has not been good during the last year. Many times through out the day our parking lot is empty. Sometimes it can be empty for twenty minutes straight.

My manager, Frank, who is known to all our regular customers as a really good handy man, thinks that it is because of the shape our economy is in right now. Many people just don't have enough money to fix up there house right now. We make a lot of our profit from people who do small weekend projects on their houses. Like fixing the handle on their toilet, or patching a leak in their roof, or painting a room in their house. We are like a small Home Depot. A lot of the time we have the things that Home Depot doesn't. We might have a small wheel that goes on the bottom of a screen door or something odd like that. I always hear of people saying "I've been looking all over for a month for this part." I would imagine that it is hard just for the store to break even.

There just aren't as many people leaving their houses to go anywhere. Back in the late 1990's, business was booming for everyone. Houses were extremely expensive and construction was at an all time high. Now people cannot even find enough work in the field of construction. It is kind of scary because almost everyday Frank usually says, "Where is everybody?" Archibald, which is the major street that the store is on is very quiet throughout the day. There used to be a lot of traffic on it. I guess it is just part of the business cycle that we are in right now and we will get out of it some day.

Writing About the Work of Others

After reading the first part of the Harris book, Rewriting, I found that I could relate to him a little. All throughout high school we would have to read a book by a certain time and then we would usually have to write an essay on it afterwards. During my junior year we had to read a short story by Edgar Allan Poe titled, The Fall of the House of Usher, which contained a lot of symbolism. After we got through discussing it I didn't know that a book could contain that much symbolism. Almost every little detail meant something. So we had to write an essay in which we had to explain all of this symbolism and critique this short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Even in my math class senior year, we had to critique the statistical articles that other people wrote. We had to find a certain amount of articles from the Internet and the newspaper or a magazine. We wrote our own short essays about how well the information was gathered and if it could be trusted. We had to write about they people who performed the experiments and if the procedure was done correctly.

So I guess I have already done some of the things Harris talks about in his book. I had to cite all of my quotes that I used so I guess I know how to cite sources correctly. But I never had to write five pages on just one topic.

Where I'm Going

I think this question can be answered many different ways. I am going to Cal State San Bernardino right now. So I could answer it by stating the actual places that I am going to or I can say where I want to be in the future. The reason I am going to college is to get a degree to help my chances at getting a job as a financial advisor. I like math more than anything at school. I feel that I can analyze information as well. So if I put those two together I feel I would be successful as a financial advisor.
As for the place I would like to live in the future, I would like to stay in the inland empire. I like the place that I live in right now and I am use to the atmosphere of this area. I do not need a lot of change to happen in my life. I still like the gas guzzling V8 over a little hybrid any day. That is just me right now. I may change my mind later. I hope I am going to a successful and comfortable lifestyle once I get my own house or apartment. But I still want to have fun at the same time. I hope I won't have to worry too much about my money situation. I seem to do a good job budgeting.