When it Rains it Pours…

For like the past 2-3 weeks I have been sort of down in the dumps per se and the news I got on monday at work did not make things better. I guess when it rains it pours… Okay as we all know, unless you have been living under a rock or bunker somewhere, the country is in a recession. This really hit home for me earlier this week. As some of you may know I work for a major financial company that has been hit hard. When I say hard I mean hard! To the tune of a $75 BILLION debt with no collateral assets to use to bail us out. How the hell (excuse my language in this post, but I’m a little upset) can the 2nd largest company of it’s kind in the WORLD be in such debt and not have anyway of bailing itself out? That is crazy! Our stock is worth 90% less than it was a year ago. So the feds stepped in and loaned us $85 Billion over the next two years to keep the doors open and the company running. This comes with a price. In exchange for the loot, they now own 79.9% of the company and will be selling off portions with all proceeds going to pay back the loan. CEOs are being replaced left and right.
This actually could have been avoided, but we (when I say we I really mean they) wouldn’t accept any of the offers on the table thinking that the company was worth more than they were willing to give.
We (I mean we this time) really didn’t have any idea as to what was going on. I mean, there were little signs like not taking on new clients, closing of a division company wide, and different budget cuts but they are also doing construction upgrades company wide. $20 million worth in my building alone. I knew we weren’t doing as well as before but I didn’t know it was that bad.
So as the government steps in to help, some people are saying that they shouldn’t. “They got themselves into this mess, so they should get themselves out.” I can totally agree but you also have to think about the more than 127 million companies and people that we service worldwide on a daily basis. If they didn’t step in and bail us out, you think the economy is bad now imagine the millions of people all around the world that would be unemployed over let’s say a 3-4 month period. They had to act whether they wanted to or not. We had pretty much 24-48 hours to come up with %75 billion. It’s hard to come up with $100 at times let alone $75 billion!
Today we had a town hall meeting today where they explained some of what was going down and how to reassure our clients that we are going to be okay. This is a scary financial time right about now. If this doesn’t encourage you to go out and vote, and take a friend, than you gotta be crazy. I won’t tell you who to vote for, but I will say vote on the issues not so much the candidate. Put the right person in the white house this time. I support Barack Obama because I want a change and not more of the same. If you think John McCain has the answer than do you. Stand by your choice, right or wrong.
If any of you guys are like me, than I suggest you start filling those shoe boxes with loot for a rainy day and get your umbrellas and ponchos ready because it’s already drizzling and the dam is starting to show cracks.

Peace,
Sincere

PS: Video to accompany coming soon, just gotta take the time to sit and record.