Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Ailr 17-29th Notes

As of April 27th we have a new player on the world stage, complicating just about everything--the Swine flu!--possible influenza pandemic. It's "swine"flu" which is really a DNA mixture of Avian and Swine and Human DNA, so It's a hybrid flu. I started to think on the first day we heard about it on eht MSM that it might be somewhat alarmist but I don't think so now. and who am I to say someone else is alarmist??!! LOL We want to be aware and prepared for possibilities but healths services have been preparing for possible flu pandemics for a few years now.

Started in Mexico and is spreading to all around the world. It can be mild and no worse than any regular flu but there are some deaths and very seriously ill people from this in Mexico and the US.

As of 29th, we’ve had an elementary school closed for seven Calendar days in North Central Phoenix as a result of a confirmed “swine” flu in a student there. Students were sent home at midday and sstate health officials had a press conference to talk about it and explain other flue preparations they’ve made. This seems to be developing very quickly. We certainly should be better prepared than previous possible epidemics or pandemic than in the past.

On Thursday, april 23, I had a great afternoon with Penny and Maura at Penny’s new place in Mesa. they will be returning to Montana for the summer and be back in October.

Economic news on the 23rd: 12th week in a row for huge employment numbers around 640.000 again .. broadcast NBC news is broadcasting more of the same/probably going to get worse message tonight. Actually, they’ve been broadcasting that essage for the past two months. Some nights it just sounds so much worse and other nights not so bad.

On April 29th, GDP shrank by 6.1 % first quarter 2009, it was contracting by 6.3% in last Q of 2008.

AIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYIYI! On a positive note, I have all the guaranteed singatures for stock stuff to send off.

WASH YOU HANDS OUT THERE,

Peace to all, Shamba

Saturday, April 18, 2009

April 7th and April 17th

April 17, 2009

Accomplishments for the week:

Taxes away! Or at least for another year. Last one for my mother; many years of tax return filings left for me.

I had to go to the brokers last week to pick up some stock papers from him to get them to the accountant before the 15th. His securities firm wouldn’t let him fax the information he had for Michael! Another folder of paper to store for a while. Ah, well ….

I get a good sized refund this year—that’s a surprise. And a small refund from the state.

Creditor’s info sent to the paralegal.

My Wells Fargo safe deposit box mystery is almost solved. Staff member found the listing in the computer and we went to look at where the boxes were. They have the box but I can’t find the key!

If I don’t’ find it in a week they have someone drill into open it. Twist is there are two boxes with similar numbers so it’s a tossup between which box is really mine. Key says, but I can’t find the key where it should be since last year. If I have to pay for two boxes to be drilled open, then that’s the way it will have to be. I have to get to the bottom of this box and what’s in it. I think there are silver coins that Dad gave me once and some documents. My passport, though, I have at home.

Have to do an inventory of Mom’s assets and estimated/real worth on the day she died.

Paid myself back to paying the first estate legal bill; payback is always good! Hehehehe

April 7, 2009

Okaaaay! After my online class I feel terribly informed but not sure what happens next … Where am I going from here with projects for the house, general preparedness issues and what will I do for the rest of my life??? A lot to decide in one hour, I guess

Summer will be here in 3-4 weeks, it will be May then already. Need to schedule tune-up for AC.
Waiting on tax information to send off. I may have to pay, and the deadline is midnight Wednesday, April 15, next week.

There are two unclaimed properties at the state of Arizona ... I think. I sent off for the met life stock and should get a letter back about that. That leaves the one certificate I have. I’d forgotten about it until the certificate fell out of a folder.

Pinnacle West stock stuff gets done tomorrow; Comcast has to send a current statement of the account before the CU personnel can do a guaranteed signature. I probably need that for PW stock anyway.

None of this stock is worth a whole lot under 500 each, maybe doesn’t even total that altogether.
Cheers,
shamba

Sunday, April 5, 2009

April 1-3 Update

April 3
The dryers were all full and still had about 15-20 minutes to go when I got my 2 wash loads of laundry this afternoon. I didn’t realize that all 4 were bull when I put my laundry in. So, I decided it was a good time to try the clothesline idea. Last summer sometime, I picked up a good sized but easy to carry folding laundry basket, clothesline and 2 packages of clothes pins.
I hung the pants and knit tops and shirts on hangars and hung them in the bathroom. I always hang better pants, capris and shorts, not jeans, inside. Other things, except for denim things, to in a dryer. Denim gets hung on the bushes in the front of the house until dark—they’re usually dry much sooner than that anyway. And it’s not so classy to have clothes hanging all over the landscaping for more than one afternoon.

Anyway, I tied up the clothesline and hung out the undies and socks and some prs of knit shorts went on the patio chairs. And no one will see them, unless they peek over the block wall. J
That didn’t take long either. And saved me 25 to 50 cents.

Oh, yes, unemployment is up after March figures to 8.5% and what was that about unemployment going to 9% by the end of 2009?? (Someone made that prediction even as late as the end of February) If we keep going this way it will be like 12% by the end of Dec.

Off to do something positive,
shamba

April 1 2009

Some latest Arizona Econ Info:
-On local HBC channel 12 on 6:00 p.m. news (3-31-09) leading story was that the average home price in Phoenix (area or metro incorporated area?) in March 07 was 255,000; in March 09 (now) it’s 150,00; a 53% drop. (I didn’t do the math I just wrote down what they said on air)
Some other US news: from various sources online.
-Manufacturing in the U.S. contracted for a 14th straight month in March as factories kept on cutting production amid the economic downturn that this month becomes the longest since the Great Depression.
-The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008. President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Either met with the chief executives of the nation’s 12 biggest banks on March 27 at the White House to enlist their support to thaw a 20-month freeze in bank lending.
-“Companies in the U.S. cut an estimated 742,000 workers in March, pointing to no relief in sight for the labor market amid the longest recession in seven decades, a private report based on payroll data showed today. The drop in the ADP Employer Services gauge was larger than economists forecast and the most since records began in 2001. February’s reading was revised to show cut of 706,000 workers, up from a previous estimate of 697,000.Companies are slashing staff as tight credit conditions and shrinking household wealth cause sales to shrink. The Labor Department may report in two days that employers cut payrolls in March for a 15th consecutive month, putting jobs losses in the current downturn at more than 5 million, according to a Bloomberg survey. "The weakness is distributed across all components of the economy," Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in St. Louis, said in a conference call. "We are going to see several more months of serious bleeding before we see lesser job losses."
-"The pace of decline is slowing down, that’s important," David Wyss, chief economist with Standard & Poor’s in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "It is too early to look for a turnaround, but maybe it is time to start saying that things are not getting as bad as quickly as they were earlier."
-The OECD predicted that world trade will shrink by 13.2pc in 2009. The forecast is worse than those from the World Trade Organisation and World Bank and indicates a faster and more widespread implosion of imports and exports than in any single year during the 1930s.
--The USDA said farmers intend to plant the nation's 21 biggest crops on 7.8 million fewer acres than last year, the biggest one-year drop since 1987, when the farm belt was mired in a debt crisis. The retreat is most dramatic in states like North Dakota, where farmers intend to plant 1.4 million fewer acres, and in Texas, where farmers could idle one million acres. Many growers still have time to change their plans for the growing season, which begins in mid-April across much of the farm belt. The USDA will survey farmers about actual plantings in June.

I’m waiting to see what M. says about my 2007 taxes before I decide what to do with the IRAs money.
Two more small stock transfers to do before I’m done with the estate stuff. Yeah!

Cheers,
shamba