TOP DRAWER INK NEWSLETTER

 

Here's the latest issue of Top Drawer Ink, the newsletter written by author HL Carpenter that's chock full of humor and common sense information.

Share the fun! You may re-distribute Top Drawer Ink as long as the entire newsletter is left intact. Please respect our copyrights.

Top Drawer Ink is self-syndicated. Send reprint, licensing, syndication or other inquiries to editor -at- TopDrawerInkCorp.com.

***

September 22, 2007
Volume 5, Number 18
ISSN 1554-6330

In this issue:

1. Carpenter Country
2. Top Drawer Article
3. Top Drawer Tips
4. Top Drawer Satire

***

CARPENTER COUNTRY
What's Happening in Our Neck of the Human Experience

 

A lot of things have changed since the days of Driving Miss Daisy and nothing points that out faster than taking a driver safety course.

In Carpenter Country a reminder from the insurance company informed the short one it was class time again. She braced herself for eight hours of boredom. What she got was a memory jog and quite a bit of new information.

The first eye opener was a page featuring unlettered road signs. What does a yellow diamond mean? How about a horizontal blue rectangle? Or a fluorescent yellow-green pentagon – which brought worried looks that eased into sighs of relief when the instructor said, “Relax. It’s a new sign.”

The following sections of the book included many different techniques and strategies: Keep your eyes moving. Expand your field of vision. Always signal your intentions. Continuously monitor your position in traffic. Plan an escape route.

Next up was the correct way to wear a seat belt, a tip about calling 677 if you were ever pulled over by an unmarked police cruiser, and a quick rundown on new vehicle technology. After a short quiz, the course was over.

As the room emptied, a voice in the crowd remarked, “I think cars are so dangerous.”

Everybody agreed. And that’s when the short one remembered her father-in-law’s long-ago reply to an identical statement.

“It’s not the car,” he’d said with a chuckle. “It’s the nut that holds the wheel.”

***

TOP DRAWER ARTICLE

Recession Strategies
by
HL Carpenter

 

Stock prices are bouncing like ping-pong balls. Credit is drying up faster than water in a desert. A worried Federal Reserve lowered the fed funds rate on overnight loans between banks, as well as the discount rate charged on direct loans to banks. Economists are predicting a slowing economy.

What can you do while the experts debate whether we’re headed for a recession? Here are three strategies that can help you keep your sanity no matter what happens.

Read the entire article here

***

TOP DRAWER TIPS
Topics and Tidbits

 

Visit the Tax History Museum and learn about the Great Depression. http://www.tax.org/Museum/default.htm.

For more information about recent recessions, check out the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Recession Dating Procedure. http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html.

To get a better understanding of the U.S. economy, go to: http://www.bea.gov/.

***

TOP DRAWER SATIRE

Fate of Silver Linings Up in the Air
by
HL Carpenter

 

Silver Linings, Inc., the world’s sole purveyor of shiny cloud coatings, ran into stormy weather yesterday, when the US Rainy Day Commission banned sales of the company’s trademark product. The Commission based the action on concern about overblown marketing claims.

Read the rest here