My first guest post. Read it!

As mentioned yesterday, I will be out of town this week and probably won’t be able to post again. Bummer dude! Make sure to keep checkin’ back as I might be able to sneak a short post here or there. If I get really desperate, I guess I could use my iphone to blog, it would just take a gagillion years to get a few sentences up though. Anyways, I am proud to say I have my first guest post. Jesse from Pffirewall has popped my G.P. cherry (too much information?). When you get done reading his post make sure to check out his website !

I read an article a while back about how a Harvard Economist blames Twitter for the current down economy. The article may have been written as a joke but went on in some great detail about why Twitter is to blame . Here is a little excerpt:

We see the rapid rise of Twitter usage in 2008 correlating very strongly with a tremendous decrease in American productivity,” said Schmeldon. “Our regression analysis on the data suggests a causal relationship that may actually be larger than the impact of the much-touted subprime collateral debt refinancing triggers.

Employees who might otherwise be working productively and contributing to the economy can instead create Tweets, such as “I just realized I clipped all of my nails today except for one” or “My co-worker is drinking pepsi . Pepsi!!! I want some. Stupid Lent” or “Financial systems require high levels of trust and oversight. Take away the oversight and encourage high levels of risk for personal gain.”

This got me thinking. I have heard everyone being blamed for the down economy, from David Bowie to Cosmo Kramer to the savers like you and me that aren’t spending as much as we should be, but who’s really to blame?

Wait, are we still in the third grade? Should we really be trying to figure out who to point the finger at instead of figuring out what we should do to prepare for the worst of it? According to one professional (Nouriel Roubini) in the financial sector, that has been proven right more than once, this crisis won’t be over for another few years.

Anyone that reads my blog knows I tend to get a bit wordy so let me get right to the point and I will try and keep it succinct. Here are some productive ways that we can prepare for the long haul:

• Know how much you make
• Live off less than you make or at very least, don’t live a lifestyle that costs more than you make
• Build a savings in case of emergencies
• If lack of money is the problem and you have a job:
• Make yourself irreplaceable. Become an integral part of the company and think in ways other coworkers don’t
• Ask about overtime at work
• If you don’t work as hard as you could, start
• Once you start working harder, ask for a raise
• Get a side job, or profitable hobby to make a little extra
• Go back to the first list so your increase in income isn’t squandered
• And in this economy there are plenty that are jobless, here’s a list for you:
• Humble yourself if you were once in an executive position
• Take anything you can get, you can always move on if something else comes up
• Be professional and care about your job, even if it’s not what you are used to
• Go back to list one and two
• And for anyone that needs a little extra money and is willing:
• Sell things around the house (people will buy just about anything)
• Sell something virtual (ad space on your site, video game currency, unique domain names, get creative)
• Sell blood, plasma or hair (relatives of mine do it, plasma brings in about $200 a month)

There are thousands and thousands of great ideas out there that you can take advantage of and plenty that haven’t been thought of yet. Instead of sitting around pointing fingers at everyone, apply yourself and see what comes of it.

Thanks pffirewall!