A few days ago GMail simply crashed. The website was down for a few hours and all across the internet it seemed as though people (particularly those attached to their Gmail accounts) were going to jump off the deep end.

Of course, Google does pride itself on its services that it offers, but you can’t expect for anything on the internet to be up 100% of the time. While it was a giant inconvenience for the site to be down during business hours on a weekday, sometimes this kind of stuff happens.

However, sometimes it is not always the fault of the website that you are trying to visit that is having the problems. While Google hasn’t come out and said exactly what happened on Tuesday to lead to the huge failure of its Gmail system, there is a quite a bit of speculation going around the internet. Of course there is a lot of speculation floating around, what else were people going to do while they couldn’t access their email accounts?

Sometimes, and it seems most frequently with large sites like Twitter, the cause of outages is a group of malicious programmers trying to shut the site down for their own enjoyment. Twitter experienced an outage last month and it was all due to a group of Russian programmers that wanted to shut down an account of a rival that lives in the neighboring country of Georgia. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to get your point across.

I only decided to touch on the Gmail fail because every news outlet I have been reading has been talking about it and going back to the “The internet is not safe and venerable” statement to remind everyone how “bad” the internet is. Well, this is not something new that people just discovered when Gmail crashed.

Image Source

There is a lot of of speculation regarding employment numbers, however, I know someone in the IT field who was offered a job in Dallas recently and may be able to keep their home because of it. Dallas is supposedly one of the hardest hit locations in the U.S. with unemployment and the housing crisis.

The number of unemployed is calculated by the number of people actively seeking a job in the last 90 days, this probably includes those laid off, fired, or have quit their jobs but not those who are retired.

My husband and I were talking about jobs recently and decided if you need a job badly enough, you will take anything. If things are handed to you, the chances of you taking a job that you find “below you” go down greatly.

Just remember when you’re watching, reading, or hearing the news, unemployment figures are a bet against you and the odds are on your side.

Last week, Jobs announced that he would be going on a six month medical leave. Speculation about his health ranges from his pancreatic cancer has returned to he needs a transplant due to complications from the treatment of the cancer.

Investors are angry because Jobs’ appearance has not been consistent with what was being disclosed and when his health condition was finally disclosed, stock prices dropped 7% in one day.

Openshaw says that in the current economy consumers are trying to cut their costs, and that includes buying “used clothes” and finding other ways to make a dollar stretch further. I hate to dwell on just one phrase of a 4 minute video…but “used clothes?” Could she not have used a word like “second-hand” like the anchor suggests instead?

Anyway, she goes on to say that consumers should not spend $800…They should take that number and cut it in half, then cut THAT number in half, to $200. Also, not buying for people who you think don’t deserve gifts.

She goes on to suggest when shopping for other adults, to buy second hand items as gifts. I know that it will save you money, but most of the people I know would rather have a less expensive item than one that has been “pre-loved.” I would buy a second-hand item for myself, but not for others.

Here’s the news about the drop without the speculation as to why:

December delivery for U.S. light, sweet crude fell to just over $58 a barrel around 10:00 CST. When it hit $58.32, it had hit its lowest level since March 2007.

It’s nice to see an almost 2 year low. I’ll just wait for OPEC to ruin it

Sunday Powell will meet with Tom Brokaw live on "Meet the Press."

Powell has advised the last three Republican presidents and if he does endorse Senator Obama, he will surely cause some kind of ruckus in the McCain campaign.

All of this news is speculation and I can certainly wait until Sunday to see who Powell endorses, but I do have to say I am really not interested at this point.

Who can really blame people for leaving? After all, they are providing the same service (which doesn’t cost them any more than it did a year ago) at a higher price. Ebay says that the changes in fee structure was made to encourage sellers to list more items. They cut the fees for listing, but raised the ending commissions on a completed auction ending lower than $1000 or a fixed price sale under $100.

What it seems like eBay has successfully done is allow “diamond power sellers” to flood the market. One of the largest “diamond power sellers” is Buy.com. There is speculation that because Buy.com has so many fixed price auctions on eBay, they are being charged nothing or next to nothing for these auctions.

To appease disgruntled sellers, starting September 16, eBay says they will begin allowing sellers (in the U.S.) to list an unlimited number of identical items for a month at a time for $0.35.

Will this really make people happy? Well perhaps for some, but I don’t list unlimited identical items…ever. I occasionally list a few things. There have been times after fees from eBay and PayPal, I could have gotten more for it at a thrift shop. With the fee changes for auctions, sometimes it’s just not practical to sell things auction-style, and I find that buyers don’t always like paying what you’re asking in a fixed-price auction.

I find it strange that this came the same day speculation about the government having to bail out Freddy and Fannie May came into the headlines. The FDIC says it is going to cost $8 Billion to takeover IndyMac. Another problem the government has to clean up because of the poor lending practices.

This whole mortgage crisis can be avoided in the future if banks would just not lend to people who can’t afford the mortgage. It’s that simple. I mean, yea, people will lose their jobs and foreclosures will happen, but not at the rate they’re happening now. I mean, get a fixed rate… no one can afford to pay a 30 year mortgage at credit card rates.

While it is partially the banks’ fault for lending to people who have poor credit ratings and little job security, I think it’s also the people who are buying these homes’ fault. People have to do lots of research before they buy a house. They should know what happens if they lose their job, can they keep their house? What happens when their variable rate adjusts to 15%??? It’s better to spend a bit more and rent than have a foreclosure on your credit rating.

Here’s my take on this, people have to pay for groceries rather than gas. They take fewer trips and therefore, are not on the road as much. However, there are still plenty of awful drivers on the road. They will continue to use their cell phones, drive like there isn’t anyone else on the road and not pay any amount of attention as they make left hand turns.

On another note, I suppose accidents will be going down a bit more, because oil is trading at $147 a barrel today. lame. I would like to speculate for a moment, because it seems like every time I hear something about oil prices, it’s bad. I think there will be peace in the middle east starting tomorrow. Oil production will be through the roof, and prices will fall below $50 a barrel again. That is my speculation. Now…only if someone believed me, lol.