Fix Your Own Car. Save $$$

 

--Christopher Johnson
At just 9 years old, Sam Maynard knew exactly what he wanted to be. "I wanted to be the best mechanic in the world."

He was a farm boy growing up in Barbados when he had an epiphany.

Sam dreamed of the inside of a working car motor. "I saw everything that works in there - the valves, pistons, the crank shift, the fly wheel - everything that's inside that motor, I saw it."

Sam's parents didn't share his dream. They wanted their son to get off the farm, and grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer. Sam's dad scraped together the cash to pay for tutoring so his son could test into one of the best boys schools on the island.

Sam Maynard, DIY Auto Repair Instructor

Christopher Johnson, NPR

Sam says he flunked the entrance exam on purpose. Twice.

"My father said, 'boy, we're gonna stop spending our money on you,'" Sam remembers. "'What trade do you need?' I said, 'mechanic.' And that was it. My dream came true."

Sam left Barbados soon after World War II, and landed in England on his 22nd birthday. He says discrimination made it tough for blacks to get good auto shop jobs in the UK.

He took jobs in factories, and with the railroad. His dream eluding him, Sam started drinking a lot. That's when he got his second calling.

"I was sitting in a London pub with a friend, drinking our beers. And he said, 'Sam, what are you doing working on London transport railways? There's no future there for you. You have a trade.' I didn't want to hear that! I just asked the barman, 'give us another pint!'"

It was just the spark Sam needed to get back to his dream. He went on to get a college degree in automotive technology.

He's been working on cars and trucks ever since. And the 70 year old mechanic says there's no place he'd rather be than under the hood.

"Oh, it's my passion, it's my passion!"

Our friends at the radio show Car Talk have a whole list of resources and other stuff that can help you become a Do It Yourself Car Mechanic.

10:30 AM ET | 02-26-2009 | permalink

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Toward A More Female Workforce?

Composite: Getty Images

 

--Skye Rohde
I was reading through the New York Times the other week when I came across this article. The statistic is sobering: 82 percent of people laid off since the recession started are men. Fields like health care and education that tend to employ more women haven't been hit as hard by the economy yet. And journalist Catherine Rampell says that we're now at the point where women are just about to become the majority on the payrolls for the first time in history -- in part because of these recent layoffs.

All this starting me thinking about how these layoffs -- and this shift in breadwinning "duties" -- are hitting families where the husband is now out of a job but the wife is still working. What's different about the family dynamics?

On today's program we explore this trend from a few different angles: what's happening across the U.S., how one couple handled it when the wife had to lay off the husband to keep her business alive and how working moms are talking about their situations and choices during the recession.

We'd like to hear from you about how your spouses' layoffs have impacted your family life. How have things changed? How are you coping with these changes? Has your definition of "stability" changed? What do you tell -- and not tell -- your kids? Your family? Your friends?

Tags: economy | family | unemployment

12:00 AM ET | 02-19-2009 | permalink

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The UnemployMentality

stolen from Unemploymentality.com

 

--Steve Proffitt

On today's program, we talked to John Henion, co-creator of Unemploymentality.com, a funny blog about the mindset of the jobless (but not hopeless.) If you've recently lost your job, or even if you haven't, we recommend it, under the sage advice that it is generally better to laugh than cry.

Tags: humor | unemployment

12:56 PM ET | 02-18-2009 | permalink

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Help Wanted

Getty Images

 

--Steve Proffitt

As most of you know, this program will be going off the air in March. We've been canceled as part of NPR's response to a budget shortfall. And that means everyone on the staff is looking for a job.

At least we know we are not alone. We know among our listeners, there are many, many people who are in the same situation.

Getty Images

 

Getty Images

So while we try to find our own unemployment solutions, we thought we'd try to help out our friends who listen to Day to Day.

Here's the deal: If you are out of work and looking for a job, write us, and tell us about your situation. Let us know about your former job, tell us about some of your skills, and describe for us the kind of work you are looking for. Paste your resume in the email, if you like

We'll pick from some of these stories - and if we pick you, we'll call and do a little interview, which we'll air on the show. Then we'll invite employers to contact you, through us.

So, just send an us an email. Put Help Wanted in the subject line. And please include a phone number where we can contact you.

Oh, and if you know of any jobs for a radio host, or an editor... or a producer, write us, too.

Tags: help wanted | job search | unemployment

9:47 AM ET | 01-15-2009 | permalink

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Radio Gift: Dr. Boots

Joel Rose

 

--Steve Proffitt

This season we asked listeners what they wanted to hear for the holidays, and we responded to their requests with a few "radio gifts."

This one goes out to listener Kathleen Tacelosky.

She wrote us this letter:

Elizabeth Crowley, M.D. is a family practice/primary care physician in New Jersey who is intensely dedicated to her craft and her patients. But healthcare has become an industry in our country, and it is out of whack. She was spending an insane amount of time negotiating with the insurance companies trying to get approvals and trying to get paid.

Joel Rose

Instead of letting her frustration get her down, she has come up with a gutsy, creative solution: As of October 1, she dropped all insurance and Medicare and went all cash. She had a meeting with her patients about it. She's lost some patients, of course, and she's gained new ones. She's keeping a blog about it where she shares what led up to this, her fears, her occasional feelings of guilt, what others are saying to her etc.

She's been writing about her experiences on a blog.

Note that her blog name is "bootscrowley." Some of her patients call her Boots because she wears Doc Martins to work. She's unconventional, determined and has a lot of pluck! I think she'll inspire your listeners as she has me and others who know her.

We sent reporter Joel Rose to visit Dr. Boots, and his story is today's radio gift. Happy holidays to all who wrote us, and thanks for letting us give you a little radio.

Tags: economy | insurance | medicine | radio gift

9:29 AM ET | 12-23-2008 | permalink

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Big Money

 

--Steve Proffitt

You know, it's a lot of money. But really, what is 17 billion? In America, it's 1000 million. Just to confuse things, in Europe a billion often refers to a million millions. Whatever, the number shows up with remarkable frequency in the news. Here's a short sampling:

-- According to a report from Eurostat released this week, the European Union's trade deficit with the rest of the world was 17.1 billion Euros. That's up from 15.3 just last October.

-- CBS News reported last year that in 1983, companies spent $100 million marketing to kids. In 2007, they spent nearly $17 billion.

-- Last year Thompson Corporation paid $17.2 billion to acquire the news wire service, Reuters Group.

-- Microsoft's 2007 version of Excel offers a maximum spreadsheet size of 16,000 columns containing 17 billion cells.

-- Astronomers believe the universe is about 17 billion years old.

-- Last year Princeton University's endowment was estimated to be worth about $17 billion

-- An Egyptian blogger recently estimated the cost of building The Great Pyramid, at today's labor rates: about 17 billion British pounds.

-- The Huffington Post reported this week that Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme may cost the US Treasury $17 billion in lost tax revenue.

-- Assuming a Cadillac budget of $5 million per year, $17 billion would keep Day to Day on the air for more than three millennia, until the year 5409.

Tags: automobiles | bail out | big money | economy

3:16 PM ET | 12-19-2008 | permalink

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Long May You Run: Saving The Auto Companies

Neil Young is among the folks who have a plan to save the Big Three Automakers

NPR composite photo: Getty Images, AP Images

 

--Steve Proffitt

This week the Senate Banking Committee will hold hearings to discuss various proposals to help America's struggling auto makers. These proposals include huge government-backed loans to the auto firms, perhaps as much as $25 or even $50 billion.

Meanwhile, here's an idea from a strange place. The veteran rocker Neil Young sent out a document last week containing his plan to save the Big Three. It was pretty specific:

"The big three must reduce models to basics. a truck, an SUV, a large family sedan, an economy sedan, and a sports car. Use existing tooling. Keep building these models to keep the workforce employed but build them WITHOUT engines and transmissions. These new vehicles, called Transition Rollers, are ready for a re-power. NO NEW TOOLING is required at this stage."

You can read the full Neil Young proposal in the jump.

So, if the former CSN&Y guitarist has a plan for fixing Detroit, do you too? Maybe instead of giving the car companies $25 or $50 billion, we should use the money to train workers to move into other jobs. Or fund start-ups that are trying to build alternative-fuel vehicles.

We're going to be reporting on this story all week (and surely for the weeks and months to come.) So if you have a good idea for how to rescue America's auto industry, write it up in a comment. We'll pick some of the best, and share them on the air.

Continue reading "Long May You Run: Saving The Auto Companies" »

Tags: Neil Young | automobiles | bail out | economy

12:38 PM ET | 11-17-2008 | permalink

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Join Our Real Economy Project

We are looking for people to check in with about the economy throughout the coming months.

Is the economic turmoil taking a toll on your livelihood and plans for the coming year? Or perhaps you are quite confident that your life will be unaffected by what's happening on Wall Street.

Either way, we want to hear from you. If you are interested sharing your story on the air or online, please answer the following questions and send them back to us at realeconomy@npr.org. We'll let you know soon after if you'll be sharing your thoughts and experiences on the show.

1.) On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate your confidence in your financial situation? 1 is very confident and 5 is very worried. Explain.

2.) What do you/your family members do for a living?

3.) What are the two toughest financial challenges you are facing right now? (i.e. retirement, food)

4.) What two areas take up most of your money every month?

5.) How old are you?

Please include your full name, phone number, city and state in your email to realeconomy@npr.org.

We look forward to reading your responses and will get back to you soon.

Thanks,

Day to Day

7:18 PM ET | 10-23-2008 | permalink

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Finding Denise

--Adam Burke

Denise Lealao, the subject of my story from Las Vegas, is one of a growing number of Americans who are shocked to find themselves in soul-crushing financial straits. And I suspect there are Denises in most communities--people who are going to great lengths to try and resist the slide into poverty.

The current tectonic economic upheaval affects everyone, but it's tough for a reporter to find the Denises out there. Most people would never be willing to share the details that make Denise's story so immediate. (In fact Denise's husband did not want to talk about his experience, his sense of failure is so strong....)

Fortunately for me I had the journalistic equivalent of gold: a good source.
I was able to bring Denise's story to listeners thanks to the other woman in the piece, Linda Lera-Randle El.

Continue reading "Finding Denise" »

Tags: editorial notebook | poverty

9:40 AM ET | 10-15-2008 | permalink

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OK - Now? Bailout: Yes or No?

--Madeleine Brand

Last week, I asked that question and you responded. Overwhelmingly. NO, many of you wrote, no bailout.

Now - a day after the markets lost more than a trillion dollars - what do you think? Are you still firm on no bailout? Is there a compromise you'd support? Do you have a better idea?

Tags: bail out | economy | stock market

12:10 PM ET | 09-30-2008 | permalink

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What $700B Means In Ferraris, Donkeys And Clones

Heather Murphy and Michelle Lanz

As the nation pondered the figure $700 billion today, some of us here at Day to Day were embracing the fact that we didn't pursue a career in mathematics. $700 billion is a tricky number to understand, but we tried. Here's some of what we came up with:

$700 billion could buy 700,000 Ferrari Enzos (even though there were only 400 ever made). That's one for every person in Alaska. Sarah Palin would not approve.

$700 billion could buy a laptop for every child (age 5-19) in the whole wide world. With all that great online learning going on, perhaps one of those children could come up with a solution to solve Wall Street's woes.

Why take $700 billion in check form when you could take it in hundred dollar bills? If you were to pick up that massive bag of cash -- what would it feel like? About the same as lifting 1400 African bull elephants or 51,330 adult domesticated donkeys. (Note: we apologize for the mathematical inaccuracy of the photos -- this one apparently still has some growing up to do:

Let's say the Treasury department decides to go all environmental on us and use a single printer to produce the $100 bills necessary to "save America's future." How long would it take to print? At a rate of $1/second -- it would take 220 years working 24-7. At which point, we're guessing, $700 billion would only buy a single Ferrari Enzo.

$700 billion is the value of 12 Bill Gates -- although for significantly less the tech mastermind himself could be cloned that many times.

What's your reference point for $700 billion? Give us something better than these and we'll try to incorporate them into a gallery on Monday.

7:37 PM ET | 09-26-2008 | permalink

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Banker?

--Alex Cohen

With all the bankruptcies and bailouts this week, it's easy to feel as if the world of finance is nothing but doom and gloom. But for some, there is a silver lining to the Wall Street meltdown.

I recently called the National Banker's Association to get a sense of how the crisis has been affecting smaller banks. They recommended that I get in touch with Paul Hudson of Broadway Federal Bank

The bank was founded in 1946 to help African Americans living in Los Angeles. Back then, Mr. Hudson told me, most banks wouldn't provide loans to then, and his grandfather, Dr. Claude Hudson, saw an opportunity to do both business and to help build the community. Today, they have five branches and 400 million dollars in assets.

Over the years, Broadway Federal has seen its share of hard times. During the civil unrest that followed the Rodney King Verdict in 1992, a fire destroyed the bank's central headquarters. But, Broadway Federal survived. And they continue to do so, even in today's troubled times.

In fact, Paul Hudson told me, current events have actually helped their bank. The collapse of larger financial institutions has created a change in attitude towards small banks like his. "Most people have no relationship with their bank," he explained. "It's the most impersonal relationship they have."

As he said this, I thought about my own bank. Like many other Americans, I've put my money in one of the nation's bigger institutions because it seemed like the "right thing to do." I take comfort in knowing that I can visit any of its nearly 7000 ATM's and get cash any time I want. I appreciate being able to pay bills online, without ever having to write a check. I appreciate that I never have to wait in line because I hardly ever have the need to go inside my bank.

But, as I sat inside Paul Hudson's bank, I began to think I was missing something. It does seem rather odd that all of my money is protected by a group of people I have never met. It might make me feel a lot more connected if I did business with a smaller bank, one where I actually looked people in the eyes and talked with them about my transactions.

Bigger isn't always better. As gas prices soar, more Americans think about buying smaller cars. As Starbucks pop up on every corner, many folks go to smaller, independent coffee shops to have an experience that seems a bit more personal. As we hear more about the environmental impact of flying food in from all corners of the globe, a lot of people are choosing to buy locally grown products, often at their neighborhood farmer's market instead of the big box grocery stores.

Maybe in the wake of this year's financial troubles, we'll start seeing a trend of people investing in their smaller community banks, too.

Tags: Alex Cohen | banking | financial crisis

5:17 PM ET | 09-18-2008 | permalink

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Link Think: Still Number 1

Another day, another study detailing the twice-daily hell that passes for a commute in many California cities. As the LA Times' traffic blog Bottleneck reports:

Study finds California urban congestion still tops the nation
The Reason Foundation, the group that promotes libertarian values, just released its annual highway report. California, predictably, had the worst urban freeway congestion -- along with Minnesota and North Carolina -- but the 9th fewest deficient bridges. The state's urban freeways also ranked 48th in terms of their condition. Only New Jersey and Hawaii were worse in that category.

(A tip of the hat to LAist for that Bottleneck link.)

Bottleneck goes on to point out that 2-hour commutes and essentially unsusable roads can make for strange political bedfellows, the small-government libertarians at Reason apparently having been, well, driven to embrace the relatively bigger government implied by traffic solutions like congrestion pricing. "Although the Reason Foundation certainly has a distinct political viewpoint," Bottleneck notes, "there really isn't much politics in their report. The group is also a big proponent of congestion pricing, as are many other organizations across the political spectrum."

Some conservative activists (Grover Norquist, in particular) have long dreamt of a government so small it can be safely drowned in a bathtub, but California's unique mix of urban congestion and yearly confrontations with Mother Nature (earthquakes, mudslides, fires, marauding bears) make us a state where government will always need to be robust enough to enforce building codes and pick up debris. As one diarist at the Daily-Kos-style state political blog Calitics argues:

It really is remarkable what serious attention to building codes has done. Not too long ago yesterday's earthquake would have been a disaster - today it's a blip. California has recognized the problem, taken steps to constantly improve and innovate, and made sure that the regulations stayed stringent, so that developers would just have to find other means to reduce costs. The fact that the epicenter was around Chino Hills and Diamond Bar, relatively new areas with new buildings that were constructed according to the strictest building codes, was only a further testament to that. The after-action reports from the 1989 San Francisco quake and the 1994 Northridge quake were taken seriously and applied in this case. [full diary]

According to the Reason study, our earthquake-ready bridges are high on the nations list of "fewest deficient," and although that sounds (to my ear, at least) like praising someone for being the "least ugly," it's good news and proof that preparedness efforts are producing results. Now we only need to figure out how to keep paying for all of it:

Thousands of state workers were told to stay home Friday under an order by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger aimed at cutting expenses for California's cash-strapped government, but a lawsuit filed by a union claims the governor is overstepping his authority. [Full story]

California's projected budget deficit will hit $22 billion this year, another #1 for us. Figures.

--Gary Dauphin

2:13 PM ET | 08- 1-2008 | permalink

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What Does Your Grocery List Say About You?

Performance artist Hillary Carlip collects and interprets discarded shopping lists. She then studies them as if they were treasure maps, carefully dissecting each item, the hand-writing, type of paper and level of order. What type of person remembers they need to pick up Coors and Oreos on the inside of a matchbook cover? What kind of person writes Nair and Fresca in carefully looping magenta ink? Shopping lists are the new memoir, she tells Day to Day's Alex Cohen in an interview.

Below, you can scroll through a gallery of some of the characters she's created from actual lists:

What's on your shopping list? Hillary Carlip has agreed to take one list submitted by a user/listener and turn it into a whole new character. Then she's going to take Day to Day shopping in character. Want your list considered? Because she likes to examine the glorious documents in their original form, it's best if you mail your grocery list to us the old-fashioned way. Mail to:

Day to Day
ATTN: Shopping List
9909 Jefferson Avenue
Culver City, CA 90232

On a separate piece of paper, send us your name, phone number and e-mail.
If you are totally snail-mail phobic, however -- you can send us a scanned version of your shopping list at what@npr.org. Again, include your name, phone number and e-mail.

Thanks!
Day to Day

12:33 PM ET | 07-29-2008 | permalink

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Not So Dreamy

A heads-up to people thinking of moving to the Golden State: don't pack your bags yet. This just in from The Field Poll:

"RECORD NUMBER OF CALIFORNIANS REPORT BEING FINANCIALLY WORSE OFF. MOST DO NOT EXPECT IMPROVEMENT NEXT YEAR."

According to the poll, 63% of Californians say they're financially worse off this year than last. That percentage is higher for low income (73%) and middle class (66%) Californians. The poll surveyed 422 registered California voters in both English and Spanish between July 8th and 14th of this year.

Here's the central question from the survey:

Would you say that you and your family are financially better off or worse off today than you were a year ago?

Daydreaming reader, WHEREVER YOU LIVE, how would YOU answer that question? Please submit those answers in the comment selection below and don't forget to tell us where you're writing in from. Your stories may be featured in our California Dreaming radio series

--Shereen Marisol Meraji

9:30 AM ET | 07-25-2008 | permalink

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IndyMac Attack

As we heard on today's show, people were waiting in line early in the morning to withdraw their money at the Santa Monica branch of failed bank IndyMac. One man arrived at 4:30 in the morning.

Last Friday, IndyMac was taken over by federal regulators with no advance notice to its customers. That's the standard operating procedure according to the FDIC. This is from their website:

Typically, a bank that has failed will be closed on a Friday. The FDIC will then work the weekend to complete deposit insurance determinations for most deposits and be prepared on Monday to either transfer the insured portion of a deposit to another FDIC insured institution or provide deposit insurance payment checks.

It appears, though, that the process is taking longer for IndyMac customers. Hundreds of them have waited in line for hours to withdraw their money or get some information. Many complained that they don't have access to all their money. Here are some answers to commonly asked questions:

Should you be afraid your bank will go under?

Banks go under with no notice, as we see from the FDIC's explanation above. The good news is that relatively few banks fail, about 4-5 a year. The bad news: 5 have failed so far this year, and it's only July.

What can you do to protect yourself?

First, don't have more than $100,000 in one bank account. The FDIC won't insure a penny more than that, and that includes the original deposit, plus any interest that's accrued.

If you have more than $100,000, split it up, either under different names (your husband's or wife's or children's) or in different banks. The FDIC will insure all $1 million if it's in 10 $100,000 accounts.

What's insured and what's not?

Check out this handy FAQ from the FDIC.

If you have more questions, post them in the comments section. We're going to interview a financial analyst on Day to Day, and I'll ask him/her some of your questions.

--Madeleine Brand

2:36 PM ET | 07-16-2008 | permalink

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California's Maker Age

In Neal Stephenson's 1995 science-fiction novel The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a working-class teenager named Nell navigates a world of limitless material bounty produced by nanotechnology -- tiny, molecular factories that can build a car, phone, or pile of diamonds out of thin air. Instead of ushering in an era of universal prosperity, though, Stephenson's Diamond Age is a time of nightmarish inequality where haves and have-nots are more stratified by their access to information than the residents of any medieval village. When anything can be made, knowing how to make things is the only real currency, and, in The Diamond Age, all aspects of that knowledge -- from simple literacy to copyright to engineering concepts -- are tightly regulated to keep society's Nells on the bottom rungs.

California is not quite living the Diamond Age (yet), but, as Celeste Headlee's report today points out, the state is home to plenty of dreamers trying to pull the more positive aspects of Stephenson's extreme DIY off the page and into reality.

Continue reading "California's Maker Age" »

1:05 PM ET | 07-14-2008 | permalink

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Raiders of the Not-So-Lost Recycling Bin

You know the economy is getting bad when there are fights over trash.

This story caught my eye.

On Sunday evening near Glen Park's busy main drag, Diamond Street, several groups trolled the streets collecting bottles and cans. In one instance, a man drove a red, graffiti-covered truck while two men walked on opposite sidewalks, gathering bottles and cans from blue bins set out for the next morning's official pickup, and dumped them into the truck.

Though the men didn't knock over the bins or leave other trash in their wake, some San Francisco residents say they know when the recycling bandits are on the march when they see tipped-over cans and litter strewn on the ground and hear clanks of bottles and cans at 3 a.m. One waste company says it has received 20,000 complaints of curbside recycling theft in San Francisco.

Jo Cangelosi's home office sits at the front of her Potrero Hill house with a view of Mississippi Street. The recycling squads have gotten so bad that she puts her recycling out at the very last minute - when she can hear the regular truck rumbling down the road. [full story]

Continue reading "Raiders of the Not-So-Lost Recycling Bin" »

2:25 PM ET | 07- 3-2008 | permalink

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The Economics of Hairlessness

The first ten pages of L.A. Weekly provide an excellent crash course in the economics of the California Dream. Page after page of the free alternative news weekly are generally crowded with images of nearly naked people promoting cosmetic and laser procedures. Although we may be too broke to buy a real newspaper, advertisers are still willing to bank on the fact that we can dish out a few thousand dollars for age-defying beautification.

With the price of a tank of gas reaching toward (half) a laser dermabrasion procedure, however, I wondered -- are beauty budgets shrinking? And if the plastic surgery heartland - four of America's "10 vainest cities" are in California - starts letting itself go, will the epidermises, tummies and chins of the rest of country follow?

Continue reading "The Economics of Hairlessness" »

5:41 PM ET | 06-26-2008 | permalink

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