One has to wonder what it will take to ease the fears of jumpy investors on Wall Street. Oil prices are down, the dollar is strong, but the Dow still fell nearly 6% yesterday. Oil fell to under $70 a barrel yesterday, and credit is starting to loosen, but the threat of a recession and a bleak outlook for corporate earnings the rest of the year is leading to pessimism on Wall Street. One reason for yesterday's sell off could be Wachovia. The troubled bank reported a staggering $23.9 billion loss in the third quarter. The gusher of red ink won't end anytime soon for the firm. They expect to take another $26.1 billion in mortgage losses in the next quarter. It wasn't all bad yesterday. Amazon reported better than expected third quarter earnings. But, the firm's stock fell as many fear the Christmas shopping season could be a tough one. Here's a daily dose of irony for you. The conventional wisdom is the Mac is better for creative tasks. Microsoft is spending a lot of money to counter that perception. Burt Helm in BusinessWeek says he saw the new commercial being filmed, and the entire production crew was using Macs. That's gotta sting.

1915: Some 25,000 women marched in New York City demanding the right to vote. 1925: Comedian and talk show host Johnny Carson was born in Corning, Iowa. 2006: Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced by a federal judge in Houston to 24 years, four months for his role in the company's collapse.

I am not sure if you noticed but budgets are being cut. My company, Next Step Magazine, gets most of its revenue from colleges, student loan companies and the military advertising. We've already seen the student loan companies disappear due to the liquidity crisis. As the recession deepens, we need to be prepared to feel the pain from other advertiser cuts as well. So far, we're hanging in quite well. But just a few bad few months can reverse a small business's success. So what is a maverick small business guy to do? (Sorry, just wanted to say "maverick.") Cut the budget, of course. The last thing you want to do, however, is cut payroll and thereby derail the morale of your coworkers. The first thing to do? Engage everyone in the process. That's what I did yesterday. We held a non-mandatory budget cut meeting. Since Next Step has an open book management philosophy, everyone knows every line item in the budget anyway. So about half the staff showed up to offer their thoughts on what we can cut. They shared some great ideas and seemed to feel excited to be part of the process. They thought of things that I hadn't. Their ideas ranged from postponing new computer purchases to having the staff volunteer to bake birthday cakes instead of the company buying them. My role was to shut up and listen. Of course, that was not entirely possible, but I think I did quite well! Bottom line, I expect their suggestions to save us around $50,000 a year, which will be a real help. And it also helped that the staff was involved. Nobody likes heavy-handed, top-down decisions that don't allow for any feedback. Granted, you won't be able to implement every suggestion you get from your staff. But the environment you'll create by sincerely listening can make the hard times ahead feel that much less painful. Source: David Mammano in Inc. Magazine.

This article on CNN caught my attention while I'm recording sessions at the PTAC conference (keeping up with the news and recording content - near the pinnacle of multitasking). Oil went under $70 a barrel. Weakened demand and the stalling economy are driving prices down. Tomorrow, the Energy Department is expected to release their weekly inventory report that should show rising stocks of gasoline as people are driving less. I know my family is doing everything to keep driving to a minimum. We primarily use our small car to get around, and the gas guzzling minivan is only in use when we need a second car. I filled up the minivan yesterday for the first time in a month, and it cost me less than $75, which was a pleasant surprise. How about you? Are you consciously reducing how much you drive? Are you seeing the effects of that in your bank account?

Like the arctic in springtime, it looks like the frozen credit pool is starting to flow again. The Dow jumped more than 400 points yesterday in response. In overnight trading, the Asian markets and European markets rallied on the news as well. And, it looks like the Treasury department is pushing another economic stimulus program as well, but that may have to wait until after the election. Intermountain Credit Union is suffering from financial troubles brought on by the financial crisis, so they're looking to finalize an "emergency" merger with America First Credit Union. The troubled institution says they've been in merger talks with America First for a couple of months, but the financial situation is accelerating their timeline. Here's your wild rumor of the day. Some say that Chrysler could join forces with Nissan and Renault to shore up the companies bottom line. Analysts say that a merger with GM is more likely. From the pages of Not at all Shocking magazine...A new study on internet usage concludes that more than half of men surf the internet daily, while just over 40% of women do. The study from the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future also says women spend more time each week reading books, but men spend more time reading online newspapers and magazines.

Whether it's beef carpaccio or smoked lobster, the food served at Danny Meyer's restaurants is of the high-end variety. And the last thing a chef in a top-tier restaurant wants to do is scrimp on ingredients. So given that food prices are on the rise, Meyer is in a tough spot. He's the founder of New York City-based Union Square Hospitality Group, which runs nine restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern, one of the best restaurants in New York and home to the aforementioned smoked lobster. Usually, Meyer's company posts strong annual revenue growth. But 2008's sales are only slightly ahead of 2007's. So Meyer has been searching for ways to cut spending. Inc. associate editor Hannah Clark Steiman talked with him about how he persuaded his chefs to work together to keep costs down. Most people are loath to cut their own budgets. How did you get your chefs and general managers on board? We began by finding items that we knew every restaurant used -- paper towels, bottled water, cleaning detergent, the kinds of things that really have very little impact on the artistry that distinguishes one restaurant from another. When restaurants started receiving rebates, it encouraged more of the chefs and general managers to say, "You know what? The sweet corn from that farm is really just as good as the sweet corn from the farm I'm already using." It's appalling to me how ignorant we were before we got into this. Once we showed ourselves and our chefs and general managers all the places we were leaving money on the table, they started asking us to expand the program to food products -- things like butter, cream. I know there are varying qualities of milk, but I'll be darned if I've ever gone into a restaurant and been able to identify whose milk it was working with. Then we went into perishables, fruits and vegetables, and once again we began to deliver savings. Then we said, OK, now we're getting into the stuff that makes you you: where you buy your bread, your pork, your veal. We're not going to tell you whom to do business with, but we're going to tell you what you could do. We still want them to decide who they think has the best product for what they want to cook. Do you have any more advice for other business owners worried about the economy? Challenge your team to "happen" to the recession, and to not allow the recession to happen to them. Use the downturn to do all the things you never have time to do in an expanding economy. Write that extra thank-you note to a regular customer. Give the extra pat on the back to a staff member. Recruit top talent, and prune the non-performers from your team. A down economy allows strong leaders to distinguish themselves through imaginative responses, when so many others are playing the woe-is-me role. Source: Hannah Clark Steiman in Inc. Magazine

1803: The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase. 1947: The House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence in the motion picture industry. 1977: Three members of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd were killed in the crash of a chartered plane near McComb, Miss. Source: New York Times

I think we're all getting tired of the roller coaster analogies when describing Wall Street these days, but there's really no better way to describe what happened yesterday. The Dow swung wildly yesterday before finishing with a mini-rally to end up 400 points. One analyst tells the New York Times that "the only thing that will bring stability to the markets is time." One of the reasons for the upswing just before closing was Google. The internet giant's 3rd quarter earnings were quite good, beating analysts projections. Many say that Google's success shows that the internet search ad sector could be "recession proof." Stop me if you've heard that one before. Wanna know how bad things are for the airline sector? Even Southwest reported a loss last quarter. The ironic part of the troubles plaguing airlines is fuel prices are expected to drop, but that won't be any relief for carriers as travel should be down significantly. Sometimes when it rains... Here's a novel thought about the struggling automobile sector. People aren't buying cars because it's hard to get a loan. They're staying away from dealerships because they're worried about the economy. Ed Wallace in BusinessWeek magazine says lack of showroom traffic is down, and that's while sales are off. Showroom traffic in September was off by as much as 13%, and that's why sales are slow.

1919: The Radio Corporation of America was created. 1931: Mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. 1933: Physicist Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany. Source: New York Times

Well, that was short. The Dow fell more than 700 points yesterday. How volatile has it been? In the past couple of weeks we've been witness to two of the biggest single day drops and the biggest single day gain in history. One of the reasons for yesterday's slide? Retail sales fell 1.2% in September, one of the largest drops in recent memory. The drop happened during "back to school" season, which usually means good news for retailers. Now there are growing fears that the Christmas shopping season this year could be equally as bleak. The government bailout may have come too late to have any real effect. Consumers are buying less, and now experts are warning the housing market may not turn around anytime soon. Housing prices are expected to fall for the next year or so. Economists say that slowdown could last even longer in some of the hardest hit areas. Rising unemployment, falling wages and rising mortgage rates are keeping a lid on sales. In tough times, you can always count on dark humor to put things in perspective. The UK newspaper The Daily Mail has a great list of "credit crisis jokes." My favorite? "What have an Icelandic bank and an Icelandic streaker got in common? They both have frozen assets."