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Tis the season to be…broke! Yes, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, the time when parents all over the world feel immense pressure to get the flyest toys for their children at the expense of their wallet and sometimes their sanity. But this year is a little bit different. The economy is struggling and you simply can’t afford to splurge on extravagant gifts.

So it’s time to come up with a plan. How do you cut back this Christmas without having to look at disgruntled little faces on Christmas morning?

Buy 1-2 Big Items

Instead of spending tons of dough on seven items over $100, cut it to one or two. If your child has been pestering you for an iPad for the past year and a half, go ahead and hook him up. But make sure the rest of his gifts are significantly smaller.

Money for Christmas

Remember how $20 dollars seemed like a whoooole lot of money when you were a child? That’s pretty much the same for kids today. Except you’ll have to up the ante because $20 dollars ain’t what it used to be. If your child is old enough to spend her own money, put that under the tree this year. That way you won’t be tempted to buy more than you can afford, your child can get what they really want this year and throughout the process, they’ll learn the value of money.

Volunteer with/ Donate to the Less Fortunate

Even though money is a little tight around your house, there are still thousands of families living below the poverty level in this country. Make sure your children understand this. Go beyond putting money in the Salvation Army tin and take them to a shelter or a food pantry around the holidays. Not to make them feel guilty for having more but to make them appreciate what they do have.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! And while getting pudgy on that good stuff, laughing with friends and family, and being thankful (yada, yada, yada) is pretty much the most important aspect of your Thursday, we know what your mind will be on once that food is cooked: Black Friday!

Most normal people will probably wait until Friday afternoon to head to overcrowded malls, boutiques and department stores, but the thirsty folks (there’s no shame in your game!) will probably be up bright–make that dark–and early trying to grab some deals. Keep these tips in mind as you get prepared for the second big part of your holiday weekend. Happy shopping!

Welcome to the slowest job market in 20 years! If you’re out there trying to find a job, check out the top nine ways to impress your interviewer. These tips come from professional headhunters and popular job posting sites. When it comes to interviews, first impressions are everything, and can be scary. According to the Association for Psychological Science, you only have 1/10 of a second to make your first impression. Lord, the pressure!

UC Davis Human Resources explains that many companies will call to speak with you before even scheduling an interview to “pre-screen” you. Yes, this means that you have already used your 1/10 of a second. However, if you score an interview, then you have clearly already made a good impression, so when you walk into the office, be sure to exude confidence,  a smile, and be sure to do a few of these other things as well…

In this uncertain economy, being “let go” can be devastating. Losing your job can take a toll on you both financially and emotionally, however, it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. With the right tools, you can overcome this setback and maybe even come out stronger. Here are some suggestions on how to cope with a job loss.

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(New York Times) — Dan Tolleson, a researcher and writer with a Ph.D. in politics, has been out of work since 2009, except for brief stints as a driver. Still, he opposes President Obama’s call for Congress to renew extensions on unemployment benefits.  “They’re going to end up spending more money on unemployment benefits, while less money is coming in on tax returns,” he said, suggesting that the government should focus on measures that might encourage businesses to hire. “Far better to relax some of these outrageous regulations.”  Make no mistake — Mr. Tolleson, 54, has collected unemployment checks, saying he had little choice. But his objection to a policy that would probably benefit him shows just how divisive the question has become of providing a bigger safety net to the long-term jobless, a common strategy in recessions.  President Obama wants to continue offering benefits for an extended period of time, a maximum of 99 weeks, as is now the case. The measure is part of his jobs bill, which he once again called on Congress to pass in a press conference on Thursday.

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by Cynthia Wright

In a bold move, Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America, defended his bank’s right to impose a $5 fee on debit cards. In order to take much of the heat off himself and those in partnership with the company, he then said that customers and shareholders understood their recent moneymaking strategy because the bank has a “right to make a profit.”

During his press conference on Wednesday, Moynihan stopped short of blaming Obama who has come out against the greed that banks have been showing by stating that no bank has a right to a certain amount of profit.

“Well, you can stop [the fee] if you say to the banks, ‘you don’t have some inherent right just to, you know, get a certain amount of profit if your customers are being mistreated,’” Obama told ABC.

Of course, Moynihan is on the other side of the spectrum. During an interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, he again stated that as a CEO, he has the duty to make sure all his shareholders are compensated.

Leading those to wonder, is he more preoccupied with fattening the wallets of his shareholders, instead of focusing his interest on the millions who deposit their monthly earnings into his banks around the world? It is not surprising that protests have sparked up around the country stemming form NYC”s Occupy Wall Street that began over two weeks ago.

In a vain attempt to justify the debit fee, Moynihan further explained that the bank was transparent in letting the customers know what they were doing and by giving them a chance to opt out before the new fee goes into effect in 2012.

Due to the changing landscape of Wall Street reforms, such as the Dodd-Frank Act, he was left with no other way to turn a profit as a public institution. At the same time, he tried to make it clear that he didn’t feel the bank was under attack. ”We have the best bank in the world, we do a great job for our customers,” he told Kudlow. Bank of America isn’t the only one imposing new fees on their bank customers; Citibank has also announced a fee accrual plan for checking accounts.

Cynthia Wright is an avid lover of all things geeky. When she isn’t freelancing, she can be found on her blog BGA Life and on Twitter at @cynisright.

(Huffington Post) — A little over two years ago, Floyd Kelly, then an associate at Walmart, transferred from one company store in Washington State to another. Although Kelly had worked full-time for years, he says that after the switch his hours dropped to part-time.  Ever since then, he’s been trying desperately to claw his way back to a 40-hour week.  “I’ve been trying to transfer into other full-time positions for over two years now,” says Kelly, who now works at Sam’s Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. “But everywhere I’ve contacted, they told me all they have is part-time.”   For Kelly and other retail workers like him, the difference between full-time and part-time in this economy is the difference between eking by and slowly going under. In Kelly’s case, the reduced workweek means a paycheck that’s about two-thirds of what it used to be. It means a less reliable schedule, no sick days and no vacation days. And it means keeping roommates at age 50, just so he can cover rent.

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(Madame Noire) — Would you say you’re an ambitious woman? Do you go off the beaten path to get out your dreams, or are you taking what you can get to help pay the bills and that’s it? It’s understandable with unemployment rates skyrocketing to tire of looking for your dream job and just do what you need to do to get things done: light bill paid, rent covered, food in the fridge. But before you assume your degree is going to go to waste and fall into whatever comes your way (a la Tetris), know that you don’t have to give up–you’ll just have to hustle harder than before. Here are five things you need to keep in mind while you fill out job applications on the low and plan your next move to get the job you really, REALLY want. Never say never folks.

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People all over the world are fighting to regain their right to self-determination, and in many cases their efforts are being bolstered by American tax dollars and the precious blood of our youth. Yet, here in the United States our right to self-determination, right along with our standard of living, is rapidly slipping away, and that’s not by accident. All over the country the GOP is engaged in an aggressive campaign to implement policies that are specifically designed to limit our right to vote, chip away at the middle-class standard of living, and generally suppress our right to self-determination.

Voter Suppression

Joan McCarter points out in her Daily KOS article, Republicans step up voter suppression efforts in run up to 2012. “This year, more than 30 states debated changes to their voting laws. A dozen passed more restrictive rules requiring voters to present state-issued photo IDs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, although Democratic governors in four states vetoed them. Florida and Ohio will cut nearly in half the number of days for early voting [Black voters are more apt to take advantage of early voting for various reasons, including job considerations], and Florida lawmakers reversed rules that had made it easier for former felons to vote.”

McCarter goes on to point out that “Twenty-five percent of African American voters do not have a valid government-issued photo ID, compared with 8 percent of whites, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. The report also found that 15 percent of voters earning less than $35,000 per year do not have such an ID.”

So in spite of all of the Republican claims of standing steadfast in defense of the Constitutional, the rights of the individual and protecting our personal freedoms, when it comes to their campaign to regain power, their efforts to subvert any and all of those ideals are limitless.

Attack on the Middle Class

As I’ve pointed out in previous articles, the business community is no longer a friend of the American people. At one time business and labor were partners in a symbiotic relationship. Business provided employees a secure, lifetime of employment at a livable wage, and in return, employees supported the business community by spending their money on goods and services. This arrangement promoted economic stability, because middle-class consumers felt secure enough in their lives to invest in homes, cars, and purchase the goods and services that the business community produced. It also provided the government with a stable tax base from which to draw its operational revenue.

But now, in the new global economy, what were previously considered American corporations are now international conglomerates. So they have no sense of patriotism toward any particular country, and thus, no vested interest in either the United States as a country, or the American middle class as a people. In fact, since they now have to compete with countries who pay their workers slave wages, the American middle-class standard of living has made us a liability. So the only time these corporations give the American people a second thought is when they gamble on the world market and lose. Then they fall back on us as their piggy bank.

That’s what we saw in the 2008 Wall St. meltdown. The corporate community was robbing the American people blind, with absolutely no sense of patriotism, nor any sense of responsibility for either the country, the American people, or the American economy. But when they shot snake eyes in the global market they came running back to us saying, “Remember us? We’re American companies. We belong to you. You can’t let us fail. For God’s sake! Where’s your sense of pride?”

We not only went for that nonsense and dug deep to save these corporations, but thanks to “our representatives,” who the corporations have in their pocket, we bailed them out without putting any provisos in effect regarding their future conduct. As a direct result, once they regained their stability, they thumbed their collective noses at us, slapped each other on the back with ridiculously outrageous bonuses, and went right back to business as usual, which included sending our jobs overseas as leverage to get even more concessions from us.

So this is why we find ourselves in the situation we’re in today. After nearly bankrupting the country to bailout corporations that initially got into trouble in the first place by trying to swindle us, now that they’re not only back on their feet, but in many cases, doing better than they’ve ever done in their history, they’re sitting on trillions of dollars and refusing to hire in order to extort still further concessions out of us – and the irony is, their most valuable ally in this scam is our very own representatives.

The Republican Party is leaving no stone unturned to make absolutely certain that the American people remain miserable, hungry, and divided until after the 2012 election, in hope that by keeping us in this condition it will help them to regain power. Then, if they’re successful, they and their corporate partners intend to lower the standard of living of the American middle class in order to make these corporations more globally competitive.

And part of that plan means, abolishing Social Security, and Medicare, then destroying both our unions and our educational system. That will drag the nation back to a time prior to the Great Depression, and create a permanent underclass, because these actions will make us totally dependent on the corporations. By destroying Social Security, unemployment insurance, and Medicare, not only will every family have to pay for the care of their sick and elderly family members, but if they’re fired from they’re job for any reason, they’d have nothing to fall back on, so they’ll instantly fall from being merely poor, to homeless. That gives the business community a tremendous amount of leverage over the people.

The primary reason we find ourselves in this situation is because we’ve allowed ourselves to become distracted and apathetic hedonist by the mainstream media. They’re using MTV, BET, ESPN, and various “reality shows” to keep us so focused on dreams of what life could be, that we’re completely oblivious to what life is, and what’s being taken away.

In addition, the media has turned our politicians into celebrities – so much so, in fact, that we’ve lost sight of the fact that these people are our EMPLOYEES, not our leaders. As a result, one of the most contentious political arguments in our political environment is which one of them we should support, when the argument should be which one of them is supporting us. So they’ve successfully turned our political thinking on its head. It’s one of the most graphic examples of the tail wagging the dog.

Just consider this. While many of us are suffering and trying to hang onto our homes, jobs, and put food on the table, the lowliest representative in congress makes $174,000 a year plus perks. And if that’s not enough, during the depth of the recession they voted themselves an additional $93,000 in what they called “petty cash” – and the people didn’t say a word.

So while many of us are complaining about our political system, it’s clear that the system is not the problem. We’re the problem, because we’re failing to control the system. We’re knee-deep in a class war, and the people we’re depending on to protect us are a part of the class we’re fighting. Thus, it’s no wonder that we keep coming up short. How can we expect to be represented effectively by people who identify more closely with the people who seek to enslave us than they do their own constituencies? The short answer is, we can’t. So this is an issue that we need to pay serious attention to. If we fail to do so, we’re going to find ourselves constantly being told to tighten our belts by politicians who seem to think they’re wearing suspenders.

Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and several other publications. He’s also a staff writer for Veterans Today and the author of “A Message From the Hood.” 

By Charlotte Young

From famine in Somalia to genocide in Sudan and bombings in Nigeria, the media puts out a very bleak image of African development. But in economic reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. For investors in the global market, much of the real growth and opportunity is stemming from Africa.

Marketwatch reports the continent is “home to a host of fast-growing economies.” In addition the growth possibilities have the potential to provide large returns.

Plamen Monovski, chief investment officer of Renaissance Asset Managers, one of the biggest investors on the continent, relays that the images of Africa “are rooted in the past” and the “BBC effect.” “But Africa is now the last frontier left in the market. Nowhere else has the same kind of growth potential,” Monovski tells Marketwatch.

The media seems to neglect Africa’s stories of triumphant and success as it zeroes in on political unrest, poverty and hunger. But after enduring 30 years of stagnation and decolonization, Africa is growing rapidly. There are 11 African countries that now see growth rates higher that 7 percent annually, which is higher than the rates in East Asia. Nigeria, one of the largest countries in Africa, is growing at 9 percent a year, one percent below the magic percentage when economies really begin to take off. Three countries have already reached a 10 percent growth rate.

In addition, while many countries worldwide are facing labor shortages, Africa boasts of a rising labor force. With secondary school enrollment also rising, the continent will be able to see a generation of more educated youth as well.

All of the growth does not negate that there is truth in the media coverage. Governments across the continent have their share of problems, but what government doesn’t? China has continued to succeed economically without a democracy and many Asian nations also face corruptions.

African infrastructure is not always the best, which can provide a setback to companies seeking to build presence. But with investments comes financial capital to improve upon roads and broadband connections.

Those that are forward thinkers understand how important it is that Africa continues to grow. With or without personal attachments to the continent, Africa’s success is important to everyone. Its rise could help to alleviate much of the despair around the global markets and end the threat of another recession. As investors know best, there’s nothing like an emerging market. Only they are capable of the “explosive growth,” that provides the fast expansion effect desperately needed around the world.