I have been a fan of Charles Schwab & Co. for many years and use many of their financial products and services.  I thought this was a worthwhile bit of content to share and it is available on the public portion of their site. 

Their point of view – doomsday fears are overblown.

Have you stopped to think a moment about all the writers, analysts, pundits, journalists, etc. who so liberally use the word "depression" these days with such apparent expertise are the same ones who said nothing leading up to the current gyrations?  They don't know any more than you or I (and in some cases less) and are chasing ratings/subscribers/viewers.  The more dire the diagnosis, the more you tune in.  Take it with a grain of salt.

Read the whole thing from Schwab as it does a nice job comparing and contrasting where we were then vs. where we are now and calls out the following points as reasons to believe:

1.  'Jobless recovery' (from previous decline period means fewer reductions this time around)
2.  Fiscal policy (government focused on stimulus)
3.  Globalization (no protectionist mindset)
4.  The FDIC (it exists this time around)
5.  Money supply (Fed adding liquidity this time around)
6.  Housing near bottom (not there yet but falling less)
7.  Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (US Treasury steps in as a buyer)

No doubt, this is going to continue to be ugly for a while and the new sport of calling the bottom of the market decline needs to be replaced by nausea and vomiting before we really get there.  My view is positive in the long-term based on belief in the US and US economy.  I can't think any other way. 

I like to poke a bit of fun at the Google gang here as it comes with the territory when you become the dominant player in so many things.  That said, I use lots of Google services from email to RSS to finance and would even (don't tell them) consider paying for it at some point should that buy me out of their ad driven world.  A topic for another day…

The point of this post is as follows: 

Google stock is experiencing what most stocks are experiencing these days – a steep decline.  Combine that with the fact that they are an "aging" technology company now at the grand old age of ten and the stage is set. 

Seeing this ridiculous feature now available for Gmail convinced me that they had indeed jumped the shark.  It's not April so it can't be a joke unless they paid to have the date moved.  Do some math before you send a late night email you might regret.  For real?

To me it looks like too many people working on too many things that just don't matter which led to this example of software development run amok.  My guess is that cuts are coming to more than just the free food budget and I hope that all that work to build out Googleplex North up the street from me here in Kirkland works out.  Otherwise there is some mighty nice new office space going to be available in short order.