it’s special.

the QCP became a place not only to share our adventures in quarter century crisis land, but it also became a gathering place to talk about events outside our personal life as well.

so i’m taking that idea and running with it, via:

invitetowrite.wordpress.com

see you there!

Cindy wrote that the QCP was born out of frustration and confusion. Which I think is reflected in some of our posts. But for me, personally, the benefit of the QCP was the ability to communicate with other people going through many of the same issues. We tried to figure out the financial crisis together, we talked about our plans and dreams for the future, and we did it all in a supportive, fun atmosphere.

So, thank you to all the contributors, posters, and readers. And a big thank you to Cindy, because without her it never would have been possible. Huzzah!

happy new year!

i have a little BIG announcement to make.

this will be one of the last posts to go up on the QCP. the first one was welcomed to the world on january 16, 2008. i thought it appropriate that the last one(s) will occur exactly one year later.

what happens in a year? a lot can, apparently. i’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that. as i look back on this year and read all the posts that my fellow contributors and i have put up for public consumption, i cannot help but feel a swell of pride. i am proud of all my writers for their frank, well-written, interesting posts and i am proud of all the QCP readers for not just reading these posts, but also commenting on them in equally inspiring ways. we are lucky to have readers like you. i am lucky to have writers like you.

this project was born out of frustration, out of disillusionment, out of confusion. not necessarily negative things. because of being lost, we were able to embark upon a blogging adventure that has set our inquisitive natures burrowing deep within ourselves. and though we may not have found any concrete answers or solved any great mysteries, i do believe we have taken great strides towards reaching somewhere. wherever that somewhere is for you. sometimes vagueness can still bring reassuring answers.

this project was also born out of a lot of hope and deep rooted belief. the hope for better and the deep rooted belief that through dialogue, words, conversation, we can and are able to help one another. no one is alone in life. i think this blogging project was a celebration of what it means to be who we are at this particular time, in this particular phase, in reaching out to others around us, and the support we can all get as a collective.

it isn’t that this blog is no longer relevant. it isn’t that i am no longer interested in all things related to the QCC. it is more a reckoning that it is simply time to move on.  this place shall be and always will remain. and i wont stop thinking about it for a long, long time, if ever. you are welcome to come here anytime to read, to comment still. the blog will live on, but i suppose its role now if more one of reflection rather than action.

i cannot imagine better company than yours as this journey unfolded. thank you. this definitely won’t be the last you see of me. there are many other blogging projects in the works, which i am excited to share with you. so please stay tuned!

meanwhile, continue to find your own path, delineated by your own self. i am confident you can do it. and whenever it gets tough, remember the people in your life, remember the QCP. we are a formidable team, ridden with questions and most likely in possession of the answers to those questions all along.

with love,

cindy

Now, I’m not a Communist, but this just seems unfair.  When did we get away from the lowest-paid jobs being a few percent below the next highest-paid, and then another few percent, and so on up to the top brass only making 5-10% more than their subordinates?  When did a line worker at GM become worth twice as much (that’s 100% more, folks) as me?  When did CEOs become worth millions of times more $$ than the guy sweeping the floors?  Or the door greeter, who these days is being asked to risk his life to the possibility of being trampled to death on Black Friday?  And when did government start subsidizing those massive salaries?

Speaking of taxpayer money, have you heard the funny story about AIG’s “retention packages” (aka “bonuses”) that they’re using part of their $150-billion bailout money to make, instead of using that money to free up credit and…oh I don’t know…FIX THE F***ING ECONOMY like they’re supposed to???  Can someone explain to me why, oh why, that bailout money didn’t come with some…oh I don’t know…RESTRICTIONS AS TO USE???

This all ties in to my general feeling that our economy is heading for a big crash.  And by “crash” I don’t mean a (*gasp*!) year in which retail spending actually decreased during the holidays, like 2008.  (Fun fact: did you know it’s never gone below flat, and has averaged 8-10% increases for the last 3 decades?  Someone do the math and tell me how much higher than inflation that comes to.  Can we all say “living beyond our means“?)  I mean that the whole thing is just going to implode.  

We no longer use our money as a surrogate to trade goods for services, or vice versa, as it was originally intended.  We have these enormous bank balances, retirement accounts, stock holdings, bailout packages.  It seems as though it’s all play money, because if a company that’s been paying its workers an average of $70 per hour can’t afford to do so any longer, and the workers would rather see their company go bankrupt than give up their wages (mostly because their union will keep paying them 90% of their current wage if they get laid off so they’ll basically get paid for doing nothing), we’re in a death spiral.

Isn’t this something the new administration should work to change as they try to create 2.5 million jobs?  If we create massive infrastructure projects, shouldn’t those jobs ALL be compensated at a level that allows a living wage (as opposed to the “workers” being paid minimum wage while the “supervisors” make a bundle)?  And what about hiring private companies to do infrastructure work?  I would hope that Obama’s people would at least vet any private contractors (hopefully better than McCain’s people vetted Sarah Palin), but that wouldn’t prevent the Dick-Cheneys of the world from getting rich off taxpayer money. 

I hope Obama and his amazing team can figure it out.  We have so many lessons we can learn from, both in our own country’s past and in other countries.  Let’s not keep making the same mistakes.

So what will be different now that W is almost retired? Well, of course we’re all excited about Obama, optimism, change, hope, etc. On the other hand, there’s going to be a collective sigh of grief from all the humorists and comedians who will no longer have such an easy target. I know Jon Stewart is already mourning W’s departure.

On a more serious note, I have to say that now that Bush is leaving, I’m not quite so filled with rage at the sight of him. He seems more like a bumbling idiot than an evil mastermind. Yes, his policies are still doing damage around the world and creating chaos here at home, particularly with the financial meltdown. But there’s a ray of hope that wasn’t around a year ago, or even six weeks ago. It’s not just that Obama is a breath of fresh air, it’s the promise that we can actually improve our country, our standing in the world, and the lives of our citizens. Particularly on the left, there’s been so much depression for the last 8 years that the Democratic party was broken, that it couldn’t stand up to the right, and that the left would never win another presidential election.

And now, with the Obama transition moving along smoothly, with the appointment of a “team of rivals” that are competent, intelligent and well-known, it looks like the government will start doing its job. The symbolic changes alone are exciting. I heard Obama talking about his wish to hold poetry readings at the White House, along with bringing in prominent scientists to give talks at the White House. Finally, facts, culture and science will not be the enemies of the administration! And I’m also heartened to hear reports that Bush and his administration have been quite cooperative in the transition; it was embarrassing back in 2001 when the Clinton staffers trashed the White House and destroyed government property.

So, all you QCP-ers out there, what are your thoughts on the final days of the Bush Presidency? What are your hopes for the coming months and years? And how have your feelings about Obama changed since the election?

this morning i started reading about the auto bailout once again. yeah, i know congress said no. but the issue hasn’t gone away. do you think the Big Three are really and truly concerned about the people who will suffer from a failed american auto industry or are the CEOs of those huge companies just using that as a scare tactic, to make themselves look better in front of those they’re asking money from- like the bailout is for someone and something greater than themselves? the top dogs are still top dogs in the end. i doubt any of the big guns in the banking industry walked away worrying about how they’re going to pay for their mortgages or put food on the table. but those they laid off most certainly did. and what about those countless companies that cant even ask for a government bailout? what do they do?

on the flip side, gas prices are slipping everyday. wait, does that count as a flip side to all this? i’d like to think that after the astronomical prices we paid at the pump this summer, people have been learning and changing their oil consumption ways. i think they have. or am i looking at the world through rose-colored glasses?

then again i just went and conducted a fare search for a cross country flight for next february and balked at the prices they were asking for. what the- ? i don’t get it.

it all makes me feel uneasy. when we were kids, we learned that what we do and say can and most often will affect other people. vice versa. over the years, it’s been proven to me more times than i can count. as i see our economy falter and in some cases, even crumble around me, i cannot help but get a nervous twitch. when will i start to get affected by all this- have i already in ways i haven’t even realized? there’s no way i can remain immune to what’s going on in the grander scheme of things. right? but when exactly will it hit me square in the nose? and will i be ready for it? will you?

This doesn’t mean that I give up all my shopping or stop my cable, I think it just means being more aware of my purchases and how I want to live in the future.  I think buying a house makes you really reevaluate everything!  To me, it was a bigger decision than getting married.  So where do I go from here?  Fight the urge to spend frivolously (which I absolutely adore) and be aware of what I have and what I need, because to me the future and the family I want should mean more to me than that nice new gadget or sweet new dress that is on sale.

I think what this recent economic crisis has shown me and a lot of other Americans is that we can’t always buy now and pay later because later comes sooner than expected.  I don’t want to be that American family with the 2 cars in the driveway and the repo man at the back door.  I want to be proud of what I have because it is what I earned and not be so caught up in keeping up with the Jones’ because statistically, the Jones’ are probably up to their ears in debt.  Its been a complete reevaluating of what makes me happy and what I value.  And while it would be nice to have a lot of nice new things, I think I’d rather sleep well at night.

Has the world’s economic state of affairs made anyone else reevaluate?  Am I being overly sensitive/cautious?

i touched on this sort of kind of in another post previously. but it was a much more personal one. this post is mainly inspired and written for a loyal QCP reader who brought this topic up to me in the first place.

correct me if i’m wrong, but when it came to the showdown between mccain and obama, the question and subject of race was not as prevalent or heated as when it was obama versus clinton.

nevertheless, race was still brought up. it always struck me that… pollsters had to break down the the vote of races. who were the hispanics in line with? were the blacks backing up obama? what about those asians? were native americans even mentioned?

when one looks at barack obama, how is he identified? black male. yet immediately following that, there were outcries of, he is not all that black. so what does that phrase mean exactly? does it bother people that something like that had been said about him?

it bothers me. back in august when i talked about identifying with my chinese roots, cultural heritage, identity, i wondered if race was the only factor in producing my identity? it shouldn’t be. but when someone looks at me, they immediately think chinese, not american. look, i’m not particularly good at math, i drive just fine, but yes i love having rice for dinner and i happen to know how to play the piano AND the violin. do any of those above mentioned things make me more or less chinese? apparently it does depending on who is talking to me.

barack obama went to an ivy league law school, is in fact biracial, well spoken, highly intelligent, and doesn’t live in the projects. for some, those factors automatically make him less black (and implicitly, more white?). less black than who exactly? someone who is poorly educated, had two black parents, spoke in ebonics, unintelligent, and does live in the projects?  i would like to question those who have a need to question how authentic a black man barack obama is. identifying with your race, as much as it is an in-your-face-obvious-for-anyone-to-see should not be something that is challenged by anyone. excuse me, but it seems to me that someone is out there claiming that they are blacker than obama by saying he is not black enough. so what are the qualifying factors?

how much further do we want to push stereotypes? and who gets to decide?

i think what president elect obama proved by winning this presidential election, among many other great things of course, is that race (we won’t even get into gender) actually isn’t the sole identifying factor for a person’s, well, identity. in my perfect world, i would not be labeled as automatically chinese the minute someone meets me. and what i do, where i live, what i’m good at or bad at, shouldn’t be racial identifiers. perhaps the same could be said for him. the true substance of who i am, what i stand for, and what i believe can and will shine through by the multitude of other attributes that i show to outside world.

at the end of the day, we who truly know who we are, simply do. no one else can challenge that. no one else can dare take that away from us.