The Real Deal

picture from Mount Saint Vincent University website

ALRIGHT, this is just getting crazy. I don't know how many times throughout my time at UMass have I stated, "I REALLY wish I was a Nursing major." I mean, let's face it, just because I said I wanted to be a nursing major doesn't mean I could have done it, but I've wished it. My mother is a nurse who always told me I should get into nursing although it was never in my field of interest. Over the past few years there have been numerous reports informing the us of the rising average age of nurses nationwide and that graduates of nursing programs will always be guaranteed a job. Never did I see this coming. This recession has certainly hit hospitals hard and it looks like Boston hospitals are claiming that they are at full staff capacity.

Today's Boston Globe story, "Staffs full, nurses struggle for work" is utterly nauseating. I have asked my mother recently why hospitals are having hiring freezes and she said that many people are not going through the pricey procedures that they typically would. The Boston Globe today makes a reference similar to what my mother has said. I have always thought that nurses would be fine and employed, but boy was I wrong. The article does reassure that things will get better, but I just was so oblivious to the fact that the medical world also gets hit by a recession. Sad because it leaves many unemployed and unhealthy.

Obama

boston.com photo

New Report, Unemployment

As economists have reported, we have been in a Recession since December 2007. The November report, unemployment rate rose from 6.5% to 6.7% according to the News Release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment persons up to 10.3 million. Yikes. Where do we go from here? When will things get better?

"U.S. Loses 533,000 Jobs in Biggest Drop Since 1974"

- New York Times

Ivy League aspirations to State School reality

I created this post a few days ago after reading a Boston Globe article that infuriated me entitled, "Downturn paring college dreams" and a CNN special about a student trading his Ivy League dream to an affordable state school. For some reason, according to the Globe and their interviews, students think that they are "lowering their standards" by applying to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst due to the financial crisis and their parent's pockets minimizing. Today, as I searched Boston.com to include the article from Tuesday I came across another disgruntled reader like myself who wrote an opinion piece for today's paper defending UMass Amherst.


UMass Amherst does not receive the credit that it deserves for being the outstanding institution that it is. I have always promoted this
institution for being a great educational experience and derailed the "Zoomass Amherst" image that many adults still believe stands true. UMass will grant you an invaluable experience and a receipt that doesn't look like Northeastern's, Brandis, or Stonehill College. Newsflash, high school seniors that once thought of UMass as their safetly school, may not be accepted into this fine university.

Cheered for UMass my first three years

Revise my spending

Being young, and especially a woman, it is hard to be frugal when it comes to fashion. I just LOVE a great dress, I can't help it. Although I am not one to drop big bucks on one certain item, I do like to buy. Even though I have barely had money in college, I still somehow manage clothes/dresses/shoes packed into my closet. With the current economic status and if I EVER think I want to own a home, have a wedding, or pay my bills, it is clear that I need to start revising my spending habits. I know that graduation from college releases the dependence of my parents. I have faith that eventually things will get better and hopefully by the time I want to start investing my own money, I will actually have some to do so. For now, I NEED TO SAVE.

"It’s Official: Recession Started One Year Ago"

New York Times
"Any serious market recovery would require a determined response from global governments, he said, but investors have lots of questions about how the policy measures that have already been announced will work." - NYT



The Boston Globe
"The U.S. economy has been in a recession since December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday. The NBER -- a private, nonprofit research organization -- said its group of academic economists who determine business cycles met and decided that the U.S. recession began last December." - BG

Stimulus Package or No Stimulus Package?

Two different perspectives from New York Times Op-ed columns have been published in the past two days. David Brooks', columnist for the New York Times, "Stimulus of Skeptics," suggests that an economic stimulus package may not be the answer to get the economy back in order. The article questions whether an economic stimulus package will put the money in the hands of the right people. Brooks refers to Michael Porter's article in October's BusinessWeek.

"A $1 Trillion Dollar Answer" by Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia, expresses belief that a stimulus package is needed, a big one, to build up the economy and keep people working. "Mr. Obama’s announced goal of 2.5 million new jobs by 2011 is too modest. In the next two years, almost four million workers will enter the labor force — or would if there were jobs."

Stimulus or No Stimulus? Do consumers need the extra cash? Are there any real answers for ANYTHING that is currently happening?

Vanity Fair

I picked up the December 2008 issue of Vanity Fair to read at the gym this morning and came across this article by Harvard University Professor of History Niall Ferguson, "Wall Street Lays Another Egg."

Wall Street Lays Another Egg
"Not so long ago, the dollar stood for a sum of gold, and bankers knew the people they lent to. The author charts the emergence of an abstract, even absurd world—call it Planet Finance—where mathematical models ignored both history and human nature, and value had no meaning."

This is exactly the article I have been looking for, quite the read of the crisis.

The Editor's note in this issue is also FANTASTIC.