Jerry Loggins

I was hearing that many consumers in Texas are still without their electricity after Hurricane Ike wreaked its havoc on Texas.  It has been two weeks!  I would hate to think what life would be like in this area without electricity!  I love the conveniences electricity brings to my life.  I love being able to just flick on a switch, grab a soda from the refrigerator, watch a little television, and be able to shower or do laundry if need be.  Without electricity, I would not be pleasant company for very long!  I need white noise to sleep - and that takes electricity!   If we have a power outage that lasts more than two hours around here, I go nuts!  I can only say that going two weeks without electricity would truly be a nightmare for me!  I feel bad for all those people who have had to deal with that situation.

Well Wall Street sure has been having its share of troubles lately!  I heard someone explain that there are two emotions that drive Wall Street - greed and panic.  We’ve been seeing a lot of that lately - in the extreme!   I own stock in several companies, and I’ve been careful to NOT see how their stock is doing.  In times like these I think it is best to NOT look.  When I bought the stock, it was with the intention of holding onto it until I am old enough to retire.  Hopefully by the time that comes around, the stock market will have settled down and I will have made a little bit of a profit.  The best advice I’ve ever heard anyone give about the stock market (besides buy low and sell high) is to never invest money in the stock market that you can’t afford to lose.

I was reading on the BusinessWeek website that there is being an investigation into the alleged corruption in the regulatory office of the Department of the Interior.  These folks are supposed to be regulating the oil companies, yet they were taking kickback gifts and accepting sexual favors from employees of the companies that they were supposed to be regulating.

I’m disappointed, but not surprised to hear that was going on.  It seems that just about everywhere you look nowadays, you will find corruption at every level of just about any company or government agency.  People seem to be “going to the dark side” and doing what feels good instead of what feels right.  Very sad.

I’ve been hearing that due to rising costs, most major airlines will be trimming back on the number of flights being offered in the upcoming quarter.  They will be charging higher fares and offering fewer services.  Every time I go to the airport I see so many people standing in so many lines, it is hard to imagine that the passengers are going to be very happy about the changes being made.  I think that this country really needs to do more about the price of oil - I think that there is a lot of price gouging going on in every level of the fuel supply, and I think that our government could be doing something to stop it.

I was reading that there was another earthquake in China this past weekend, hitting the same fault line that was hit last May that killed so many people.  This earthquake has not killed as many people (that we know of yet) but did destroy many buildings.  China is asking for assistance in the way of donated tents for housing for their citizens.  They are asking for at least 10,000 tents.

I don’t know if any of the tremors were felt in Bejing, but I was just wondering how it would have affected the Olympics if the earthquake happened when the Olympics were being held!