Job Market

It would seem to me with the massive numbers of people being laid off that there would be plenty of tech workers around looking for work. Why is it then that we can’t find anyone to fill a slot we have? Frustrating!

Stock Market

Sounds like we’re about to have another massive drop in the US markets today. I think people forget that companies with little to no debt can continue to make profit with little risk even in a down economy. Panic seems to be the word on the street, and while some people stock their freezers with meat, other people are investing. Its my opinion that a balanced approach is the right approach. If the first rule is buy low, sell high, then why are so many people selling when the market is down some 40%? Should be an interesting day, and I hope to get so busy at work that I have no time to look at the market.

Grocery Market

Milk prices have fallen recently by a good deal. I was looking at some tech products a few days ago to see how they were doing. Locally there does not seem to be much of a change in technology products. I expect that to catch up soon, so if you are pining for a new computer you may want to wait a few months longer.

Credit Market

It is a great time to borrow if you have decent credit. I negotiated a deal on my new used fuel efficient Corolla dropping over 1.75% off what the dealer wanted to charge me in interest. I also found a 0% credit card deal among the standard deluge of pre-approved credit card offers, and I keep getting letters in the mail from companies wanting to refinance my home at some outrageously low APRs.

Economic Market

If the economy is doing so poorly, then why are the parking lots at shopping malls still filled all the time, and how do people find the money to drive around all day on Saturday when they are not going to work?

My thoughts

If I did not own any stock, did not listen to the news, and did not pay attention to my 401k I would think that everything was going wonderfully. Gas prices hit $2.58 here yesterday. Milk prices have fallen by about 80 cents. People are offering credit at heretofore unheard of rates. Both candidates for President promise tax cuts. I still have my job.

I posted yesterday about the potential for a new worm similar to Blaster. Please download patches and protect yourself and especially your business. Blaster and other worms have cost businesses millions of dollars, and now is not the time for businesses to absorb yet another cost.

Sorry to stray off topic a bit. There are some technology bits in there for you to byte into. Have fun! Oh, and I’m getting closer to my hundredth non-spam comment. Taking a hint from a fellow blogger at nukeit.org I will be paying out Entrecard credits to non-spam comments number 96-100. I will also donate a 125X125 advertising block for 2 weeks to the 100th comment.

I signed up for Entrecard.com yesterday. See the link on the right. I’ve been looking around the site including many blogs that are part of the network and I have some interesting observations. Most notably, I see a lot of blogs that are poorly written – mainly just filling words like they were after some kind of quota and not saying anything. The craziest thing is their feedburner stats, most of which are over 200. Now I know that there aren’t 200 people interested in reading these blogs since I could hardly get through a single post on them. Is this a more sophisticated version of the spam blog?

I think Entrecard has a neat thing going that has the potential to do very well for itself. It naturally makes advertising on poor quality sites cheaper. Of course at the moment since I’m new my site appears to be low quality. It works by sharing advertising with other bloggers. Unless you want to there is never any cash that changes hands. I have noticed that many of the people I make a connection to will drop by and reciprocate. I’m wondering if that is how they all got their RSS subscriptions as well.

I’m not really into the profit blogging thing, although I wouldn’t mind making some money to help make ends meet here. It just seems like I have a very fine line to balance between trying to gain readership and maintaining the professional image that I want to have. This blogging thing is more complicated the more interested you are in doing things the right way rather than just making a quick buck.