In these days people wouldn’t consider a million dollars to be ultra-rich or even moderately rich. In some parts of the U.S. you might be able to buy a nice 4-bedroom 2.5 bath house in a respectable neighborhood for a million dollars, so what’s the big deal if understandably this economic crisis has engulfed a few millionaires into being thousandaires? More…

It seems that as of late, our country is hard pressed to find a paper, magazine or blog that doesn’t reference our economic hardships, or isn’t inundated with the term recession.  But even the dismal economy hasn’t deterred festival organizers, who once again put forth an environment of eclectic musicians where you could dance your cares away.  Not only do they cater to many musical tastes, they also work hard to provide a ticket to as many people as possible, offering the payment plan ticket package where you pay a down payment now to reserve a ticket, then make monthly installments until the ticket is paid: for more information on this, revisit my article titled “It’s festival season, ya’ll.” With incentives such as these, my fiancé Marcus and I could not pass up the opportunity to attend an event. So we, along with roughly 75,000 other people, had the pleasure of  camping on the 700 acre farm that is Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. More…

Those “Kill Your Television” bumper stickers are about to change to something like, “Kill Your Digital Thingamajigs.” (Where the heck did they come from anyway? Should we give Ned’s Atomic Dustbin all of the credit?)

This nifty concept of killing your television (or everything digital) is a seemingly nice solution to the amalgamation of over-stimulation today. More…

People are hurting out there. There is no denying that we are all collectively, in a funk. Our country is going through an economic slump that no one under the age of 80 has really experienced. You might say that we are living in an age of loss–loss of our homes, loss of our employment, sense of security, and sanity.

Sometimes it is easier to deal with your problems if you can put things into perspective. So let me offer a little help in providing a bit of that perspective. Let us go through a process of comparison - my current lifestyle with the life of one of my earlier “brothers” in the mountains and jungles of Laos. I will call him Mao. I’ll call this exercise “A look into the lifestyles: Kao and Mao Saechao”. More…

Our economic climate has caused a boom, but not surprisingly it’s a boom in bankruptcies. With the mass amount of layoffs occurring, people are falling behind on their credit payments, mortgages and medical bills resulting in a 38% increase of bankruptcy filings in March from a year ago, according to Automated Access to Court Electronic Records (AACER), a bankruptcy data and management company.

In 2008, total bankruptcy filings were 1.1 million, projected for year-end 2009 is anywhere between 1.45 million to 1.5 million. More…

Being thrifty is what’s hot right now. Watching what you spend, not spreading yourself financially thin has finally gained popularity with the country. As the recession took hold people began pinching pennies, spending less, saving more. I guess that’s what happens when your economy hits rock bottom. With all the trouble and debt we’ve incurred, the government decided that it had to step in and try to rebuild our fragile state. New rules and close monitoring seem to help, but the road to recovery will be long and arduous. At least we have a place to start, a glimmer of hope. More…

Business development teams are working hard for that money, getting super clever in this obliterating economy. It’s not that there isn’t enough money going around, it’s just we aren’t maxing out the ways we can get that money into our pockets and from all demographics, say gaming companies and social networks.

Virtual currency is catching on rapidly as companies like MindArk (http://www.mindark.com/) have developed their own online currency to be utilized in their 3D virtual environment for online entertainment. MindArk’s virtual currency called Project Eutropia Dollar (PED), which in essence, is real currency you deposit into their virtual reality to buy virtual goods in their online game Eutropia Universe. More…

Back in the early 2007, there were two basic buyers in the real estate market; those with need and those with greed. Those with greed are called speculators, hyped up and attracted by the thought of fast and easy money in the always-rising real estate market. And now, here in the heart of Silicon Valley, in downtown San Jose the 23 story tall luxury condo residential building is nearly completed and some of the buyers are finding themselves in a predicament like a story I wrote a while ago on my friend Cindy Manalo who sued her agent over the loss of her deposit on a real estate transaction gone awry. However, these cases are different, instead they bought into a wave, a frenzy of thinking that real estate was a sure bet.

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After watching our economy take a downward turn, things are finally looking up. It seems that the provisions the government imposed on the financial market, are doing exactly what they were meant to do. Treasury Secretary Thomas Geithner said that we needed a plan that would not prolong the problem and that our government must “take risks” in order to make some sense of our situation. The improvement in refinanced mortgages and credit conditions indicate we’ve found a promising plan; finally, a step in the right direction, a light at the end of a dark tunnel. Even Larry Summers, top economic adviser to President Obama,”predicts an end to the “free fall” perhaps by summer.” Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kuhn agrees this news may be a sign that the economy will “decline at a slower rate and stabilize later this year.” Could it be? Could this depression be nearing an end, or is it just wishful thinking? More…

It’s tax return season! Soon you will see at least a few dollars to put in your pocket, to spend leisurely, or to lose to a pile of bills. Whatever will you do with it? And what does it mean to you?

Lately I’ve been thinking about money and what it truly means in the grand scheme of everything - life, society, politics, economy, philosophy,  the environment – everything. Many things got me thinking about this money thing that I like to turn away from but the movie Zeitgeist was definitely an eye-opener. It may be considered one of those ‘special interest’ films that you shy away from for a relaxing weekend movie, but it’s more in your interest than you know. (www.zeitgeistmovie.com) It’s available to watch online for free and the people who created it don’t want money (unfathomable).

With that said (and endorsed), the consumer is the most powerful component to the bigger system than they give themself credit for. Around the world, if money and power go hand-in-hand, why not exercise a bit of it on an individual level? More…