Being upbeat and optimistic runs in my veins .  .  . but we all look with eyes wide open to what we see around us — the increase in homeless, the foreclosure signs that multiply over a week’s time, the chains closing, the restaurants with their special coupons and lower prices to try to lore people in, and we know that we have not hit bottom. 

Just today, in hunting up moving company bids for a large building I am renovating, I ran into something unheard of.  In one of America’s largest cities, many name corporations are downsizing, moving to God knows where, and don’t need their almost new office furniture in their smaller locations.  What they are doing is all but giving it away to non-profits or schools that have been living for years with furnishings that saw better days long ago.  From a company you would easily recognize, we have gotten almost new furnishings the like of which we could not afford and have never seen (!) in both cubicles and executive office spaces for the storage costs only until our renovation is completed.  As I understand, this scenario is now a normal one - downsizing or going out of business of major major corporations.  . but their generiosity allows others to make great strides.

Does this look like an upturn?  No.  But if you are involved in a non-profit, it may be the time for you to ask — for you, too, may be "gifted".  And this is a time when non-profits who are trying to help in every way possible - for individuals and  families - must be in place.  It is here that volunteers are needed - a perfect time to be productive between jobs and feel good about yourselves. 

When we as a country have fallen into a chasm with a bottom still not visible, we must have hope in our leaders.  But - in the meantime - we can do many things to help the less fortunate who have stories that break the heart.  We have people on WOW who are doing just that - and from personal knowledge, I have found that when you are in the midst of giving of yourself, you bring sunshine to others … and the WOW of making a difference brings its own happiness.

On ‘Black Friday’ last October I was talking with an acquaintance who has a Harvard MBA, and created and sold a national brand for $145M. When I said to him this was not going away, the fundamentals weren’t there, he dismissed it. Liz Peek did the same here, as did another financial advisor here who was part of the wOw community.

I am very glad that President Obama is at the helm, at the same time believe an emergency summit of Nobel Economists should have been convened in WDC back in October.  

There is no precursor to what is happening today because we’ve never had $700 trillion+ in unregulated, valueless derivatives in the market before overshadowing the global wealth by over ten times. We’ve never had mega-banks/insurance companies the size of Citigroup/BofA/AIG that are bankrupt [morally and otherwise], nor debt the % size of GDP that we own to emerging nations while we aren’t manufacturing anything. Nor have we had the WTO and an interlinked, reactionary global economy; and a wiped-out middle-class.

My sector grew 6% in the last quarter of 2008, and I anticipate will grow even more in the next. And I think that as in the Depression, now is a good time to start intelligent, well conceived and well executed small businesses. Everything is a bargain and small businesses are the engine of the economy. Women, for example, who are doing resumes online have more business than they can handle. Someone I know is making over $100K+ yr online just selling WWII-era vintage, silk-screen posters.

I think reading "What Would Google Do?" is a good thing, because we are in a Google economy and people who get that, understand the Internet really well, will do fine. Other good resources are reading Mashable.com every day. The CEO, Pete Cashmore, is one of the top 25 Internet experts in the world according to Forbes. Entrepreneur.com and the SBA.com site also have lots of good info. 

Action is a magic wand, fear just clouds the mind and sinks the spirit. And listening to pundits instead of doing one’s own careful research will make you feel whipsawed. Seek and ye shall find.