The End of the U.S. Postal Service?

"I really, really think if we cut out the Saturday delivery, it would be a terrible, terrible mistake, a terrible cost to the country." -- Delvin Johnson, United States Postal Service Letter Carrier.

Delvin Johnson has been a letter carrier for 30 years.

The 52-year old Albany, Georgia, native says he is not happy with current plans by the U.S. Postal Service to end its Saturday mail deliveries, and to close some of its more than 37,000 post offices nationwide. Some U.S. lawmakers are also unhappy with these plans. They say such cuts could be the beginning of the end for the financially troubled mail delivery system.

But Postal Service administrators insist that with the volume of physical mail falling quickly as more and more communication is done on the Internet, the organization needs to make these changes to survive. Even though the Postal Service receives no tax dollars, Congress has authority over how it operates, so the decision on the cuts is now in the hands of lawmakers.

In this video, veteran mail carrier Delvin Johnson offers a simple but long-overlooked solution to help the Postal Service, which over the past decade has shed more than 200,000 jobs.

Should We All Trade Online?

"A good trader is really just a couple of things: those who are willing to work hard at this business - the entrepreneurship of trading - and those who are willing to be disciplined and manage risks." -- online trading instructor Kyle Hibbard.

In the class Kyle Hibbard teaches at the Vienna, Virginia, Online Trading Academy, the students range from stay-at-home moms and recent college graduates still looking for employment to successful entrepreneurs.

They’ve all come to master a skill they believe might open doors to both a new professional challenge and a potentially lucrative new source of income. Online trading involves using an Internet-connected computer to put your own money and investment savvy to work trading in stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, and other financial instruments. These days, investors can trade these instruments at all hours, from anywhere in the world, thanks to the Internet.

Many critics say online trading is an especially risky form of gambling, particularly when novice investors get involved, with the potential for sudden financial gain as well as devastating losses only a mouse-click away.

But teachers like Hibbard say their careful methods of using software and their experience looking at market indicators can help student traders to avoid some of these dangers, and reap consistent income.

Online Trading Academy president Chris Koomey says the Wall Street investment community likes to promote the idea that the average investor needs the services of brokerage firms, mutual-fund managers, financial consultants or other middlemen, in order to earn money on the stock market. But Koomey says that's wrong. He believes the business of managing money for others is a business like any other, and middlemen are in it for their own interests, and not for those of investors.

Unlike other businesses, though, online trading is open to virtually everyone, Koomey says. And markets do not always need to go up for an online investor to make money. Shorting stocks, which involves selling in anticipation of a price decline, is one example of how this can happen.

Koomey says when the market crashed in 2009, he was able to earn lots of money, and avoided losing most of his retirement savings the way many other Americans did. He believes earning a living by trading online is also a way to reclaim more time for leisure, which he says has become the rarest of commodities for many who live increasingly hectic, schedule-driven lives.

Risking Green on Green -- A U.S Investor Puts His Money on a Norwegian Electric Car

"There's no reason why you can't help finance these products and these companies as well as do well financially and if that's the case, what's there not to love?" -- Mark Huang, investor in the Th!nk City electric car, and co-founder of Novus Energy Partners.

While green investors are doing well in wind and solar renewable-energy projects, selling an electric car to a mass market is a different endeavor entirely.

Even with incentives, the sticker price for the Th!nk car exceeds $30,000. But that is still far less than the Model S electric car built by California-based Tesla Motors, which starts at $49,900.

Of course, the owner of a Th!nk car won't have to worry about rising gasoline prices.

These new electric cars, unlike many of their failed predecessors, actually do go fast, and perform well in city traffic. The Th!nk car offers impressive handling, safety and comfort, though it lacks air conditioning.

This report is about Th!nk City auto investor Mark Huang and the debut of the Norwegian-made car on the Washington, D.C., lobby-cocktail circuit. One union representative expressed concern that the car is not being built in the United States. An environmentalist liked the car, but doubted her husband would want to buy it, since it doesn't sound like a race car.

Maintenance was not discussed with the test drivers, but Huang told me much like a cell phone or a computer, this car, which is 100% electric, will need upgrades and rebooting, rather than oil changes.

This report by Kurt Achin shows how South Korea seems to be moving faster than the United States toward an electric car future.

Diversity Job Fair Combats Minority Unemployment

"You need to inform as many people as you can, try to talk to family members, friends, ex co-workers, ex bosses, try to place yourself out there. You need to join networking groups, local associations. You need to try to update your resume and come prepared for an interview. You need to do research on companies, and, most importantly, you need to make a very good first impression." -- Ricardo Villalba, Job Fair Organizer.

The latest U.S. unemployment figures show that 8.9 percent of the American workforce is out of a job.

The American economy has shed nearly six million jobs since January 2008. That’s the biggest employment loss of any U.S. economic slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Minorities have been hardest hit. The latest figures show unemployment among African-Americans at 15 percent, and Hispanic unemployment at 11.3 percent.

This vlog is about a diversity job fair aimed at combating these trends. The information booths run by U.S. government employers, in particular the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department, attracted large crowds.

This television report by Mil Arcega shows how recently laid-off workers are also turning their attention to “green” jobs.

Helping Victims of the "American Dream" of Homeownership

"A lot of my clients are disabled women and elderly women… Brokers didn't care that they couldn't pay the (mortgage) loan because the house, they thought at the time, would always be more valuable than the loan." -- A Florida attorney.

The current economic crisis in the United States is not just about companies going bankrupt, but also about individuals facing severe financial hardships.

In this vlog we meet lawyers in the southeastern state of Florida who are helping some of these people for free. They don’t want to add legal fees to their clients’ financial burdens. The lawyers say they want to be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.

When Florida’s housing bubble finally burst and its inflated real estate prices tumbled, state residents were especially hard-hit. Even as they struggled with impossibly hefty mortgage payments and mounting credit card debt, many homeowners lost their jobs and, often, their health insurance, too. Across Florida, home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies have soared. It’s a financial crisis with a human face.

This recent television report by Sean Maroney shows how some poor families have been forced to move into low-cost motels.

People need jobs more than ever right now, but as Julia Ritchey indicates in her radio report, U.S. jobless rates are climbing.

Another television report by Jeff Swicord shows how laid off workers in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania are trying to learn new skills to get new jobs.

Florida Is Still For Sale

"We're working with a whole different profile of buyer right now. People are looking for bargains. They are looking for short sales, or bank owned properties, or foreclosures." -- Florida Real Estate Agent

(Flagler Beach) -- Florida, at the southeastern tip of the United States, is known as the "Sunshine State."

People often associate it with golfing, fishing, long, sandy beaches, easy retirement and beautiful sunsets.

But lately it's also been associated with terms like short sales, foreclosures and flipping.

Along with parts of California, Florida is where America's housing market collapsed most dramatically. The real estate bubble had burst.

But the market is struggling back. This vlog shows how Floridian real estate agents and business owners are still hard at work trying to make money and offering bargains. It also tries to explain some of what went wrong.

This radio report by Kent Klein has a quote by President Obama saying "the days when we are going to be able to grow the [U.S.] economy just on an overheated housing market or people maxing out on their credit cards, those days are over."

Oklahoma Goes for Wind

"It is part of something where you are sort of on a leading edge. We enjoy and work every day with the idea of leaving this place better than we found it." -- University of Oklahoma official

(Norman, Oklahoma)-- Wind power is a hot topic in Washington, D.C. these days, as the Obama administration wants to make sure the United States becomes more energy independent.

In the American plains state of Oklahoma -- known for its tornadoes and repetitive oil booms -- residents, businesses and universities are also getting behind wind energy.

This vlog shows a few of the protagonists at work as they help Oklahoma increase its use of wind energy and expand the number of wind farms in the state.

A recent radio / television report by Greg Flakus showcases a wind power museum in nearby Texas.