What is real?

Compare your own personal experience with what is presented to you by mass communications.

There is a solid disconnect.

They claim thousands die of influenza every year.
I tried to think of any personal knowledge I have of someone who died of the flu. I couldn't think of even one! Finally I remembered a relative who died in the 1918 epidemic. That was it.

On the other hand, I have had lots of personal acauintance with automobile deaths.

The world I see every day is pretty good and wonderful and even delightful. That is the real world. I hear of so much bad stuff, but that is not my experience.

What is your experience?

Abundance

We live in an abundant world.

There is plenty of sunshine, and air.
Lots of oxygen.

Things are going well.

Let the flowers grow!

$4,500 per person

The U.S. budget deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion in the just-ended fiscal year, the government said on Friday, as the deep recession and a series of bank rescues cut a gaping hole in public finances.

wow!

That is a lot of money.

Comes to more than $4,500 per person.
For my little 4 person unit that is $18,000.
What did we get for that?

I don't know how to take it.
Maybe we really don't have to pay it back?

10,000 bull market goes on

Today the DOW 30 closed above 10,000 for the first time in over a year.
What a difference a year makes!

The next expectation is DOW 11,000. There may be some backing and filling but the next 1000 points should come quickly.

Don't ask why. Speculators never die, and are always reborn.

Full Employment

Unemployment rate approaches 10%.

But what is full employment?

What is a healthy rate of unemployment?

We have been led to believe that 4% is full employment. But at that level we usually get inflation and labor shortages and lots of illegal immigrants taking jobs. That is an overheated and overstimulated economy.

I propose that full employment is 8%.

We should gear all our expectations around that number.
Then the number of "problem" unemployed is much smaller than we think.

We work too much.
We produce too much.
It makes us sick.
It makes the earth sick.

We would do well to be content with less and stop being so angry.

Better to live simply than to live in anger.

DOW 10,000 and California government bankrupt

The DOW 30 looks headed for 10,000 soon. 4% up from here is all it takes. That could happen by the end of September!

But California looks more likely to become more insolvent as time goes by.
When will the end come? I expect it some time in the next ten years. Business is fleeing the state, tax revenues continue to go down and "needs" go up. THe rest of the country is recovering but California is still falling. Where is the bottom?
And what will happen?
Things will go on but there will be many losers.
The losers will scream loudly.

SAVE MONEY BY STRETCHING IT OUT

Medical costs

doctor says come back in six months
say OK I'll see you in eight months

doctor says some back in 12 months
say OK!
see you in 15 months

saves a lot by stretching it out