THE ENTERPRISE--HOPE FOR THE FUTURE--IN SPITE OF THE PRESENT
You'll note nothing written here about the "health care" issue. Why? It is an amorphous, constantly changing mess. Whatever comes out of it will still be a mess, but it will be a mess designed by a committee, intended to please everyone and will actually please no one, (except the misguided Congressional leaders who will beat their chest, and the naive President who will claim he brought about health care reform). An increase in costs/spending and a decrease in life expectancy--there's the "reform." How sad for now. How sad for later. How sad for America.
"WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN..." WERE THE LYRICS TO AN OLD Carpenters HIT SONG.
But all is not lost. We still have such fun to look forward to: Global warming--THE HOAX OR NOT? The EPA mandating CO2 control: "stop breathing right now," because with each breath you exhale CO2, and so do the other 6B+ people on earth. The spending fun has just begun too: stimulus package II, which, if it is as effective as the last one, will increase non-value added government jobs and destroy 3 jobs in the private sector (that's the profit making, tax paying part) for every job it creates. The "War Tax" which will not have an announced end date like the Afghanistan war has. Employee Free Choice Act, so named because it eliminates Free Choice to have secret ballot elections, and if not passed per se, it will be back door passed by an Obama appointed NLRB. A Congress and a President moving in synch can force through things that the majority of Americans oppose! The solution: 'THROW THE BUMS OUT" in 2010 & 2012, and elect new ones (hopefully not new "bums."
THE DOUBLE DIP RECESSION--TWO DIPS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
Caused by government raising taxes, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and spending like a bunch of "drunken sailors"--wait, that is slandering sailors, spending like "a bunch of drunken politicians" or Congress members. IF the Dems and Obama are not careful the government funded "growth blip" in 3Q 2009 will turn into the "pothole" of 1Q 2010, and maybe 2Q 2010, when unemployment will probably peak (we hope) at about 11%. IF the government would measure it right, about 18%-20% of all Americans will either be unemployed or underemployed by mid-2010. That will be just in time for the government "bribes" to buy votes (wait, sorry, I mean stimulus package II or III). Oh well, if we didn't have this to complain about, what would we complain about? The weather? But wait, if we can't predict local weather accurately a few days in advance, how can computer models tell us what global weather and effects of "warming" will be in 5, 10 or 15 years?)
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IF I WERE PRESIDENT, THIS WOULD BE MY SECOND SPEECH
The first speech would be "America--Love it or Leave it"--and don't expect us to make up for your own lack of work ethic, morals, responsibility, etc. With rights, come responsibilities! Earn your own way; expect to work for anything you get. "There is no such things as a free lunch!" If you want to live in this great country, you MUST quit bad mouthing it and show support for it. (That also includes the President--on both points--he must quit bad mouthing America and we then must support him--after all "we" elected him--or at least didn't find someone better to elect!!!).
A POSITIVE STORY FOR THE CHRISTMAS SEASON
I was all set to write a positive, optimistic edition of THE ENTERPRISE as I finish up its 8th year. Then I found that John Mauldin had done it already. My story was different. Lost my Dad when I was 18, but thanks to my Mom, some hard work, and scholarships I got my degree in engineering right when demand for engineers was very high. I even lucked out and got a fellowship that year so I could get my master's degree too, all by the time I was 23 years old. I met a wonderful young lady, and we hit it off. We were both poor. We had to pitch in almost our last $50 each to make the $100 deposit on our first apartment. But we knew we'd make it. There were a lot of bumps in the road--too many to belabor here. But we have been figuring them out together for 45 years--and it is still a challenge at times.
A GLASS HALF FULL
I have been an optimist--a "the glass is half full" guy--for most of my life. It seems the avalanche of financial and economic crises, combined with our government's apparent ineptness or "wrong-headedness," has changed that viewpoint. I don't like being a pessimist. I have always believed that somehow "we'd find a way." One of the more insightful newsletters I read regularly is by an investment guy--John Mauldin. I always accuse him of being too pessimistic. But he backs his commentary with authoritative sources and documentation, sufficient to make me think he is, above all, a very thoughtful guy. His Nov. 28 newsletter contained my Christmas gift from him and it was a very, very good one. I want to share it with you.
WITH THANKS, AND ATTRIBUTION TO JOHN MAULDIN, HERE IS AN OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE
I hope you get as much out of it as I did.
Best, John
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Why I Am Optimistic About the Future
by John Mauldin ©John Mauldin--Thoughts from the Frontline Weekly Newsletter, Nov. 28, 2009 ([email protected])
I am optimistic by nature. An entrepreneur friend of mine gave me a term that I have grown to love. She calls it "psychic income." It's that bit of hoped-for future income that is in our minds, that drives some of us, inflicted with the entrepreneurial gene, to do the next deal, make the next big plan, scheme yet another scheme to finally hit whatever counts as the big one for each of us. How much better would our life be, how our problems would go away, if only this one thing would come about! It has not yet become real income, yet we live and act as if it is almost real. We can feel it getting ready to happen. It is still in our heads, this psychic income. Yet it is in some ways real for us.
I get my propensity for psychic income naturally. My Less-Than-Sainted Dad lived on psychic income. He was always trying to invent something or launch a new business. He had large ups and downs, and at times we would be now classified as below the poverty line. Not that I knew that as a kid. Mostly, Dad lived in his dreams, though often alcoholic ones, of a better future, but he never gave up. In his mid-70s he was re-inventing the small printing press in his garage, with plans for national production. It was only after we had to take his car from him in his mid-80s that he quit. It was a very sad day. I now know we had not just taken his car, but far more than that: his dreams, his psychic income.
For some, I should note, psychic income is not just about money. It may be about the next promotion or the next big discovery. For some of us, it is just having our ideas accepted and validated in the court of human opinion. It is simply what drives us.
I graduated from seminary in the winter of 1974, entering the workforce in the hard year of 1975. We were coming off a recession, about which I technically knew little. I did know jobs were tight. I was unknowingly facing another eight years of high unemployment, a tumultuous stock market, rising commodity prices, high inflation, and rising interest rates. Japan was just beginning to be a real force in the world. People were still buying bomb shelters, as Russia was a feared and powerful enemy. As the price of gold rose, there were those who told us the dollar would soon be worthless (the Fed was a problem and the deficit was out of control), and so we needed to buy yet more gold and also a year's worth of dried food.
Not the best time to start a business; yet within a year or so, I ended up starting my own print brokering business, as jobs were scarce and that is what I knew. I often get letters from readers giving me grief about my rich hedge-fund friends and our fabulous wealth, and how little we relate to the real world. And for some of my rich hedge-fund friends, that may be true (although for most of my friends that is not true). And I am sadly far from rich, although I have dreams.
I remember waking up in the late 70s at 2 AM with a knot in my stomach, because a small bank was in trouble and had called my loan (an amount which now seems so small, but at the time it was all the money in the world). How would I make payroll? Gas and food? I know what it is like to work long hours and live on a very tight budget, with some months being behind on everything, while all the while your family is growing.
But I got lucky, and through a series of events got into the investment publishing field in the early '80s, then partnered in an investment firm, and then went on my own in 1999. I stuck this letter on the internet in August of 2000, and things just took off.
But how many setbacks, bumpy rides, and false starts have I gone through over the decades? Frankly, I try to forget. But the point is that each of those episodes was another learning opportunity. And I woke up the next morning and started trying to figure it all out.
But it's not just me, it' is tens of millions of entrepreneurs and businessmen and women in the US, and hundreds of millions worldwide, that have the same ambitions and drive. Every night we go to sleep on our psychic income, and every day we get up and try to figure out how to turn it into real income. And some of us are talented or lucky (that would be me) enough to make it happen.
Long-time readers know that I think we are in the midst of a secular bear cycle, much like 1966-82. The next decade is likely to produce less than average growth, due to structural problems and the bad choices we have made with personal and government debt. I am perfectly cognizant that unemployment will be over 10% for a protracted time. That is tragic for those unemployed and underemployed. I realize the entire developed world has huge and seemingly insurmountable pension and medical obligations over the next few decades, which we cannot possibly hope to meet. The level of angst that we will live through as we adjust will not be fun.
But the point is, that is just what we do - we live through it. In spite of the problems, we get up every day and figure out how to make it. Would it be better if we could get our act together in (pick a country) and not be forced to adjust because we have come to the end of the line? Yes, I know we will likely have some very tumultuous times ahead of us, making business and investment decisions more than a little difficult.
So what? The future is never easy for all but a few of us, at least not for long. But we figure it out. And that is why in 20 years we will be better off than we are today. Each of us, all over the world, by working out our own visions of psychic income, will make the real world a better place.
The Millennium Wave
Let's look at some changes we are likely to see over the next few decades. My view is that we have a number of waves of change getting ready to erupt on the world stage. The combination of them is what I call the Millennium Wave, the most significant period of change in human history. And one for which most of us are not yet ready.
Some time next year, we are going to see the three-billionth person get access to the telecosm (phones and internet, etc.). By 2015 it will be five billion people. Within ten years, most of the world will be able to access cheap (I mean really cheap) high-speed wireless broadband at connection rates that dwarf what we now have.
That is going to unleash a wave of creativity and new business that will be staggering. That heretofore hidden genius in Mumbai or Vladivostok or Kisangani will now have the ability to bring his ideas, talent, and energy to change the world in ways we can hardly imagine. When Isaac Watts was inventing the steam engine, there were a handful of engineers who could work with him. Now we throw a staggering number of scientists and engineers at trivial problems, let alone the really big ones.
And because of the internet, the advances of one person soon become known and built upon in a giant dance of collaboration. It is because of this giant dance, this unplanned group effort, that we will all figure out how to make advances in so many ways. (Of course, that is hugely disruptive to businesses that don't adapt.)
Ever-faster change is what is happening in medicine. None of us in 2030 will want to go back to 2010, which will then seem as barbaric and antiquated as, say, 1975. Within a few years, it will be hard to keep up with the number of human trials of gene therapy and stem cell research. Sadly for the US, most of the tests will be done outside of our borders, but we will still benefit from the results.
I spend some spare study time on stem cell research. It fascinates me. We are now very close to being able to start with your skin cells and grow you a new liver (or whatever). Muscular dystrophy? There are reasons to be very encouraged.
Alzheimer's disease requires somewhere between 5-7% of total US health-care costs. Defeat that and a large part of our health-care budget is fixed. And it will be first stopped and then cured. Same thing with cancers and all sorts of inflammatory diseases. There is reason to think a company may have found a generic cure for the common flu virus.
A whole new industry is getting ready to be born. And with it new jobs and investment opportunities.
Energy problems? Are we running out of oil? My bet is that in less than 20 years we won't care. We will be driving electric cars that are far superior to what we have today in every way, from power sources that are not oil-based.
For whatever reason, I seem to run into people who are working on new forms of energy. They are literally working in their garages on novel new ways to produce electric power; and my venture-capital MIT PhD friend says they are for real when I introduce them. And if I know of a handful, there are undoubtably thousands of such people. Not to mention well-funded corporations and startups looking to be the next new thing. Will one or more make it? My bet is that more than one will. We will find ourselves with whole new industries as we rebuild our power grids, not to mention what this will mean for the emerging markets.
What about nanotech? Robotics? Artificial intelligence? Virtual reality? There are whole new industries that are waiting to be born. In 1980 there were few who saw the rise of personal computers, and even fewer who envisioned the internet. Mapping the human genome? Which we can now do for an individual for a few thousand dollars? There are hundreds of new businesses that couldn't even exist just 20 years ago.
I am not sure where the new jobs will come from, but they will. Just as they did in 1975.
There is, however, one more reason I am optimistic. Sitting around the dinner table, I looked at my kids. I have seven kids, five of whom are adopted. I have two Korean twins, two black kids, a blond, a (sometimes) brunette, and a redhead. They range in age from 15 to 32. It is a rather unique family. My oldest black son is married to a white girl and my middle white son is with a black girl. They both have given me grandsons this year (shades of Obama!). One of my Korean daughters is married to a white young man, and the other is dating an Hispanic. And the oldest (Tiffani) is due with my first granddaughter in less than a month.
And the interesting thing? None of them think any of that is unusual. They accept it as normal. And when I am with their friends, they also see the world in a far different manner than my generation. (That is not to say the trash talk cannot get rather rough at the Mauldin household at times.)
I find great cause for optimism in that. I am not saying we are in a post-racial world. We are not. Every white man in America should have a black son. It would open your eyes to a world we do not normally see. But it is better, far better, than the world I grew up in. And it is getting still better.
My boys play online video games with kids from all over the world. And the kids from around the world get on the internet and see a much wider world than just their local neighborhoods.
Twenty years ago China was seen as a huge military threat. Now we are worried about them not buying our bonds and becoming an economic power. Niall Ferguson writes about "Chimerica" as two countries joined together in an increasingly tight bond. In 20 years, will Iran be our new best friend? I think it might be, and in much less time than that, as an increasingly young and frustrated population demands change, just as they did 30 years ago. Will it be a smooth transition? Highly unlikely. But it will happen, I think.
I look at my kids and their friends. Are they struggling? Sure. They can't get enough hours, enough salaries, the jobs they want. They now have kids and mortgages. And dreams. Lots of dreams. That is cause for great optimism. It is when the dreams die that it is time to turn pessimistic.
I believe the world of my kids is going to be a far better world in 20 years. Will China and the emerging world be relatively better off? Probably, but who cares? Do I really begrudge the fact that someone is making their part of the world better? In absolute terms, none of my kids will want to come back to 2009, and neither will I. Most of the doom and gloom types (and they seem to be legion) project a straight-line linear future. They see no progress beyond that in their own small worlds. If you go back to 1975 and assume a linear future, the projections were not all that good. Today you can easily come up with a less-than-rosy future if you make the assumption that things in 20 years will roughly look the same as now. But that also assumes there will not be even more billions of people who now have the opportunity to dream up their own psychic income and work to make it happen.
We live in a world of accelerating change. Things are changing at an ever-increasing pace. The world is not linear, it is curved. And we may be at the beginning of the elbow of that curve. If you assume a linear world, you are going to make less-than-optimal choices about your future, whether it is in your job or investments or life in general.
In the end, life is what you make of it. With all our struggles, as we sat around the table, our family was content, just like 100 million families around the country. Are there those who are in dire distress? Homeless? Sick? Of course, and that is tragic for each of them. And those of us who are fortunate need to help those who are not.
We live in the most exciting times in human history. We are on the verge of remarkable changes in so many areas of our world. Yes, some of them are not going to be fun. I see the problems probably more clearly than most.
But am I going to just stop and say, "What's the use? The Fed is going to make a mess of things. The government is going to run us into debts to big too deal with? We are all getting older, and the stock market is going to crash?"
Even the most diehard bear among us is thinking of ways to improve his personal lot, even if it is only to buy more gold and guns. We all think we can figure it out or at least try to do so. Some of us will get it right and others sadly will not. But it is the collective individual struggles for our own versions of psychic income, the dance of massive collaboration on a scale the world has never witnessed, that will make our world a better place in the next 20 years.
All that being said, while I am an optimist, I am a cautious and hopefully realistic optimist. I do not think the stock market compounds at 10% a year from today's valuations. I rather doubt the Fed will figure the exact and perfect path in removing its quantitative easing. I doubt we will pursue a path of rational fiscal discipline in 2010 or sadly even by 2012, although I pray we do. I expect my taxes to be much higher in a few years.
But thankfully, I am not limited to only investing in the broad stock market. I have choices. I can be patient and wait for valuations to come my way. I can look for new opportunities. I can plan to make the tax burden as efficient as possible, and try and insulate myself from the volatility that is almost surely in our future - and maybe even figure out a way to prosper from it.
A pessimist never gets in the game. A wild-eyed optimist will suffer the slings and arrows of boom and inevitable bust. Cautious optimism is the correct and most rewarding path. And that, I hope, is what you see when you read my weekly thoughts.
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John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group, Phone 614-840-0959 http://www.mariotti.net http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/
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My latest on American Express OPEN FORUM is worth a visit to read.
WHAT MATTERS MOST-AND IT STARTS WITH A "P?"
I had a chance to speak to a bunch of college seniors last week. The one point I hammered home above everything else (this was a "strategy oriented management class") was that the most important word in business starts with a "P"—it's PEOPLE (not profit as one student guessed). Get the best people; get them working together passionately, toward a worthy, common goal; provide them the resources they need; make sure they have a viable plan; the profits will follow. Trust me. I've been there; done that.HERE IS ANOTHER KIND OF "WHAT MATTERS MOST," FROM AN AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN WHO IS DOING IT RIGHT--David MacNeil of MacNeil Products (They make Weathertech rubber floor mats for cars & trucks)
Download Amessagefromdavidmacneil
NOTE: CONJECTURE ABOUT THINGS YOU CANNOT INFLUENCE MUCH (OR AT ALL) IS A WASTE OF TIMEYou'll note nothing written here about the "health care" issue. Why? It is an amorphous, constantly changing mess. Whatever comes out of it will still be a mess, but it will be a mess designed by a committee, intended to please everyone and will actually please no one, (except the misguided Congressional leaders who will beat their chest, and the naive President who will claim he brought about health care reform). An increase in costs/spending and a decrease in life expectancy--there's the "reform." How sad for now. How sad for later. How sad for America.
"WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN..." WERE THE LYRICS TO AN OLD Carpenters HIT SONG.
But all is not lost. We still have such fun to look forward to: Global warming--THE HOAX OR NOT? The EPA mandating CO2 control: "stop breathing right now," because with each breath you exhale CO2, and so do the other 6B+ people on earth. The spending fun has just begun too: stimulus package II, which, if it is as effective as the last one, will increase non-value added government jobs and destroy 3 jobs in the private sector (that's the profit making, tax paying part) for every job it creates. The "War Tax" which will not have an announced end date like the Afghanistan war has. Employee Free Choice Act, so named because it eliminates Free Choice to have secret ballot elections, and if not passed per se, it will be back door passed by an Obama appointed NLRB. A Congress and a President moving in synch can force through things that the majority of Americans oppose! The solution: 'THROW THE BUMS OUT" in 2010 & 2012, and elect new ones (hopefully not new "bums."
THE DOUBLE DIP RECESSION--TWO DIPS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
Caused by government raising taxes, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and spending like a bunch of "drunken sailors"--wait, that is slandering sailors, spending like "a bunch of drunken politicians" or Congress members. IF the Dems and Obama are not careful the government funded "growth blip" in 3Q 2009 will turn into the "pothole" of 1Q 2010, and maybe 2Q 2010, when unemployment will probably peak (we hope) at about 11%. IF the government would measure it right, about 18%-20% of all Americans will either be unemployed or underemployed by mid-2010. That will be just in time for the government "bribes" to buy votes (wait, sorry, I mean stimulus package II or III). Oh well, if we didn't have this to complain about, what would we complain about? The weather? But wait, if we can't predict local weather accurately a few days in advance, how can computer models tell us what global weather and effects of "warming" will be in 5, 10 or 15 years?)
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NOW READ THE WORDS & WISDOM OF AN UNSUNG AMERICAN HERO
Dear President Obama,
My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert. I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country. One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man. So here goes.
I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish. I can't figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like: "We're no longer a Christian nation"; "America is arrogant!" - (Your wife even announced to the world, "America is mean-spirited." Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.) I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals." Which ones did you mean?
1. Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British ?
2. Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War ?
3. I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers,husbands,and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around because we stand for freedom.
4. I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man. Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his
fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black
college professor in Massachusetts who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.
You could be our greatest president, because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.
Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes
When a 95 year old hero of the "the Greatest Generation" stands up and speaks out like this, I think we owe it to him to send his words to as many Americans as we can pass it on.
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IF I WERE PRESIDENT, THIS WOULD BE MY SECOND SPEECH
The first speech would be "America--Love it or Leave it"--and don't expect us to make up for your own lack of work ethic, morals, responsibility, etc. With rights, come responsibilities! Earn your own way; expect to work for anything you get. "There is no such things as a free lunch!" If you want to live in this great country, you MUST quit bad mouthing it and show support for it. (That also includes the President--on both points--he must quit bad mouthing America and we then must support him--after all "we" elected him--or at least didn't find someone better to elect!!!).
NOW, WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT TO TURN ON YOUR TV AND HEAR ANY U.S. PRESIDENT, INDEPENDENT, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN GIVE THE FOLLOWING SPEECH?======================================
As you all know, the defeat of the Iraq regime has been completed. Since congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete.
This morning I gave the order for the complete removal of all American forces from Iraq. This action will be totally complete within the next 30 days. It is now time to begin the reckoning.
Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict. This list is short. The United Kingdom , Spain , Bulgaria , Australia , and Poland are some of the countries listed there. The other list contains everyone not on the first list. Most of the world's nations are on that list. My press secretary will be distributing copies of both lists later this evening.
Let me start by saying that effective immediately, ALL foreign aid to those nations on List 2 ceases immediately and indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay for the costs of the Iraqi war. The American people are no longer going to pour their hard-earned money into third world Hellholes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption.
Need help with a famine ? Wrestling with an epidemic? Call France or Germany. In the future, together with Congress, I will work to redirect ALL of this money toward solving the vexing social problems we still have at home. On that note, a word to terrorist organizations: IF YOU Screw with us, we will hunt you down and A-bomb, like you know, eliminate you and all your friends from the face of the earth. Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try Russia, France, or maybe even China .
I am ordering the immediate severing of all diplomatic relations with France , Germany , and Russia . Thanks for all your help, comrades. We are retiring from NATO as well. Bon chance, mes amis.
Also, I have instructed the Mayor of New York City to begin towing the many UN diplomatic vehicles located in Manhattan with more than two unpaid parking tickets to sites where those vehicles will be stripped, shredded and crushed. I don't care about whatever treaty pertains to this. You creeps have tens of thousands of unpaid tickets. Pay those tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, Beamers and limos be turned
over to some of the finest chop shops in the world. I love New York
On another note: UN to relocate, we've had enough of your meddling in the USA !
A special note to our neighbors. *Canada* is on List 2. Since we are likely to be seeing a lot more of each other, you Canooks might want to try not pissing us off for a change.
*Mexico* is also on List 2 President Fox (or whoever is in power) and their entire corrupt government really needs an attitude adjustment. Now that I will have a couple extra tank and infantry divisions sitting around, can you guess where I am going to put 'em? Yep, border security....don't need no darned fence! Oh, by the way, the United States is abrogating the NAFTA treaty, you know, those super highways from CANADA to MEXICO, starting now.
We are tired of the one-way highway. Immediately, we'll be drilling for oil in Alaska - which will take care of this country's oil needs for centuries to come. If you're an environmentalist who opposes this decision, I refer you to List 2 above: pick a country and move there. They care. It is time for America to focus on its own welfare and its own citizens. Some will accuse us of isolationism. I answer them by saying, 'darn tootin.'
Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life through Democracy around this world, has only earned us the undying enmity and down-right hate of just about everyone on the planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in America,....It is time to eliminate homelessness in America .
To the nations on List 1, a final thought. Thank you guys. We owe you and we won't forget.
To the nations on List 2, a final thought: You might want to learn to speak Arabic.
Now America can get back to all the freedoms she has earned through the blood, sweat and tears she has shed by her native sons and daughters!
God bless America . Thank you and good night.
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier.
(Please forward this to at least ten friends and see what happens! Let's get this to every USA computer!)
A POSITIVE STORY FOR THE CHRISTMAS SEASON
I was all set to write a positive, optimistic edition of THE ENTERPRISE as I finish up its 8th year. Then I found that John Mauldin had done it already. My story was different. Lost my Dad when I was 18, but thanks to my Mom, some hard work, and scholarships I got my degree in engineering right when demand for engineers was very high. I even lucked out and got a fellowship that year so I could get my master's degree too, all by the time I was 23 years old. I met a wonderful young lady, and we hit it off. We were both poor. We had to pitch in almost our last $50 each to make the $100 deposit on our first apartment. But we knew we'd make it. There were a lot of bumps in the road--too many to belabor here. But we have been figuring them out together for 45 years--and it is still a challenge at times.
A GLASS HALF FULL
I have been an optimist--a "the glass is half full" guy--for most of my life. It seems the avalanche of financial and economic crises, combined with our government's apparent ineptness or "wrong-headedness," has changed that viewpoint. I don't like being a pessimist. I have always believed that somehow "we'd find a way." One of the more insightful newsletters I read regularly is by an investment guy--John Mauldin. I always accuse him of being too pessimistic. But he backs his commentary with authoritative sources and documentation, sufficient to make me think he is, above all, a very thoughtful guy. His Nov. 28 newsletter contained my Christmas gift from him and it was a very, very good one. I want to share it with you.
WITH THANKS, AND ATTRIBUTION TO JOHN MAULDIN, HERE IS AN OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK FOR THE FUTURE
I hope you get as much out of it as I did.
Best, John
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Why I Am Optimistic About the Future
by John Mauldin ©John Mauldin--Thoughts from the Frontline Weekly Newsletter, Nov. 28, 2009 ([email protected])
I am optimistic by nature. An entrepreneur friend of mine gave me a term that I have grown to love. She calls it "psychic income." It's that bit of hoped-for future income that is in our minds, that drives some of us, inflicted with the entrepreneurial gene, to do the next deal, make the next big plan, scheme yet another scheme to finally hit whatever counts as the big one for each of us. How much better would our life be, how our problems would go away, if only this one thing would come about! It has not yet become real income, yet we live and act as if it is almost real. We can feel it getting ready to happen. It is still in our heads, this psychic income. Yet it is in some ways real for us.
I get my propensity for psychic income naturally. My Less-Than-Sainted Dad lived on psychic income. He was always trying to invent something or launch a new business. He had large ups and downs, and at times we would be now classified as below the poverty line. Not that I knew that as a kid. Mostly, Dad lived in his dreams, though often alcoholic ones, of a better future, but he never gave up. In his mid-70s he was re-inventing the small printing press in his garage, with plans for national production. It was only after we had to take his car from him in his mid-80s that he quit. It was a very sad day. I now know we had not just taken his car, but far more than that: his dreams, his psychic income.
For some, I should note, psychic income is not just about money. It may be about the next promotion or the next big discovery. For some of us, it is just having our ideas accepted and validated in the court of human opinion. It is simply what drives us.
I graduated from seminary in the winter of 1974, entering the workforce in the hard year of 1975. We were coming off a recession, about which I technically knew little. I did know jobs were tight. I was unknowingly facing another eight years of high unemployment, a tumultuous stock market, rising commodity prices, high inflation, and rising interest rates. Japan was just beginning to be a real force in the world. People were still buying bomb shelters, as Russia was a feared and powerful enemy. As the price of gold rose, there were those who told us the dollar would soon be worthless (the Fed was a problem and the deficit was out of control), and so we needed to buy yet more gold and also a year's worth of dried food.
Not the best time to start a business; yet within a year or so, I ended up starting my own print brokering business, as jobs were scarce and that is what I knew. I often get letters from readers giving me grief about my rich hedge-fund friends and our fabulous wealth, and how little we relate to the real world. And for some of my rich hedge-fund friends, that may be true (although for most of my friends that is not true). And I am sadly far from rich, although I have dreams.
I remember waking up in the late 70s at 2 AM with a knot in my stomach, because a small bank was in trouble and had called my loan (an amount which now seems so small, but at the time it was all the money in the world). How would I make payroll? Gas and food? I know what it is like to work long hours and live on a very tight budget, with some months being behind on everything, while all the while your family is growing.
But I got lucky, and through a series of events got into the investment publishing field in the early '80s, then partnered in an investment firm, and then went on my own in 1999. I stuck this letter on the internet in August of 2000, and things just took off.
But how many setbacks, bumpy rides, and false starts have I gone through over the decades? Frankly, I try to forget. But the point is that each of those episodes was another learning opportunity. And I woke up the next morning and started trying to figure it all out.
But it's not just me, it' is tens of millions of entrepreneurs and businessmen and women in the US, and hundreds of millions worldwide, that have the same ambitions and drive. Every night we go to sleep on our psychic income, and every day we get up and try to figure out how to turn it into real income. And some of us are talented or lucky (that would be me) enough to make it happen.
Long-time readers know that I think we are in the midst of a secular bear cycle, much like 1966-82. The next decade is likely to produce less than average growth, due to structural problems and the bad choices we have made with personal and government debt. I am perfectly cognizant that unemployment will be over 10% for a protracted time. That is tragic for those unemployed and underemployed. I realize the entire developed world has huge and seemingly insurmountable pension and medical obligations over the next few decades, which we cannot possibly hope to meet. The level of angst that we will live through as we adjust will not be fun.
But the point is, that is just what we do - we live through it. In spite of the problems, we get up every day and figure out how to make it. Would it be better if we could get our act together in (pick a country) and not be forced to adjust because we have come to the end of the line? Yes, I know we will likely have some very tumultuous times ahead of us, making business and investment decisions more than a little difficult.
So what? The future is never easy for all but a few of us, at least not for long. But we figure it out. And that is why in 20 years we will be better off than we are today. Each of us, all over the world, by working out our own visions of psychic income, will make the real world a better place.
The Millennium Wave
Let's look at some changes we are likely to see over the next few decades. My view is that we have a number of waves of change getting ready to erupt on the world stage. The combination of them is what I call the Millennium Wave, the most significant period of change in human history. And one for which most of us are not yet ready.
Some time next year, we are going to see the three-billionth person get access to the telecosm (phones and internet, etc.). By 2015 it will be five billion people. Within ten years, most of the world will be able to access cheap (I mean really cheap) high-speed wireless broadband at connection rates that dwarf what we now have.
That is going to unleash a wave of creativity and new business that will be staggering. That heretofore hidden genius in Mumbai or Vladivostok or Kisangani will now have the ability to bring his ideas, talent, and energy to change the world in ways we can hardly imagine. When Isaac Watts was inventing the steam engine, there were a handful of engineers who could work with him. Now we throw a staggering number of scientists and engineers at trivial problems, let alone the really big ones.
And because of the internet, the advances of one person soon become known and built upon in a giant dance of collaboration. It is because of this giant dance, this unplanned group effort, that we will all figure out how to make advances in so many ways. (Of course, that is hugely disruptive to businesses that don't adapt.)
Ever-faster change is what is happening in medicine. None of us in 2030 will want to go back to 2010, which will then seem as barbaric and antiquated as, say, 1975. Within a few years, it will be hard to keep up with the number of human trials of gene therapy and stem cell research. Sadly for the US, most of the tests will be done outside of our borders, but we will still benefit from the results.
I spend some spare study time on stem cell research. It fascinates me. We are now very close to being able to start with your skin cells and grow you a new liver (or whatever). Muscular dystrophy? There are reasons to be very encouraged.
Alzheimer's disease requires somewhere between 5-7% of total US health-care costs. Defeat that and a large part of our health-care budget is fixed. And it will be first stopped and then cured. Same thing with cancers and all sorts of inflammatory diseases. There is reason to think a company may have found a generic cure for the common flu virus.
A whole new industry is getting ready to be born. And with it new jobs and investment opportunities.
Energy problems? Are we running out of oil? My bet is that in less than 20 years we won't care. We will be driving electric cars that are far superior to what we have today in every way, from power sources that are not oil-based.
For whatever reason, I seem to run into people who are working on new forms of energy. They are literally working in their garages on novel new ways to produce electric power; and my venture-capital MIT PhD friend says they are for real when I introduce them. And if I know of a handful, there are undoubtably thousands of such people. Not to mention well-funded corporations and startups looking to be the next new thing. Will one or more make it? My bet is that more than one will. We will find ourselves with whole new industries as we rebuild our power grids, not to mention what this will mean for the emerging markets.
What about nanotech? Robotics? Artificial intelligence? Virtual reality? There are whole new industries that are waiting to be born. In 1980 there were few who saw the rise of personal computers, and even fewer who envisioned the internet. Mapping the human genome? Which we can now do for an individual for a few thousand dollars? There are hundreds of new businesses that couldn't even exist just 20 years ago.
I am not sure where the new jobs will come from, but they will. Just as they did in 1975.
There is, however, one more reason I am optimistic. Sitting around the dinner table, I looked at my kids. I have seven kids, five of whom are adopted. I have two Korean twins, two black kids, a blond, a (sometimes) brunette, and a redhead. They range in age from 15 to 32. It is a rather unique family. My oldest black son is married to a white girl and my middle white son is with a black girl. They both have given me grandsons this year (shades of Obama!). One of my Korean daughters is married to a white young man, and the other is dating an Hispanic. And the oldest (Tiffani) is due with my first granddaughter in less than a month.
And the interesting thing? None of them think any of that is unusual. They accept it as normal. And when I am with their friends, they also see the world in a far different manner than my generation. (That is not to say the trash talk cannot get rather rough at the Mauldin household at times.)
I find great cause for optimism in that. I am not saying we are in a post-racial world. We are not. Every white man in America should have a black son. It would open your eyes to a world we do not normally see. But it is better, far better, than the world I grew up in. And it is getting still better.
My boys play online video games with kids from all over the world. And the kids from around the world get on the internet and see a much wider world than just their local neighborhoods.
Twenty years ago China was seen as a huge military threat. Now we are worried about them not buying our bonds and becoming an economic power. Niall Ferguson writes about "Chimerica" as two countries joined together in an increasingly tight bond. In 20 years, will Iran be our new best friend? I think it might be, and in much less time than that, as an increasingly young and frustrated population demands change, just as they did 30 years ago. Will it be a smooth transition? Highly unlikely. But it will happen, I think.
I look at my kids and their friends. Are they struggling? Sure. They can't get enough hours, enough salaries, the jobs they want. They now have kids and mortgages. And dreams. Lots of dreams. That is cause for great optimism. It is when the dreams die that it is time to turn pessimistic.
I believe the world of my kids is going to be a far better world in 20 years. Will China and the emerging world be relatively better off? Probably, but who cares? Do I really begrudge the fact that someone is making their part of the world better? In absolute terms, none of my kids will want to come back to 2009, and neither will I. Most of the doom and gloom types (and they seem to be legion) project a straight-line linear future. They see no progress beyond that in their own small worlds. If you go back to 1975 and assume a linear future, the projections were not all that good. Today you can easily come up with a less-than-rosy future if you make the assumption that things in 20 years will roughly look the same as now. But that also assumes there will not be even more billions of people who now have the opportunity to dream up their own psychic income and work to make it happen.
We live in a world of accelerating change. Things are changing at an ever-increasing pace. The world is not linear, it is curved. And we may be at the beginning of the elbow of that curve. If you assume a linear world, you are going to make less-than-optimal choices about your future, whether it is in your job or investments or life in general.
In the end, life is what you make of it. With all our struggles, as we sat around the table, our family was content, just like 100 million families around the country. Are there those who are in dire distress? Homeless? Sick? Of course, and that is tragic for each of them. And those of us who are fortunate need to help those who are not.
We live in the most exciting times in human history. We are on the verge of remarkable changes in so many areas of our world. Yes, some of them are not going to be fun. I see the problems probably more clearly than most.
But am I going to just stop and say, "What's the use? The Fed is going to make a mess of things. The government is going to run us into debts to big too deal with? We are all getting older, and the stock market is going to crash?"
Even the most diehard bear among us is thinking of ways to improve his personal lot, even if it is only to buy more gold and guns. We all think we can figure it out or at least try to do so. Some of us will get it right and others sadly will not. But it is the collective individual struggles for our own versions of psychic income, the dance of massive collaboration on a scale the world has never witnessed, that will make our world a better place in the next 20 years.
All that being said, while I am an optimist, I am a cautious and hopefully realistic optimist. I do not think the stock market compounds at 10% a year from today's valuations. I rather doubt the Fed will figure the exact and perfect path in removing its quantitative easing. I doubt we will pursue a path of rational fiscal discipline in 2010 or sadly even by 2012, although I pray we do. I expect my taxes to be much higher in a few years.
But thankfully, I am not limited to only investing in the broad stock market. I have choices. I can be patient and wait for valuations to come my way. I can look for new opportunities. I can plan to make the tax burden as efficient as possible, and try and insulate myself from the volatility that is almost surely in our future - and maybe even figure out a way to prosper from it.
A pessimist never gets in the game. A wild-eyed optimist will suffer the slings and arrows of boom and inevitable bust. Cautious optimism is the correct and most rewarding path. And that, I hope, is what you see when you read my weekly thoughts.
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John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group, Phone 614-840-0959 http://www.mariotti.net http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/
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