It Was a Decade to Remember! Welcome to 2011!!!

We started off this decade with a nation wondering who they had elected president. We ended it with the nation sending a very clear message of who and what they want in politics.  In between a lot of things happened, and the world changed forever. 

A few of my memorable points follow below:

• After days of wrangling ending in the US Supreme Court, George W. Bush was our President.
• Terrorists knocked down the World Trade Center Towers, and hit the Pentagon.
• America invaded Afghanistan and toppled Saddam's Iraq,
• Facebook and Blogs are born, and what is xBox?,
• Ipods arrived and phones that do more than talk are born,
• The Internet got fast enough to use,
• The world figured out what most use the Internet for :)
• Everything you buy now has a microchip in it, making even toasters smart,
• People got more sensitive, and then less sensitive,
• Leno quit then got his old job back,
• Conan got hired and then fired,
• Aliens, asteroids, ice, fire and volcanoes destroyed the Earth on the big screen, while almost the same thing happened in real life,
• California was the place to live, now the place to leave,
• Bigger was better until the world collapsed then smaller was better,
• Credit was everywhere, and then nowhere to be found,
• No money down and 0%, then all down or 30%,
• Wall Street went from riches, to rags and back to riches in one year,
• Home prices doubled, then doubled again in places, only to collapse and are still falling,
• Everyone owned a home, now everyone is past due on a home,
• We have several hundred less banks in the world,
• Banking became automated, then a friendly face and no automated phone systems became king,
• We doubled the size of our deficit & added trillions to our debt,
• Patriotism swelled, and then pacifism returned,
• Tax payers became Tea Partiers,
• The White House & Congress got a "shellacking" by voters,

Some things don't change; how a smile affects someones day, the feel you get when you know someone has your back, tearing up at a good movie, the cuteness of babies, the meow of a kitten, the unconditional love of your pets, the warmth of friendship, and falling off to sleep knowing that the sun will always rise and reset a troubled day into a new one full of hope and promise.

Happy New Year,

D

It's A Wonderful Life!

It's Christmas Eve Morning. It just snowed. As I sit here waiting for noon to come when banks call it a day and all bankers head off to their various Christmas Eve family gatherings I realize time passes whether you recognize it or not. I've spent most of this year focusing on all that's bad in the world. But now I take time to reflect on all that's good. 

I'm going to watch my favorite Christmas Eve story tonight, as my tradition goes; the movie "It's A Wonderful Life". If you haven't seen it you should, in all its black and white glory. Jimmy Stewart said for years the movie was a flop and it was his worst performance. But really it's a timeless classic.  It tells the story that we all so desperately need to hear in these troubling times. A few times I've said, "Hey, I feel like George Bailey".  In fact I was getting lost just as he was at his Bailey Building & Loan.

America is still the greatest place on Earth to live. Americans are by far the world's most giving and generous nation. We are the Great Equalizer of the World. We add comfort and stability in every corner of the globe. We respond to every disaster, no matter where it is. We help those in need, even if they care not for us. It is truly the way God intended a loving and giving society to be. I feel good about all that we give back to humanity. You may debate how we go about it, but nevertheless our intentions are good and just.

As many know, a kitten fell into my world recently, at only 2 weeks old. He fell out from the underbelly of our bulldozer in 40 degree weather, supposedly born there. He was less his mother, completely healthy and unharmed. No siblings. No Mom. No sign or trace of family. Just little Lucky, as we call him now. After several weeks of sleep shortened nights due to bottle feeding, and eating cookies and milk at 3 am, Lucky has grown to a flash of black and white as he zooms from room to room. Bottle feeding? Yes. Sound familiar? Yes. It took me back to those days when I did the same with my wife for our two boys, who are now 16 and 21. I loved it all.

Lucky has fallen again. This time into my heart. I'm glad I took the time to stop the day my gift was delivered to accept something so precious. Lucky has made me stop many times recently, right in the middle of a bad day, and realize just how lucky I am as well.

Merry Christmas to you all. Give yourself a gift. Stop for a brief moment. Take it all in. If possible, gaze through the eyes of a child. A view of Christmas full of awe, wonder and overflowing joy as they focus on the bounty of gifts and the reality that Santa didn't pass them over this year.  That view illustrates the reality of what we all have, and have been given. It's that first gift of Christmas, that we all need to open every year.

As Tiny Tim said, "God Bless us All, Everyone."

D

Your Credit Score Is the Final Authority

We've long heard that banks and credit card issuers check your credit score in the loan approval process. But did you know that your homeowners and auto insurance companies check it as well? It's true. Sources say that your credit score can somehow reflect on the risk a company takes to insure you, and how likely you are to have a claim. There is a new wave of change crashing over the credit industry and it's based on secret enhancements to systems that generate your credit score.  And if yours isn't good be prepared to get a quick "no" or pay a lot higher interest rate.

The latest to enter this fray is none other than the good ole USA. Through the now government owned Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, who by the way lost $8.5 Billion in the third quarter this year, have released news of a impending new policy to add a "surcharge" interest increase on home mortgage offerings based solely on your credit score.  There are three credit rating agencies and they take the lowest score of the three. Then, based on that score, they will add between 1/4% and 2.75% to your interest rate. A 5% rate could become almost 8% just based on your score! It doesn't matter how much you make, how much you have, or how nice your home is. Just that number.

Check out:
http://www.get-my-credit-reports.com/

While I am not advocating any particular site, this one does offer a lot of information for free, with the normal pay service offerings there as well. There are many good sites to Google to help you work on managing and fixing your credit.

Credit scores, as I have said for sometime, should be more coveted than our social security numbers. We should protect them as if they are gold plated. Payments should always be made a day early, instead of a day late if possible.  We don't know how the software operates to generate your score. We do know a few items of it though:  like the number of times you let credit cards, and car dealerships pull your credit hurts you. Your payment history is probably the biggest one, followed by how much debt you have, even if you are making your regular payments on time. Lastly, credit scores fall quickly, and getting them to come back up is like climbing Mount Everest.

Please keep this in mind as you enter the new year. Be mindful of holiday spending. Check out LifeLock online, and have them lock your credit so no one can pull your credit without your written authorization.  Sign up with a qualifying account for our Business or Personal Finance Works at Mainstreet, which is currently free. Its as easy to make a budget and manage your finances on our site as it is to swipe a card, but much more profitable to you for years to come.

D

Tax Cut Extensions - Good For Us All In These Times

There's been a lot of discussion about the deadline that is looming. The Bush Era tax cuts, meant to stimulate a soft economy, are expiring on the last day of this year. The debate has been to extend or not to. We as a nation are debating whether or not the tax cuts have worked in the past or not. It really doesn't matter what happened in the past. These are tough times now!

Here are the two sides: The Dem's say that they work on the middle class, but not on the upper class. How is that?  I am not sure personally. The Repub's say that you can't raise taxes in a down economy, taking more out of an economic system already short on cash and growth capital.  I personally agree with the latter. Why do I?

I just got my property tax bill, and my personal property tax bill. Guess what? They went up again. I have dues to pay at my subdivision association. My health insurance renewal just went up. Raw materials and Gas are up due to QE2, (check my previous posts) and I need to buy some Christmas gifts. I'm trying to keep payroll going for my staff, too. Do I have room for a 20% tax increase? I'll let you answer that for me.

The Estate Tax goes up so much, that a family farm changing hands to descendants next year would force the family to sell land to pay the tax, just to pass it on to their kids. Everyone, especially the middle class will see a large increase in weekly withholding. By year end, 2 million people on unemployment insurance will run out of benefits. Capital gains taxes would almost double. There is no logical argument that these tax increases will help pull us out of this recession. None.   We need a temporary extension, if not a permanent one, for a couple of years. Just remember, 70% of all employment is created by small businesses. Small businesses are owned by hard working middle class folks who can't afford a tax increase right now.

Yes, the deficit does need cutting. We also need a balanced budget. But, folks, this is going to take 30 years not 5! Everything will need to be on the table to end our deficit spending. Taxes and entitlements including Medicare and Social Security. The table below shows what we spend on entitlements (click on the pic for a larger view):

No, I'm not advocating that we balance our budget on the backs of seniors. I am just saying that everything has to be on the table. We obviously need the tax cut extensions now, and we need take a serious look at what we can afford to spend in the future. The tax cuts will be extended I am sure. The Dems can't afford not to politically, and the Repubs ran on extending them. 

But after January 1st, a lot of heavy lifting remains.

D

 

Why Is It So Hard to Borrow Money?

Bankers have had a hard year. Yes, I know, everyone else has had a hard year, too. But when you think about community bankers, please consider a few extra lines that don't normally make it past your second thought:

• Bankers in our area really didn't cause this crisis...yet the blame is passed around evenly to Banks in our area.
• Bankers are good guys while lending you money, and bad guys when asking that it be paid back. Remember, it's a law that we have to get it paid back.
• Bailouts don't happen in your/our area, and good folks in hard times don't get bailouts like the big boys did.
• Bankers get to stress the many budget woes of their customers. When your paycheck doesn't last all month, you stress it.  Bankers have many, many customers they are helping get to the next paycheck, and the stress really adds up on us.
• Bankers have much more stress to come, even if the economy recovers and we all get back to work...
• Bankers have been making loans during the crisis, only to be scrutinized by regulators for doing so.

So why won't Bankers just re-start the loaning of money and help all of us move on with our lives?

Besides stressing current events and whether or not to loan, bankers have a big storm coming over the horizon. It's the Dodd-Frank Regulatory Reform Law.  The bill, passed earlier this year, is 2319 pages long. The ensuing bank regulations resulting from that bill will generate an estimated 20,000 pages of new bank regs! Yes, 20,000 pages! Thats about 40 reams of paper. I'm serious when I say, we bankers are reeling over this, and are hopeful the new congress will roll back or repeal some or all of this behemoth of red tape before our ability to lend is stifled even more.

What were the laws intentions? It was intended to protect you the Consumer. However, simply put, if you think borrowing money now is tough now, wait a couple years.  Bankers are waiting to see just how this new government burden will add to our overhead, and how and if some of the smaller banks will be able to afford to compete. As always the costs have to be passed on. You see only big banks are too big to fail. Traditional banks are allowed to fail every Friday if they make the wrong decisions.

Results vary just like opinions, but the end of free checking is near. Possibly the end of being able to write a check to get a prescription for a sick child, all the while knowing you don't have cash in the bank, but knowing your banker will cover it for you, because it's the right thing to do. Yes, a fee is involved, and a fee is earned. But, that fee, tonight, is the farthest from your mind. And yes, your sick one got the medicine tonight, instead of next payday. And yes,  you got to make that choice yourself, instead of the government telling you that program is not good for you or your family.

Consider this: The Government can't protect all people from all things good and bad. The many are always forced to pay for the bad judgements of the few. More red tape is never the answer, but it has been the norm lately. We need less writing and more doing. You know that privacy notice you get in the mail every year about this time from banks and credit card companies? The one you dont read? The one you round file? That cost banks millions of dollars to print and mail, complying with a regulation intended to inform you that doesnt work.

Banks need to be allowed once again to invest in their customers, their communities, without fear of government red tape putting them out of business for doing so.

I am still at work, stressing about tomorrow and next week and my budget for 2011. Then I see a customer drive by. I know their name and they know mine. Our kids played ball together. Their granny and mine are quilters together at the Senior Center. That knowledge is rare in big banks. But it's not rare here. Suddenly, it all comes back into perspective why I am still here.

D

An Election Result With A Message

Regardless of your party affiliation, the electorate has spoken. It was not so much an endorsement of the Republican Party as it was a loud and clear statement that once again we want change and the Democratic Party has not delivered it these last two years. Actually, polls show that the electorate doesn't really like either party. Truly for the first time in decades, the American people have sent a message to Washington, DC: "Listen to us or lose your jobs!"

Many Democrat's, who yesterday were leading this country lost their jobs last night. All over our nation, they too, are searching the help wanted ads this morning just like the other 10%-17% of Americans who have been unemployed for the last two years. Democrat controlled seats dating all the way back to the 1880s were lost to Republicans. Truly, an extraordinary message was sent!  Harry Reid, D-NV was the only big government victor, clawing out a <1% victory. He heads back to Washington with a large slice of humble pie and a noticeably weaker political persona. Now we wait to see if the President can work with our new Congress with their message from the people in hand; effect the change the people want. We also watch the Republican House and see if they will reciprocate.

Exit polls resoundingly showed the Economy/Jobs are most important to the people.  The National Debt/Spending was a close second. One news analyst summed it up as "...we have to spend within our means on a personal level, and we want our government to do the same..."  The last two years we have cut and saved and reduced our debt, all the while our government added $4 trillion dollars to our national debt, and as much as another $4 trillion dollars in new government spending on programs the people found extremely unpopular. And we the people do not feel we got our monies' worth.

What can we expect with these changes? Well for starters I think the Bush Era tax cuts will be extended, at least for another two years.  I also think that the huge barrage of new regulations, the most since the 1930's, will be scaled back or in some cases outright repealed. This will signal some relief to taxpayers, some of whom are business entities, to begin the process of investing in growth and jobs and therefore start a meaningful economic recovery. I think the full price tag for ObamaCare will be evaluated and its true size and scope will be discovered and debated. The best change will be an economic recovery we can feel and not just be told by pundits "...the recovery is here, you just can't feel it."

What I feel was most extraordinary is something that is seldom mentioned on cable news; Once again, power was transferred. And in America we do it peacefully. In the end we are all Americans and we are all in this together. If one group doesn't succeed, we in America, do not have make war to make change. Now let's roll up our sleeves and go to work, and show the rest of the world we still can. 

God Bless America, and best of luck to the new Congress.

D

Who Really Owns Your Mortage?

A bank. But which bank?  Recently, every week has to have it's own crisis. And this week is no different. However, this one thirteen years in the making, may take years to sort out and settle. Trillions of dollars in home loans and ownership rights are now at risk.

In the rush to relax home lending standards years ago and to push our country toward the American Dream that "everyone must own a home", a new infection was introduced that would make Big Bank pooled mortgages act like the living dead, and Wall Streeters look like Zombies. "Mr. Home Loan, meet MERS". The Mortgage Electronic Registry System (MERS) was created to electronically register, transfer and track home mortgages.  Big Banks and mortgage sweatshops made, packaged, and sold mortgages by the thousands weekly. Countless investors from Wall Street hedge funds to insurance companies to foreign governments, hot cash in hand and looking for big profits gobbled them up. Pass the cash, and here is your list of home loan serial numbers you now own. That's it. No paper, no documents changed hands.

MERS went about its merry way, adding electronic tracking to this home and that one, marveling at its efficiency. There was only one problem; one flaw. MERS is an electronic registry not a real paper filing cabinet full of countless real loan papers. It was never an intention of the MERS creators to file and handle the original loan documents.  No one thought anyone would ever ask about the real paper. Enter one Borrower in bankruptcy court, asking one question: "Mr. Big Bank mortgage investor, prove that you own my home loan by furnishing my original loan documents to the court." Big Banks and their thousands of investors cannot. Community banks who have always kept their mortgages, at least their servicing rights, can. Community folks loaning money in their community. Real people handle the registry, not MERS. Now, where did all those Big Bank original mortgage documents go?

You see, the law as I understand it is you have to prove the chain of title, no matter how many times a loan is re-sold. If you can't prove ownership of title or of the loan, then you don't have real legal standing to foreclose. Wow! 4 million people just got a breather. Add another 6 months to a year to the ride. Will all those people get to keep their houses with no more payments? Of course not. It's a systemic delay that will slow our recovery in housing and the recovery of our overall economy. Probably, by two more years.

There are 62 million home loans with a MERS tracking number assigned to each. It's like a social security number for a home loan. Some say, if your home was securitized by a big bank or mortgage company into one of the thousands of loan pools and sold, you may not get full clear, clean title until this is all settled. It may take years. People buying discounted and foreclosed homes may have the same risk of someone knocking at their door some day and saying, "I have an active loan on this property...".

Here's the bottom line. If you don't pay, you will eventually lose your home. Putting off the pain until another day doesn't change that.  I  personally have talked to people that have played the system and not made a house payment for 18 months on a Big Bank mortgage. 

     "What's your outcome, long term?", I ask. The answer is always the same.
     "I am just waiting for them to come throw me out. I know it's inevitable, but its a numbers game for them".  

Now, courtesy of MERS, the numbers just reset from 4 million homes in various stages of foreclosure back to zero.  The system known as our economy shudders once again.

D

A House That is Worth Less Is Still A Wonderful Place to Live

I just refinanced my home. Guess what? It's worth less than I paid for it. So, I immediately have all the same thoughts that you do about your house and its value. First, OMG! What do I do? Sell, upgrade, remodel, ask for another appraisal? Then I think the obvious. I have a wonderful home in a nice neighborhood, and I enjoy the roof over my head. I can paint it the color I want. I decide when the grass is cut and how to shape my River Birch trees in the front yard. It's mine.

What is most striking in my thought process is the one thought that didn't cross my mind, and that's walk away.  I have a contract with Freddie Mac (the Government). It says I make my payments and they let me own a home, and they let me stay there without interference.  If I sell my home and make money on the sale Freddie doesn't get a cut of my profit. It's mine. Likewise, if I lose I can't send them the loss or blame them for my choice of buying in the first place. That's mine too. They held up their end of the deal and I hold up mine. 

It seems that this contract of mortgage, created in the dawn of finance, is up for re-negotiation. And, as the national home price chart below indicates Missouri and the mid-West isn't that bad, and we could be a lot worse off. This is a year-end 2009 chart, but I think the worst damage to home prices is behind us, and while we may slide a bit more, I don't feel it will be significant.

So, if we decide to break contracts solely when it favors our interests, what would happen if others did the same. Like when you almost have that home paid for and out of nowhere Freddie comes knocking; "hey this is worth a lot more than you paid, cut us in for half, or we are taking your home...". Or, you're in the ER with a little one needing stitches, and the hospital decides to break their contract with your insurance provider just because it benefits them? The beginning of a moral unraveling of contracts in our modern society would see no ending. 

No one, including me, likes to see their home value go down. However, a contract is a basic building block for trade and the fulfillment of a contract is the foundation for business as we know it. There is one other possibility to consider when thinking of all the options. With interest rates historically low, consider refinancing your home with a bank with low closing costs. Take the opportunity to shave years off the life of your loan. Quite possibly, the decline of your homes value due to this crisis may be offset by a much, much lower interest rate and it may be more of a positive than you think.  An opportunity of a lifetime to pay off your home quicker, due to the same crisis. In the mean time, your home is your castle, and no crisis can change that.

D

Quantitative Easing (QE): Congratulations! You're Pre-Approved for $1 Trillion in New Spending

As a kid, when it was time to go to the doctor it always meant a shot. I'm not real fond of needles. In fact I down right despise them. Of course, that made the "you're gonna feel a little prick" even worse. But, afterwards Mom would always say "now lets go get an ice cream cone" and I would feel much better. Nothing like a quick, short-lived sugar high to make you feel better about things.


Quantitative Easing (QE) in reality isn't any different. The question is do we need a shot in the arm, and will the vaccine work?  We need something to spur an economic recovery. But, is QE the vaccine? Taking a flu shot to help with a cancerous tumor is not the answer.

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said additional monetary stimulus may be warranted because inflation is too low and unemployment is too high. “There would appear -- all else being equal -- to be a case for further action,”  Bernanke...(is) considering ways (to) stimulate the economy as unemployment holds near 10%... After lowering interest rates almost to zero and purchasing $1.7 trillion of securities, policy makers are discussing... purchasing Treasuries...

Purchase additional Treasuries with what? Newly printed money. A pattern of borrowing and spending from future generations is not the answer. I'm not sure really what is. Consumers are trying to pay down debt and change their spending habits, while the government does not.  Consumer spending makes up 70% of the U.S. GDP (economy). And until consumers feel safe to spend, there will be no recovery. The graphs below show just how much new money has been printed and injected into the system: 

To simply explain Quantitative Easing (QE), consider the following two perspectives:


1) QE is a way to spur the economy into a re-start. Print and issue new dollars, buying with them newly issued or existing government securities or treasuries, and add them to the FED's balance sheet. This injects the new money into the economy, and the FED effectively monetizes and capitalizes our debt. This should cause prices to rise (inflation) because there are more dollars floating around and people will spend more of them to buy hard goods, food and energy, driving prices up. Money is cheap, rates are low. Banks lend cheaper money, and businesses hire and give raises with the cheaper money. People have more money to spend. People buy washing machines and flat screens. At least that's the theory.  Ahh, the feeling of that sugar high. But, in 30 days those flat screens get more expensive because they were built in China, and your spending U.S. dollars...


I can tell you that when the supply of something is high (dollars), the price of each falls (devaluation), and that is exactly what is happening to the dollar against the world currencies. In Europe, they too, have significantly devalued the Euro the same way, but that's a whole different blog. Consider...

"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value ZERO" - Voltaire 1729

2) QE is a desperate attempt to do something when you have run out of ideas that make sense but you feel you have to do something. It's short term bad choices without any long term regard for the consequences. Recently, dissension is evident at the table of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Two members are openly dissenting and speaking about that dissension publicly. You see, there is no real proof that this does anything for the economy. It just devalues our dollar against other world currencies. Rothbard says the devaluation of our currency has been going on since World War I...

       The Monetary Breakdown of the West by Murray N. Rothbard

                             http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard240.html

"...the prognosis for the dollar and for the international monetary system is grim indeed... until we return to the classical gold standard at a realistic gold price... And fueling disintegration will be the continued inflation of the supply of dollars and hence of American prices which show no sign of abating. The prospect of...runaway inflation at home...and economic warfare abroad. This prognosis can only be changed by a drastic alteration of the American and world monetary system: by the return to a free market commodity money such as gold, and by removing government totally from the monetary scene."

Both theories can stimulate a lot of happy hour debate. Now just how much flu shot dosage will cure cancer? I  mean a flu shot is better than nothing right? So lets keep giving incremental doses until we see some change...I fear wrong. Throughout the centuries it has been proven time and again that you cannot control the markets indefinitely. It's just too big. Over $1 Trillion in stimulus was but a drop in the ocean of the world economy. Did it create jobs? Yes, for a few months. Some, maybe a year. Ahh, that sugar high. Then we are left with no jobs, and $1 Trillion more in debt. So, let's try it again and see if it works any better. Really?

I'm not here to tell you how to fix this.  We all know a lot of smart people have tried. One very old theory is to do nothing. The market and economy will take care of itself, and will seek its own level.  Some businesses need to fail, some banks need to fail, and some people just need to lose their homes. Natural Selection. It's not pleasant, but it is survival of the the fittest. How would the world be today, if we had bailed out the dinosaurs? I can see the nightly news headlines now: Dinosaur breaks through playground fence, eats 6... Some things are better off left to nature. Wouldn't you agree?

In the mean time I wait.  Like the rest of the consumers in the U.S., I am watching my spending, paying down debt, and waiting for the appearance of the catalyst that will spur an economic recovery.  I wait for the election cycle to bring about hope & change just like everyone else is. There is no doubt that we need change. We need the government to apply our basic principals for checkbook/debit card management. We've mortgaged our kid's futures. Now we are beginning to mortgage our grandkid's futures as well.  We may have actually already done much more than that. Like so many the last few years who took out a loan that they could never repay, the good 'ole USA may have done the same. With the rest of the consumers in the U.S., I am watching my spending, paying down debt, and waiting for the appearance of the catalyst that will spur an economic recovery.

D

It All Starts With a Sunrise

I thought a lot about my first blog post. Either way good or bad, I knew it would be historic. I've read extensively. I've been following many other blogs. My opinions are formed. I've tried to determine where the line is between what is acceptable and what is not. I've found that if it's your blog say what you want. Just be prepared to defend your facts, and your ego.

What to say? Be informative? Original? Polarizing? No, just say whats on my mind. What do I think of at 3 a.m.? How would I fix things? Who would I ask for consult? How could I trust my friends to help when I would wield such power? Could I do any better fixing the mess we are in? Hell, could I do any worse? Who would be just using me to get what they want? They all would.

So again now I am alone. Utterly alone. With no one to help me assemble this first historic foray.

It was easier to get married. Get divorced. Buy an house. Or a bank. Hire good people. Let them go. Make a payroll, or decide not to.  Come to the brink only to be yanked back as pebbles tumble over the edge. Yes, I have done them all. It was easier to do all those things then bare my soul to your opinion.

My hope would be that someone way smarter than me doesn't read my blog, and refute each and every position. Destroy each and every fact with such precision only a laser guided bomb could appreciate it.

What do you want in a blog? Someone to tackle you? Someone you can tackle easily? Some blogger that is an easy straight guy? You tell me.  I make an easy target. I love the challenge. But I never lose. At least in my mind. The worst feeling is when I am in the middle of a great debate, and realize that I am wrong.

My hope is within my debate with you that someone, somewhere in a position to change things might read our debate, and a light would break through the darkness, and a real discovery would be made. A beginning to a real recovery of the mess we are in could begin.

So where do I start? I have so many points. How about a few bullet points to set the tone:

• Our economy is worse now than in the Great Depression.
• Our Dollar is closer now to going to zero than at any time since the Continental Dollar went to zero and George Washington couldn't buy a chicken to feed the Continental Army
• Quantitative Easing (QE2) is buying your way out of debt with a debt. Its like paying off your credit cards with a new credit card and saying your all better.
• That Obama has moved us closer to Socialism in 2 years than Communism did in 95 years.
• That when you print money with no intrinsic underlying value, smart people will figure it out and quit accepting them.
• That when you tell China, whose economy is 30x larger than ours and holds our mortgage, to do what we tell them; don't be surprised when they say get lost. And then you come back home acting like you were right and China has it all wrong.
• That history repeats itself. And if we don't learn from the Romans, we are destined to follow them.
• That we are in year 2 of a lost decade.
• That your house may never again be worth what you paid for it.
• That social security is full of nothing but IOU's and I'm not counting on it. I plan to work to age 75, not because I want to, but because I will need to.
• That the stock market is so overvalued, a sugar high wouldn't be this good at a candy making party.
• That September and October always tell us when we are headed in the wrong direction.
• It will be a socks and underwear Christmas, unless leather jackets are the same price.

There. I feel better. I hope someone has something to say about one of those points. Who knows, you may go down in history as the first respondent to prove me wrong. We'll talk soon...

D