A National Block Party and My Daughter Stalls the Economy

So it’s been a fairly eventful week in our country.  I’m told we have a new president now.  I tried all week to find coverage of the inauguration on TV or the interweb, but I guess whatever happened in Washington DC a few days ago didn’t really get much coverage.  (if you live on Pluto!)  I know that the Obamas wanted a small, intimate gathering for the event, so it was just them and several million of their close friends and relatives, kinda like your wedding, I’m sure.  Yeah, it was a big deal I guess.  Most estimates peg the cost of the whole shin-dig in DC at around $150,000,000.  (that’s a lot of zeros)  But that’s probably a way more efficient use of tax payer cash than the $1,000,000,000,000 (that’s a lot more zeros) or so in bailouts that we’ve done in the last few months.  And it genuinely felt like a “stimulus,” particularly to the people who were dancing on the Mall in DC in freezing temperatures while holding their commemorative Obama plates and shoelaces.  Regardless of what you think of our new Bailouter-in-chief, we needed a little reason to party.

Unfortunately, the economy got right back to crashing after the festivities ended.  Unemployment spiked and the market just kept falling.  Even the little company I work at announced layoffs for the first time ever on Thursday, but I’m not about to blog about that!  Last night someone asked me when this will turn into a “Depression.”  I don’t know what that means exactly, but I do know that the depression was in black and white, so since I’m still seeing lots of color out there, I think we’ll be ok.

I also found out this morning exactly why our home hasn’t sold.  Turns out it didn’t have to do with “macroeconomic uncertainly driven by instability in the housing market tied to a rapid deterioration of mortgage-backed securities and a general constraint on the free flow of credit.”  It’s actually my 5 year old’s fault.  Some nice folks drove up to our house while she was outside playing.  They tried to take one of our house flyers and she politely told them, “no, you can’t take that.”  Guess she thought these were OUR flyers in OUR yard, and not for people to just take.  I mean it’s not like people can just pull up and take her bike without asking!  Luckily the people chuckled and took one anyway.  Sydney’s not that intimidating.

So here’s to hope and “change we can believe in” and all that stuff.  May we can have a national block party or something once a month while things are hard.  I can think of worse things to spend on . . . (see below)