Reading through the financial news for the past year has been a depressing experience. With all of the talk about the USA going into a recession, record numbers of foreclosures pulling down the housing market, and banks needing billions of dollars from foreign investors just to survive the consequences of their horrible lending practices, it's hard to stay positive about one's financial future. Many people see 2008 as a year in which the United States will only continue to slide away from its position as the world economic power. With countries like China, India, and Brazil becoming greater threats to unseat the United States from it's dominance, is it possible to stay optimistic about our future? If you are in your 20's and just starting your career, I believe there is reason to think that 2008 will be a good year. Click "Read More" to see my 4 reasons why 2008 will be awesome...
1. Interest Rates are Falling
The Fed has recently cut the interest rates several times in the past few months. Many critics believe that this will be the catalyst for increasing inflation rates. For me and the millions of people out there with significant amounts of student loans, this is a good sign. Once I graduate from law school in May, I plan on consolidating the huge amount of student loans I incurred over the past three years. Consolidating my loans at a lower interest rate could end up saving me thousands of dollars over the almost infinite life of my loan.
The other reason the falling interest rates is a positive for those of us who aren't completely grown up yet is that mortgage rates are at their lowest point in a while, which means that many of us can afford to get into a home sooner than later. Which leads me to reason number 2...
2. Buying a House is Cheaper
I do feel bad for those homebuyers who were duped by greedy lenders with shady practices during the housing boom. Many of them have already lost their homes to foreclosure and many more will lose their homes in the near future. I don't feel bad for the investors who jumped into the housing market thinking they could make a quick dollar by flipping houses and then lost their investments in the housing bust. They should have known better. For those young buyers who haven't purchased their first home yet, the misfortune of others means more house for the money.
Living in Las Vegas the past three years has been disheartening because the cost of homes was out of reach for most average buyers. That's no longer the case with Las Vegas' nation leading foreclosure rates. As long as the price of homes continues to fall, I will continue to wait until I can afford a decent size home for a reasonable amount of money. With the money I save by buying a cheaper home, I plan on investing for my retirement, which is a perfect transition into reason number 3...
3. The Stock Market is in Decline
According to David Leonhardt of "The New York Times," the stock market is currently "overvalued" by 10 percent, relative to historical norms. In a recession, the market can decline more than expected just because investors are worried, rather than the reality of underlying economic indicators. When the market declines more than it should, stocks will become a more attractive long-term investment.
This is good news for those of you who haven't invested a significant amount of money in the stock market. If you are planning on buying stocks in the future, your long-term outlook is much better than those investors who are planning on retiring soon.
4. HD-DVD is Dead
The resolution of the High Definition format war won't exactly pull the United States out of a recession. However, it does mean that I can stop waiting to update my movie collection to HD. Toshiba just announced this week that it would no longer support the HD-DVD format. This was disappointing to me, even though I know that Blu-ray is a better format. I was disappointed because I hate Sony. Sony has historically been notable for creating its own in-house standards for new recording and storage technologies instead of adopting those of other manufacturers and standards bodies. Need an example? Think about BetaMax, or Minidiscs, or ATRAC, or Memory Sticks. The list goes on and on. I guess I was just hoping that Sony would lose this format war and stop forcing people to convert to their formats just to buy their products. I can't say enough how much I hate Sony. That being said, I'll finish off this post and head down to Best Buy to purchase a Blu-ray player...
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Why 2008 will be a good year for young professionals...
Monday, February 11, 2008
Obama's Grandma.... The picture speaks for itself.
I don't have anything against Barack Obama. He's a bit too liberal for me, but other than that he seems cool. His grandma, on the other hand, seems even cooler. She's the one wearing blue. That's his grandma... no joke.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Mobile Lifestyle
I am always one to try and find ways technology can make my life better or easier. Using a couple free services, I have basically eliminated 2.7% of all my problems in my life and I must say. . . I love it.
So, I was reading an article by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and he was talking about some new online services that give the ability to literally take control of your voice mail. He gave some good reviews to two different sites: www.youmail.com and www.grandcentral.com. They both offer the same services but in round about ways. I will tell you what I use them for. YouMail, I love because I can choose who listens to what message. I can record a message or select a bunch of different kinds for other callers. The voice mails are then e-mailed in MP3 format and I can save them for black mailing purposes later. GrandCentral is cool, cause I have a 801 number even though I live in Washington, it is also nice for when I am selling items on the classifieds and people can call the GrandCentral number instead of giving out my personal number. I can also screen people using both services.
As for my opinion. . . I would recommend using YouMail, if you just want more control of voice mail. If you have more specific business reasons you want the ability to ring to mulitple phones then GrandCentral could be cool.
In related news--Google has finally fixed their iMAP issue with Windows Mobile 6 devices. When this feature was first released it wouldn't show the text of the e-mail on the screen. Now it is fixed and I am no longer doing the POP3 thing. Here is the link.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Johny Savage Recommends: Cameron's Caduceus T-Shirt from Ferris Bueller's Day Off!
I love Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I don't understand why it gets left off every Top 100 Movies List ever created. By the time I celebrated my 12th birthday, I had watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off at least 987 times. I can still quote substantial portions of the dialogue by heart. I know that many of you out there share the same affection for FBDO as I do and I wanted to let you in on something I discovered not too long ago.
I wanted to purchase a replica of Cameron's T-Shirt with that funky symbol on the front of it (during my search I found out that the symbol is called a "Caduceus"). I found an online store called Found Item Clothing (oddly appropriate) that sells replicas of T-Shirts from many classic movies. Fortunately they had the exact shirt I wanted. So every once in a while I wake up in the morning and convince myself I'm sick until my best friend comes over to steal my father's Ferrari 250 GT California and takes me on a tour of Chicago while I discover my inner strength and exorcise my demons.
Monday, February 4, 2008
"Arrested Development: The Movie" not just a rumor?
The Johny Savage Project is always trolling the inter-webs to find the most up to date information to share with our readers. Those of you who have been with us from the beginning know that I am a huge fan of Arrested Development. Rumors have been circulating for a while about an Arrested Development movie. It seems that last Thursday, Jeffrey Tambor was on the Ron & Fez show on XM radio and he confirmed that there is a push to get this movie made. Apparently two of the show's big names are on board and he mentions them in the audio clip just after the jump. So click the link below to listen to the audio.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Johny Savage Recommends: The King of Kong
Last night I saw one of the best films of 2007. It is also one of the least known films of 2007. The full title of the film is The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. This documentary follows Steve Weibe in his quest to beat the world record score in Donkey Kong. The holder of that score is a man named Billy Mitchell. Billy Mitchell’s score had gone unchallenged for 25 years until Steve came along. Billy Mitchell is what many of us would call a douche bag. In fact, the documentary makes him look so bad that he rises to the rank of Captain Douche Bag, which is appropriate because he leads an army of geek disciples who are mostly all douche bags themselves.
Throughout the film you cheer on Steve, a science teacher in Seattle who could be anybody’s neighbor, in his many attempts at beating Billy’s score. Steve’s first success is on his own Donkey Kong machine which he plays in his garage. He has videotape evidence of his world record score which he submits to Twin Galaxies, the official score-keeping group of classic games. All of the nerds at Twin Galaxies are Billy’s best friends, and as soon as the score is submitted, Billy questions the integrity of the score which leads to a questionable investigation and the disqualification of Steve’s record.
Steve eventually travels out to Florida to challenge Billy to a friendly competition. But Billy doesn’t want anything to do with Steve. He seems to fear tarnishing his image and refuses to come out of the shadows. I won’t give away the ending, but the most enjoyable part of the film isn’t the competition. The best part is watching the endless parade of geeks who inhabit this world of championship arcade gaming. Their sense of superiority only comes from the fact that they can pass the 20th level of Donkey Kong. I doubt any of these guys has been closer to a female than they have to their pet snake and/or spider that they keep in their bedroom in their parents’ basement. The reason I enjoy watching these nerds in all their glory is that there is nothing made up about the way they talk or act. The reason I know that this film is a documentary is because there is no way anybody could write the dialogue for the nerds that are interviewed. Any movie that includes the phrase "Don't get chumpatized" has my approval. Here's a small clip from the movie that gives you an idea of the type of characters on display:
