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The other day a friend of mine told me she didn’t know how to cook or bake. I told her that cooking or baking is very easy if you follow three important steps. First find a good recipe and read it thoroughly. Second, make sure you have all the ingredients the recipe calls for. And third, follow the recipe to the letter when preparing the food. To test out this theory on cooking I decided to try baking something I’d never baked before. Special thanks to Susan Delbert at Old Ebbitt Express for letting me use one of her recipes to try my experiment. If you aren’t on her e-mail list make sure to get added because the recipes she sends out are great. The one I tried was pear cream cheese pound cake. One of the beauties of Susan’s recipes is the directions. They tell you just how everything should look or feel at each step along the way. I found it interesting in this recipe that you bake the frosting with the cake. The result as you can see from the picture was fabulous. (And the picture doesn’t do the taste justice!) I wish the answers to our financial problems were as easy as baking a pound cake. As I’m writing this the stock market is off another 700 points. The world markets are in turmoil, and although the US government passed a bailout bill that in my opinion was needed, I don’t think it is the magic salve that will somehow heal this mess. Here is the fundamental problem. The world, particularly the US, have lived way beyond their means. Governments, businesses and individuals now have way too much debt. That was fine while the prices of houses were going up. But when the price of houses started falling? Hmm. I’ve talked to people a lot smarter than me and they say we’re about a year and a half to three years from the bottom of this mess. In the meantime, as debt unwinds, look for a lot of asset destruction in the form of very volatile stock markets and falling home prices. What can you do? Be extremely conservative in your spending and your investing. The recent bailout bill included an increase in the amounts that are insured at banks. That also includes credit unions. Now your deposits with us are insured up to $250,000 by the National Credit Union Administration and an additional $250,000 by private excess insurance for a total of $500,000. And that insurance includes our money market accounts. I believe the credit union is a great place to invest because our rates are competitive and unlike some banks with the big rates, we aren’t in any financial trouble. Give us a call if you’re having difficulties financially. We may be able to help you out. And one more thing, maybe it’s time to learn a recipe. Till Next Time,
Evan Clark, President and CEO
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