After a 3 day weekend, today marks the first full week of September. It was a much needed break for our family after a hectic month at work and school starting in what was still really the middle of summer.
It’s 5am, as usual, and everyone is still sleeping. The misses works today from 9:30 until 5. Thankfully it’s a bit cooler today with the projected high in the low 80’s. Yesterday it snuck back into the 90’s, or at least felt that way. I just finished folding a load of laundry and putting another one in the dryer. It seems like we’re doing a couple of loads around here almost daily.
Yesterday we started out the day with some house cleaning and the misses working on her replica of a pirate ship for the school dance coming up in 10 days. Now it’s not life size but is built to scale. She’s done an amazing job and it’s fun to watch this project take shape. I wanted to go to the gym and the boys didn’t so they asked if we could call Uncle T and Aunt B to see if they could go visit. Of course, as usual, the answer was yes so off they went down the street on their bikes. I headed to the gym but the misses decided she would rather take a run which turned out to be the wise decision. When I arrived at the gym there were so many people it seemed like January 1st. (the gym’s always crowded this day due to all the New Year resolutions) With all these people it was difficult to find an open weight machine and on top of that, it flat out smelled. I could only stand this for about 15 minutes and then had to leave. When I got home Mom was still working on her ship (which now looked like it could float!) and I took off for the grocery store to buy some food for dinner. While driving the oldest called me on my cell and asked if they could go to lunch with Uncle T and Aunt B which of course they love to do. I told them to use their best manners and have a good time. Meanwhile the misses began the process of cooking up a holiday meal of enchilada’s, rice and beans for Grandma, Uncle T, Aunt B and our family. We all went up to Grandma’s around 6pm with the food in the back of the car to get together for dinner. The misses is really amazing to get all done that she does on any given day. On top of it all, she never complains about anything. Almost everyone else I know would at least utter some sort of complaint about something but not the misses, she just rolls up her sleeves and gets it done. Speaking of my little angel, here she comes now, almost sleep walking as she stumbles past me on her way to the waiting coffee pot.
We all enjoyed the dinner and some conversation but headed home around 7:45 or 8pm. With today being a school day, we needed to get the boys to bed early. They went to sleep after eating a second meal once they got home. I can’t really give them any grief over this as Uncle T and I did the same thing when we were young. In fact, most of our day when we were kids, was all built around eating!
It’s a short week with only 4 days of school and we’re supposed to go to the Children’s Hospital Gala this Saturday. As I said earlier, it’s black tie and we’re now thinking of passing this up as it just seems like a lot of work. We also have the little guys first soccer game at 3pm and the event begins at 5:30 at the Hyatt downtown. We need to decide today so I can let our hosts know if we’re not coming. Personally I’d rather head to the mountains or Wyoming before the snow falls.
OK, This is the point where you can tune out if you don’t want to read any musings on today’s economy. I do hope that you’ll at least scan the rest of the post as it’s not so much my opinion but rather that of others, I think you’ll be surprised at what you read. If you like, you can jump down to the last paragraph and avoid reality which is pretty depressing.
The economy is now getting really bad. I know I talk about this a lot but I think we’re really getting into dangerous waters. Europe and Asia had dramatic losses yesterday while we were all enjoying our hot dogs and hamburgers. I think the stock market will go way down today and gold has a chance to go up again today. I sure hope I’m wrong about everything but if you look at the facts, it’s pretty depressing. Our dollar has lost over 60% of it’s purchasing power in the last 5 years, food prices are soaring and so is our debt. Meanwhile the general public, including some of us, have the boiling frog syndrome. For those of you that don’t know, if you put a frog in boiling water, it’ll jump out, however if you put him in room temperature water and turn on the heat, he’ll just sit there and boil to death. This is kind of like what is happening to all of us. We’re so conditioned to all the bad things around us through the slow methodical ruining of America, that we all just take it as normal. Think about it, our credit ratings has been downgraded for the first time in history, we have unsustainable debt with no way out, record unemployment, rising food prices, zero jobs created in August, a sinking dollar and no compromise in Washington. I could now list a whole bunch of articles supporting the problems we face but one stuck out yesterday. It seems that Goldman Sachs has just circulated a memo to it’s biggest (institutional) investors to bet on America and the World’s economy collapsing. Here’s the link and the first paragraph if you’re interested.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/even-goldman-sachs-secretly-believes-that-an-economic-collapse-is-coming
Goldman Sachs is doing it again. Goldman is telling the public that everything is going to be just fine, but meanwhile they are advising their top clients to bet on a huge financial collapse. On August 16th, a 54 page report authored by Goldman strategist Alan Brazil was distributed to institutional clients. The general public was not intended to see this report.
If you read this report, you’ll see that they believe the world economy is going to collapse and they are telling their clients how to profit from this. Now I don’t know about you but these guys were the only ones to make money in the last debacle known as the mortgage meltdown of 2008. Here’s a bit more,
But in any environment Goldman Sachs thinks that it can make money. The following is how Business Insider summarized the advice that Brazil gave in the report regarding how to make money off of the impending collapse in Europe….
- Buy a six-month put option on the Euro versus the Swiss Franc, thus betting the Euro will drop against the Franc (the Franc being the currency that an official Goldman report recently referred to as the most overvalued in the world)
- Buy a five-year credit default swap on an index of European corporate debt—the iTraxx 9. This is a bet that some of these companies will default, and your insurance policy, the CDS, will pay off
This is so typical of Goldman Sachs. They will say one thing publicly and then turn around and do the total opposite privately.
For example, prior to the financial crisis of 2008, Goldman Sachs was putting together mortgage-backed securities that they knew were garbage and marketing them to investors as AAA-rated investments. On top of that, Goldman then often privately bet against those exact same securities.
The CEO of Goldman Sachs has even acknowledged that the investment bank engaged in “improper” behavior during 2006 and 2007.
Now if you don’t understand what these financial instruments are (options, credit default swaps, etc.) it’s ok. What you need to take away from this is that the biggest baddest investment bank in the World is betting against our economy turning itself around. So, if you don’t believe me and think I’m just ranting, read the whole article, do a little research for yourself. No one is immune from what could potentially happen. Once again I hope I’m wrong and even though some of you will think I’m nuts, I can live with that if it means some of you will take some simple precautions “just in case”. Ok, enough said, the misses says I’m wasting my time as no one listens anyhow but I have to try.
Imagine if all your savings are instantly wiped out. Ok, that’s it, it’s now up to you to decide where we’re at for yourself.
Mom’s now in the shower and I’m right behind her. It’s time to wake the boys and get the day started. We hope everyone had a great weekend and is doing well. The cooler weather and along with it, the snow is coming. You can see the first leaves starting to fall here in Colorado and it’ll be the middle of winter before you know it. Take care, God Bless and have a great day.