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Is Recession Only Media-Driven?

KS said, “Why can’t the media stop driving recession? I’d rather turn off the telly and get on with my life.”


Tell these people whose jobs are going overseas that it’s media driven.

Hey folks! have a nice day! Take a vacation, buy a pool!”

It’s absolutely not media driven. The media may be contributing to the fear, but they certainly aren’t *DRIVING* it.

It would be entirely irresponsible for the media to say to the public :

“*IGNORE* that you’re paying 30% more for gas. *IGNORE* that you have less money after paying your bills. Ignore that your pay has been declining for the past 5 years. *IGNORE* that you have no equity in your homes to take out home equity loans. You, the general public need to go out and spend the money you no longer have! Be happy, spend money! Get this economy rolling again!!”

Frankly, if you don’t have it to spend, and if you can’t get a loan against your assets, then you don’t spend.

In our corner of the world, it’s a 30% higher fuel cost, leading to higher transportation costs, higher heating costs, higher food bills and lower disposable income. It also doesn’t help that for 100 years, we had factory jobs that paid twice the national wage and those jobs have now gone overseas.

Feel free to complain about a “media driven recession,” but nationwide, people who follow the news – and those that don’t – are all feeling the pain of higher prices, lower disposable income.

Filed Under: Resources
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Google Maps for that Ultimate Street View Experience

DC noticed one amazing Google Maps feature – Street View. It’s simply awesome for letting you travel anywhere you want.


Actually, Google maps works better than you know. Here’s the awful truth.
Google’s street view isn’t really new. It’s been around since May 2007, but they’ve been adding new cities.


Last Autumn, before my family vacationed in San Francisco, we used Google’s Street view to take a virtual walk from the Hotel we chose to Fisherman’s Wharf. We were able to “walk down the streets” in Google maps, look around at all the buildings, until we arrived at our destination. A few weeks later, when we were physically in San Francisco, the experience of *really* walking down the streets was eerily familiar compared to our “virtual walk” in Google Maps, weeks earlier.


Here’s a real-world example. Click the arrows on the street to walk down the street.


Here’s when you can see in which US Cities Google provides a photographic street view.

Filed Under: Resources, Travel Tips