Yesterday my internet server was down all day, but I actually felt pretty lucky about it, since while I waited for it to come back on. I whiled away the hours watching local news shows that featured brand new houses in Wisconsin sliding into raging flood waters, sink holes swallowing up cars with people in them (two people died near here delivering newspapers Sunday when their car disappeared into a 50-foot sinkhole), and various photos of trees on cars, cars on cars, houses on cars, cars on houses, and so on and so forth.

Right now, 11,500 people in the mid-sized Michigan city where I live are still without electrical power, and the dog and I have had to take refuge in the basement twice in as many days, but finally, as Jack Nicholson said in The Shining, “I’m b-a-a-a-ck!”

I’m waiting for the plagues of locusts that are sure to follow this summer, that is, once the tornadoes and floods get done with us this spring. That would be about right, since the only creatures around here that appreciate this year’s weather are the 21 tomato plants I put in our Victory Garden last week. They’ll make good eatin’ for those locusts alright.

It’ll be just like The Tomatoes of Wrath.

Recession? Oh yes, but the way, we are in a recession. Here’s a quick recap of the major recession issues of the past week, along with pithy commentary on each:

Should the Gas Tax Be Dropped for Temporary Price Relief?

No, God no. First of all, the gas tax is what helps keep our deteriorating roads and bridges from deteriorating even more. Second, the price break would be so tiny as to be gobbled up almost immediately by increasing demand. We would net nothing, and our roads would suffer even more. (Did somebody say, “sinkhole? ” God, what a horrible way to die, delivering Sunday papers and then just getting swallowed up by a the mother of all potholes. Does anyone doubt we are dealing with Divine Wrath here? And you think repealing the gas tax will help?)

Should the Federal Reserve Lower Interest Rates Again?

Lower them to what? A negative number? Look, right now Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, has two public roles: 1) Spin current events in such a way as to minimize panic, and 2) Lead us in prayer. He also has a private role: Print new money to keep some of the biggest financial concerns in the US from going belly up week to week (or even day to day) and thinking of other creative ways to prevent that same negative outcome, if he can. Yesterday Lehman Brothers, after posting a $2.8 billion loss, raised $4 billion and plans to raise $2 billion more, but this is not good news. Moody’s downgraded Lehman Brother’s credit rating yesterday from stable to negative. Its stock has plummeted 60% over the past 12 months. The bank where I work? Started at $5.81 yesterday, down to $4.51 at close. I may soon have more time to write.

Should the US Step Up Ethanol Production?

Sure, if we can make it out of switchgrass and not use any of the land dedicated to food production to do it. Otherwise, no, we have bigger fish to fry than that, and possibly no cornmeal soon to fry them in. At a time when the US really needs a bumper crop of corn and soybeans, both are already suffering badly, and the recent torrential rains in the Midwest will almost certainly wipe out a certain percentage of these crops entirely. It’s too late to replant, and the poor outlook has global consequences that make our gasoline complaints look like very high class worries.

Should We Drill in Alaska, or Off-Shore, or on the Moon?

No, no, and no. What we need is any energy policy. We needed one 20 years ago; still need one. Buy a bicycle, take public transport, work from home, plant a vegetable garden (watch out for the coming locusts though), and hang onto your hats. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

And yeah, that goes for Toto too.

As home values continue to plummet and foreclosures continue to rise, the speculation on the proposed acquisition of Countrywide Home Loans, the largest and most troubled mortgage lender in the US, by Bank of America, the largest commercial bank in the US, has gotten to be a lot like the speculation on what Brad and Angelina are up to these days, and whether or not Brittany Spears in going to get her kids back or shave her head again.

After balking a few weeks back at assuming all of Countrywide’s bad debt (which would basically render the deal no deal at all), Bank of America recently came out and confirmed that yes, Houston, all signs are still ‘go’ at this point. The deal is set to close by the end of September. A lot could happen by the end of September. The way things are going, I’m kind of scared about what’s coming up this week: September? Will we have a September? Promise? Somebody promise me we will have a September and I’ll feel a lot better no matter what Bank of America does or does not do.

On the face of it, BOA’s planned acquisition of Countrywide makes instant sense and also seems completely insane. It makes instant sense because once the smoke clears and the housing market reemerges, Bank of America will be poised to suck in most of the money and most of the business, and then go on to sell all those new customers its other financial products like credit cards, deposit accounts, investments, car loans, and so forth and so on.

If Countrywide was the giant of the mortgage industry, Bank of America, by consuming Countrywide, will have the potential to become the Monster that ATE the Giant of the mortgage industry, once things are back on track. BOA will make Godzilla look like a punk kid.

Bank of America will be Megagodzilla.

The acquisition is completely insane because right now, not only is Countrywide hemorrhaging money from every financial pore, it is also the target of so many lawsuits: federal lawsuits, regulatory lawsuits, lawsuits initiated by its own stockholders, and who knows what else; that it can’t keep track of the trouble it is in any better than it kept track of its paperwork and underwriting and mortgage documents that got it into trouble in the first place.

Besides, BOA ALREADY makes Godzilla look like a punk kid. Bank of America already is Megagodzilla.

BOA will be paying $4 billion for the crippled lender Countrywide, a fire sale price to say the least, and maybe not a bargain at that. Lots of people want to see the deal happen because they think BOA’s sizable assets will shore up the tanking mortgage industry and keep people in their homes. I’d say this is a questionable assumption, especially that second bit. But say it does go that way and the day is saved: At what price has the day been saved? I think its a valid question, and one that isn’t being asked enough if at all.

It strikes me that the steadily increasing trend toward mergers and acquisitions in the financial industry can be arguably blamed for much of the unsteadiness (to put it kindly) in that same industry. When banks or lending institutions get that big, the emphasis comes to be more and more on quick and dirty profit, the money floats to the top tier of movers and shakers, and damn the existing customers.

The pressure on sales people at all levels in banking and lending is so enormous right now that they are practically told to break rules in order to generate profit, then blamed and fired if they get caught breaking rules they were pressured to break. So on the one hand, here’s your required one hour of training in banking and lending regulation along with all the 200 things you must never on pain of death do, and on the other hand, get out there and do all 200 and then some or you’re fired.

Meanwhile, frustrated customers waste hours on 1-800 customer service phone trees only to reach someone who knows nothing, has no authority to fix anything, and wants to shoot him or herself but can’t because that person knows the family would get charged for the headset post mortem.

I recently received this reply while asking about customer retention in a meeting, “Look, we don’t care about the customers we already have. We want new money and that’s all we want. If you can’t sell an existing customer something new then get them off the phone and move on. If you help one of them, then they’re all going to expect it.”

This was in response to me raising a concern about several customers who had pulled about a quarter of a million dollars each and gone to another bank due to poor service and uncaring attitudes.

Bank of America and Countrywide can get married if they want to–It’s a free country after all; freer every day in fact in terms of regulatory oversight; much freer than it has been since the early days of the laissez-faire capitalism and first industrial barrons like the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies.

Besides, when did the possibility of consequences ever stop anybody from getting married?

I personally would like to see a hard correction followed by a return to smaller commercial banks, much tighter mortgage lending regulations, and a sense that people matter more than profit margins.

Yeah, that’ll happen.

Is anybody dizzy yet? Maybe a better question is, is anybody not dizzy?

Awhile back I noted here at PFA that the FDIC has this year placed about 70 banks, mostly large regional retail banks (as opposed to investment banks like Bear Stearns) on an ‘endangered’ list. Today the specific large regional bank where I work as a part-time CSR was put on probation by the Federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a scary way of saying that the bank where I work is now under much tighter federal regulatory scrutiny than ever before. This in spite of raising $7 billion in additional capital last month. The last I looked today, our stock was down to $4.91 from a 51 week high of $54.71. I’m no high roller financier, but this strikes me as a bad thing. Even so, I was ready to reassure any and all customers who called with concerns, FDIC brochure in hand.

No one called with concerns.

I think the reason for that is that ordinary people have known for over a year that things in this country are incredibly screwed up economically. It is getting so that news can’t even get bad enough to freak anyone out anymore. Banks on the verge of failure? Yeah, big deal. Oil prices skyrocketing faster than the Space Shuttle? What else is new. Unemployment up to 5.5% In a pig’s eye; doesn’t even count the people who gave up looking months ago. And so on and so forth.

The extent of the damage done by the subprime mortgage crisis is unfortunately still playing out, and sadly, it’s playing out at the same time that global oil supplies are becoming tighter and tighter (some might even say at a time when global oil supplies are running out, but that’s a different post). A severe correction had to occur, with housing prices ridiculously inflated and mortgages being sold on insane terms and underwritten by people who were apparently taking large amounts of LSD.

The government is looking into the possibility that speculation in the commodities markets is helping to drive inflation in oil and food prices, but does anyone really believe that is the root cause of this year’s financial instability? Certainly speculators are moving into commodities now; there certainly isn’t any air left in the real estate bubble, so it is necessary to find other ways to create money out of nothing. I would ask why it has become so necessary to make money out of nothing?

Clearly, it’s because we no longer are making money off of something: cars, electronics, clothes, weapons, things, all going overseas where labor is cheap, costs are low, and regulation has too many syllables so it’s just left out of the language completely.

Personally, I believe that is the problem. The Federal Reserve can’t fix that part of this problem. The Fed can secretly loan money and broker deals, but that is only going to temporarily staunch the most severe bleeding. The root problem US markets are experiencing can only be fixed through the kind of intervention Franklin D. Roosevelt championed after the Great Depression.

There, I said it.

We need to get people back to work, not just send them $300 checks on borrowed money. We need to repair our crumbling infrastructure and we have lots of unemployed people who would be more than willing to do it to feed their families. We need to attract green industry to this country and start to lead the world by example in this area. We could be manufacturing electric cars right now and people would buy them faster than we could pump them out. Are we doing this? No of course not. We’re moving our auto industry overseas and selling them our badly-made, expensive-to-run gasoline powered cars.

The irony of it all for me is that last month I actually sold half a million dollars in bank products, which means if I still have my job at the end of June I’ll actually get some decent commission.

Oh yeah, I’m dizzy. In fact, I’m starting to feel a little nauseous.

How about you?

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created after the Great Depression to prevent bank runs. FDIC insures your personal bank deposits up to $100,000 per titled account. In other words, if you have $100,000 in a savings account in your own name, Joe Schmoe, and another $100,000 in a CD in the name of the the Estate of Joe Schmoe, your money is insured for $200,000 because the accounts are different and they are titled differently.

In practice, most of us rarely worry or even think about this because 1) most of us don’t have $100,000 in all our deposit accounts combined, and 2) no one worries about bank runs anymore. At least, no one used to worry about bank runs until Bear Stearns, an investment bank, tanked literally overnight. Bear Stearns failed due to what was essentially a bank run: its investors wanted to cash out, immediately if not sooner, all of them at the same time. The day before Bear Stearns failed, Jim Kramer of TV’s popular Mad Money stock tips program, was confidently proclaiming to all his viewers that Bear Stearns was inviolate, that it would be around for eons, that it was solid as a rock.

Whatever, Jim. I guess you win some, you lose some.

People are forever spouting off about the stock market, and why not? It’s fun, it’s entertaining, it makes you look like less of a jerk (somewhat) than talking about Vegas all the time. It’s mostly guessing though. Some would go so far as to say that playing the stock market is gambling. Whatever you personally believe about it, while all the talk continues, you might be interested to know that F.D.I.C. is quietly hiring back retired employees and beefing up its staff in anticipation of as many as 300 US bank failures in the coming two years.

According to the F.D.I.C, at particularly great risk are large regional banks that were left holding lots of mortgage backed securities when the housing bubble burst and everyone scrambled to unload their questionable products. As the housing market continues to deteriorate, the next wave of credit defaults is already gathering on the financial horizon: the construction loans, helocs, home equity loans, traditional second mortgages, debt consolidation loans, boat loans, motorcycle loans, and even unsecured credit debt. This impending wave of defaults on non-mortgage debt will cause yet another liquidity freeze that will hit smaller banks hard. F.D.I.C. keeps a list of about 70 banks already in danger of failure, and watches them closely.

One common tactic used by distressed banks to raise capital when money is not forthcoming from other investing institutions is to offer attractive interest rates on deposit accounts such as certificates of deposit (savings accounts locked in for a predetermined period). IndyMac Bank, one of the regional institutions at the top of the F.D.I.C. watch list, has currently been promoting some very high-interest CDs, as has National City Bank, a large midwestern commercial bank heavily invested in subprime loans that does business in states with high foreclosure and unemployment rates. Both banks are on the F.D.I.C. distressed list.

If you have over $100,000 to invest and you are attracted by a great CD rate at a bank you are not overly familiar with, it isn’t a bad idea to do a little research on the health of the institution. Sure, your money is insured by F.D.I.C. up to $100,000, but if you put that much money into a bank that subsequently folds, do you really want to go through what it will take to get your money back? Wouldn’t it be easier just to keep your money in a reliable institution?

We don’t hear a lot about bank failure in the press, because people are already upset and nervous, and everyone knows you don’t want to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, not even if there is a fire. Panic only makes matter worse.  But I have always loved playing Cassandra, so I thought I’d put this out there.

Watch PFA for a future list of the top 10 healthiest banks in the US and how to find their best rates on CDs and other good, safe deposit accounts.

Until then learn a little Latin if you can:

Caveat Emptor!

As part of the Money Blog Network group writing project, today’s post is a special ten year retrospective meant to show how far I personally have come financially over the past decade. Since most of the other bloggers are doing this, I will take a deep breath and do it too, scary though it may be for all of us.

Maybe, as they say, we will all “learn a valuable lesson.”

Ten years ago, in the spring of 1998, my (now ex) husband had just announced he was going into business for himself. Part of his motivation, I’m sure, was the fact that he had just been fired (again) from the huge nursery and garden center where he had been working successfully for five years as a landscape designer, and where I continued to work happily and successfully as a manager in the perennial plant section.

I did not receive his announcement well. It wasn’t just that, with his termination, the pressure was now on me to quit a job I really liked as a show of my support. (The pressure was from him, not my employers, who liked me and liked my work a lot.) It also wasn’t that with me quitting on top of him being fired, it would leave us with basically no steady income at all. No, my anger and distress was mostly based on the fact that 1) I felt like it was a miracle he hadn’t been fired much sooner, 2) I was upset with him over that, and 3) I knew for a fact he had absolutely no clue about how to handle money let alone run a business.

We were doomed.

Like a lot of men who go into business for themselves (I should say ‘people’ here, not ‘men’, but what I actually mean is ‘men’) his master plan was that I would handle the financial end of it since I was ‘good at that’ and he would do all the genius boy-wonder designer stuff, since he was good at that. I envisioned bankruptcy for both of us within two years, tops, but because I was anxious not to be divorced again (it was a remarriage for me and up until that point it was going tolerably OK), I said, fine, whatever.

The first year the business made a whopping $5000 with me managing the bookwork, estimates, and appointments, payroll, accounts payable and receivable, and with him being flamboyantly himself in every gated community within 80 miles of where we lived. By 2001 the business had grown to six figures and he was spending twice the gross receipts and yelling at me a lot for not giving him even more money to spend. (How? From where?) He also decided to quit paying his income taxes, since in his opinion, the government had no right to encroach on his creativity in that crass, materialistic way.

At that point, the design business owed around $25,000 in taxes just for the first quarter of that year. I was sick of him, mad at myself for not leaving three years earlier, and terrified right down to my toenails. Without even telling him I quietly hired a small accounting firm to manage his books and his tax obligations. After turning everything over to them including the huge tax bill, I hired a divorce attorney, packed my stuff, and moved out.

Harsh? I guess it was harsh. But SOOOO many women sink this way. I was determined not to be one of them, however stupid I might have been in my past choices. A year later the divorce was final. My settlement paid off the divorce attorney with $1500 left over to start my new life. Ouch. I was 48 and I had $1500 to my name. I also had my clothes, a 10 year old MacIntosh computer, my car, and $30,000 in unsecured marital debt, much of it business debt I had foolishly put on my own charge cards in various attempts to put out supplier fires.

Hey, I warned you this would be ugly. But stick with me here; The happy ending part is coming…

I was hired (at last) by a multinational insurance company to work in their US phone center. The job paid pretty well and came with full benefits including a pension (I was hired in the last year they offered pensions), plus I was able to get a lot of training and an insurance license at no cost.

I moved into a small apartment, and started whittling down the debt. I had to buy everything new to start over, even spoons and towels and so forth. (My ex was a tad frosty after I left so I didn’t get my stuff back, ever.) Even so, I considered myself lucky to have escaped at all. My attorney got me out of the federal tax obligation by pointing out that if I was obligated to pay half the business taxes, then by law I was also entitled to half the current value of the business. The day after she floated that particular idea, my ex quickly signed divorce papers taking the full tax obligation on himself, which actually was the right thing to do all along, plus it was the cheaper option for him by far.

Knowing that my credit was trashed was one of the hardest parts of the divorce, but within two years I’d paid off two cards and gotten the rest of the debt down to the point where I was able to get an auto loan to replace my dying car. A year after that, I found a house and obtained a decent mortgage on my own and bought it. I became interested in stocks and finance and started to read up on both, not just because it helped me in my insurance job, but also because I didn’t want to go through anything that negative ever again.

Not long after buying the house I met a nice man. (No, seriously, he really is a nice man! Really!) We bought a house on an acre in Michigan and I rented out the small house I bought after the divorce at a small profit. I got a job at the corporate center of a huge bank, where I try to talk people into investing their money in fairly decent CDs and really awful home equity lines of credit. I am in the process of leaving that job right now, partly because I can make more money writing, and partly because I want to do something that is a bit healthier and more enjoyable.

So, here I am, ten years later. I own two homes, two cars (both cars are fully paid), and I have my own 401k, pension, and investment plans, as well as my own bank accounts, both savings and checking. I run a successful small business writing web copy and freelance articles in addition to blogging for PFA. I live with a nice man who has his own money and does not tell me what to do.

So, ten years ago: Needed spoons. Now: doing pretty well, thanks.

While you won’t read about this much in financial blogs, most financial experts and attorneys are well-aware that one of the biggest financial mistakes anyone can make is marry someone who is financially self-destructive and then stick by them no matter what. We don’t hear this because it’s not very romantic. There’s no greeting card for it. (Although that may well be an untapped market just waiting for the right web-preneur: “Still married to that greedy dope? Dump that clown and get some hope! Go girl!”)

One writer I know describes it as “financial abuse syndrome.” Are you an FAS victim? Ask yourself a few key questions:

1 -  Does your spouse demand to use your credit card because he/she can’t get one on his/her own?

2 -  Does your spouse make part of the money but demand to make all the financial decisions?

3 -  Would your spouse consider a separate bank account (yours) a betrayal?

4 -  Does your spouse feel entitled to know how much you spend on everything you buy?

5 -  Does your spouse insist on pooling your two incomes leaving you with little or no cash of your own?

6 -  Does your spouse refuse to open or pay bills and explode when you bring that up?

7 -  Does your spouse hide material pertaining to his or her financial past?

8 -  Does your spouse expect your to pay off his or her debts?

9 -  Does your spouse have a pattern of being fired from jobs for being ‘unappreciated’?

10 -  Does your spouse steal from work and consider it normal?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, take a hard look at your joint financial life and ask yourself if you are being controlled in subtle or not-so-subtle ways by a person with money issues. If you are, address those problems immediately before they escalate into something overwhelming. Get help if you need it, both financially and emotionally. If you can’t fix the problem, get out. Fast.

In my opinion, every woman (and man) should have a ‘mad money’ account with at least two months rent in it, and preferably at bit more. That way, if you get mad, you have some money. I will leave the symbolic meaning of money in a relationship to Dr. Phil and Oprah. The main point I want to make with my retrospective here is that you earned the money you make, it’s your money, and anyone who shames or abuses you verbally for taking care of yourself financially doesn’t love you. It’s really that simple.

The good new is, you can turn that boat around. And things get better a lot faster than you might expect!

Over the past ten years employers in the United States have been abandoning traditional pension plans for full-time workers and replacing them with 401K benefits or, sometimes, with nothing. Some pension plans were underfunded and went bust or are shaky at best, and changes in the laws governing pension funding have left employees victimized by mismanagement with little legal recourse.

The way we look at work has also changed radically. Employers now look to ‘turn over’ workers in about two years in most jobs, well before their new employees qualify for increased benefits, raises, or promotions, and most people starting out in the world of work expect this and plan from the start to move around a lot. ‘Up or out’ in two years is the new unwritten corporate rule, and though it might not be written, it is spoken openly.

That’s all fine if you happen to be 22, new to a career, and financially savvy, but what if you’re middle-aged, unlucky, or unfortunate? Many Baby Boomers are financially unprepared for a retirement that is just around the corner. For some, the rules changed in the middle of their game and they now have only partial pensions or no pensions at all, inadequate 401k or IRA savings, and lots of debt. Some counted on the equity in their homes funding their retirements, then got caught upside-down on home equity lines when the housing bubble burst. Some simply got lost in the increasing cost of everything, and now are looking at working far past the age of 65, just to make ends meet.

At the end of 2007, 18% of Americans had who had 401k plans also had outstanding loans against them, up from 11% in 2006, and studies have shown that most people are cutting back or cutting out their contributions to these plans entirely due to financial stress. This is a serious mistake.

If you are nearing retirement and are in this situation, you can take some basic steps to make a plan. Yes, it’s late, but as they say, better late than never. Consider the following list as a way to get started:

• Make a balance sheet. Total up your debts and your assets. Don’t forget to include property and personal belongings on the assets side. Be honest about your debts. Facing them is the first step to getting out from under them, no matter how late in the day it is.
• Make a budget. Yes, it’s boring and tedious and depressing, but do it anyway. What comes in to your budget in the way of income each month? What goes out? What do you spend money on? If you aren’t sure, carry a little notebook around with you for a week and write down every single thing you buy. This will in all likelihood shock you. Don’t pretend to do it, thinking you already know. Actually do it. Don’t judge yourself, just record every penny you spend.
• Review, with help if necessary. Do you own things you could comfortably sell to get rid of some of your debt? Are there things on your list of expenditures (your little notebook list) that you could do without in order to save the money instead? When I did the little notebook exercise, for example, I discovered I spend about $90 on tea, crappy vending machine snacks, and coffee at work each month. By bringing my own and forgoing that convenience, I was able to pocket that money instead.
• Seek legal help where appropriate. Is your debt-to-income ratio so hideous you can’t figure out a way to pay it back even if you live to be 150? Make an appointment with an attorney and find out what your options are. Sometimes you can negotiate the debt down, especially if its unsecured, and make a payment plan contingent on closing your credit line until you are back on track.

Once you’ve done this initial review, you can then proceed to make a plan to clean up your financial life and simplify so you can look at retirement. Your goal is to pare down your expenditures whatever it takes and start saving money, while looking for additional income. Here are a few possibilities:

• Move down. Can you move to a smaller, less expensive home and be happy? Everyone’s situation is very different, but if you are able to sell or are in a position to buy, this single step might solve a lot of your problems and free up cash that you can put away for when you do hit 65.
• Make more money. It’s funny, but most people don’t ever think of this option. Ask yourself if you are being paid what you are worth, and if not, ask yourself how you can get that amount of money. Maybe no jobs exist in your locale that fit your life experience and skills. In that case, what about self-employment instead of or in addition to what you currently do? Most people over 50 have gotten pretty good at something, and if you are not currently doing what you are good at, ask yourself how you can. Make your last working years as lucrative as you possibly can.
• Pay yourself first. Do you pay all your bills and get what you need and then save what is left over? That is completely backwards. Stop doing that. Figure out what you need to save for your retirement, put that away first, then find a way to cover what you have to pay for daily expenses with what you have leftover. This is where extra income, creative thinking, help with debt management, and selling off stuff you don’t need can be crucial. It may sound harsh, but no one is going to look after you except you. If you put retirement money away, you will somehow be here and be fed from one day to the next. If you wait until you have ‘extra’ you will never have what you need and you will . You come first, Citicorp comes last. Sorry, Citicorp.
• Network, ask for help. A lot of people are in the same situation you are. Talk to them. Find out how they are coping and ask about local resources for displaced workers, debt management, help with utilities, financial planning, and investment planning. Become a pest and a tireless advocate for yourself. Now is not the time for pride or modesty. Be bold about your abilities and open about what you need. You might be surprised by what develops.
• Write out your ideal retirement. For most people, retirement means they stop doing whatever they did for eight hours a day for most of their adult lives. Few people take the time to think about what they want to do instead. What are you looking forward to most when it comes to retirement? Is it down time? Travel? More time for hobbies and interests you have set aside while working? Can you do any of these same things for money, even ten or fifteen hours a week and be happy? Once you know what you want, you can begin to make a realistic plan to get it. If you don’t know what you want, then all those warnings about how you must have X amount of dollars to retire comfortably will intimidate you into doing nothing out of sheer hopelessness.

None of these suggestions are magic bullets. Like that annoying investment house TV commercial says, your retirement is as individual as you are. Only you can see where you are financially, where you want to be, and what you need to do to move from Point A to a blissful Point B.

The point is to get started. Don’t wait another minute. Quit reading this. Just do it.

The checks are in the mail! Oh yes? How nice. Soon we will all get some of our own money back in the form of a tax rebate from Uncle Sam. We are told that this rebate is designed to stimulate the sagging US economy. (Now there’s an alarming visual!)

Here are a few eensy problems with this ‘gift’ you may or may not be aware of:

• We had to borrow the money from China to get the check in the mail.
• If you filed your taxes with a third party tax preparer it may be delayed.
• If you are on social security and get your check direct deposited, you won’t get your tax rebate that way unless you filled out an additional form in which you provided your routing and account numbers, even though the government already has them. You’ll be mailed a check.
• If your total tax liability was less than $600 you won’t get $600 back, your rebate will be reduced.
• By the time we all get these rebates all of it will be going directly into our gas tanks.

You can find a table showing when you can expect your rebate check at the IRS website www.irs.gov. You can also use their online calculator to figure out exactly how much you will get. Most people will receive $600. Most married couples will receive $1200. Married couples with dependent children will receive an additional $300 per child.

If you owe money to the IRS, they will keep your rebate, apply it to what you owe, and send you a letter about what they did and why they did it in lieu of a check. You probably already knew that. If you live on your social security check and did not file a 2007 tax return because you have no other income, you will get nothing. You have to file a 2007 tax return, even if you had no income in 2007, to get the rebate. If you live on social security and have not done this, you will not receive a rebate.

The whole mess makes me really cranky.

You may be thinking right about now, “What kind of curmudgeon could possibly be against free money from the IRS?” This kind of curmudgeon, that’s what kind. Sure, I will take the money. I’m not going to send it back. But the cost of this stunt is astronomical and the impact on the country’s financial problems is sure to be minimal or even negative.

Putting $300-$600 in every taxpayer’s pocket in this economy is like leaving a quarter tip in a restaurant and telling the waitress, “Now go out and get yourself something nice with that, honey.” Remember all the great stuff you bought with the last tax rebate from the Bush administration?

Me neither.

As usual, no one is calling Pam asking for her opinion on how to solve the current economic mess. I totally understand why not. But if they were calling me, here are a few of the requests I would make:

Help people at the bottom who are losing their homes due to the subprime mortgage crisis. Our judgmental attitude toward homeowners impacted by this mess is hurting the entire economy. Why repossess homes that can’t be sold at any price because a) loans are hard to get and b) few people have the money to buy right now? What good are vacant overvalued properties to anyone? Look at the mess Cleveland is in right now with empty foreclosed properties destroying whole neighborhoods, eroding the tax base, and driving home prices down ever lower month to month. Bernanke’s ‘ain’t-gonna-happen’ solution involves requiring banks to rework the mortgages on foreclosed properties by reducing the principal until it is in line with real values is the right one here. It ain’t gonna happen, but it is the right solution.

Jobs, we need good jobs. Oh, and we also need good jobs. Good jobs would help too. And another thing that would help is good jobs. Yes, we only lost 20,000 jobs in April instead of the anticipated 80,000. Hello? No matter how delirious Wall Street may be about that news, this is not cause for celebration for the little people down here who actually rely on these lost jobs for our livelihood.

Will somebody please slap together a sound energy policy? Because right now, we don’t have one. We needed an aggressive, proactive renewable energy policy about, oh, thirty years ago, and now that we are watching oil prices leap off the charts and food prices leap right behind behind them, what do we get? A call to repeal the gas tax for three months and make the oil companies pay it. That will not do much for our falling-down bridges, pot-holed highways, and crumbling infrastructure, but it will save us from having to actually think and make intelligent changes to the way we live. Oh, and after driving up demand and hence, prices, it will save the average driver almost nothing.

No doubt some people will go out and buy new TVs or washing machines with their tax rebates, but my sense is that an awful lot of people will pay last month’s mortgage payment, catch up on the overdue utility bills, buy staples in bulk at Costco, pay down unsecured debt, or put the money in savings. It isn’t wrong or bad to blow tax rebate money on a flat screen TV. Each one of us getting those rebates has earned that money, so we can certainly use it as we please. What bothers me is that this money is being offered in place of responsible government fiscal policy. “Go out and spend,” is not fiscal policy. We can’t be the spenders of the free world unless we have good jobs providing real services or products and a government with an eye on the future and our real energy needs.

It’s obvious that we don’t have anything even close to that right now. That being the case, these checks, welcome as they are, are not designed to stimulate anything, not really. The checks are just a lame attempt to stave off the next major financial crisis until this administration has left Washington for good, and can watch the fall of the American financial empire from one of their many vacation homes.

Seriously, it never was their problem, was it?