Keeping Mentally Fit and Sane

Here's five daily steps to keep yourself mentally fit and sane.

They're from a study in England and have been peer reviewed, so that's saying these are verified, doable, proven, easy steps that will keep you from going bonkers in these turbulent time.

They seem like common sense to me, but I guess not everyone does each of these every day.

Seems like it'd be a good habit to get into.

Steps to Happiness

• Connect - Developing relationships with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours will enrich your life and bring you support
• Be active - Sports, hobbies such as gardening or dancing, or just a daily stroll will make you feel good and maintain mobility and fitness
• Be curious - Noting the beauty of everyday moments as well as the unusual and reflecting on them helps you to appreciate what matters to you
• Learn - Fixing a bike, learning an instrument, cooking – the challenge and satisfaction brings fun and confidence
• Give - Helping friends and strangers links your happiness to a wider community and is very rewarding

It's Looking Better!

Over the last few days since my last post the markets have simmered down. That's wonderful!

The feared run on the banks hasn't appeared and the likelihood seems less and less each day as the fear and panic surrounding the financial markets has subsided. The jury is still out on what the long-term effect will be to the US economy of the unprecedented steps taken by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. But in the short-run they have averted an outright panic and collapse.

Right now is seems that the next step will be a slow, but steady decline in the economy as the losses on Wall Street begin to trickle down to Main Street. Already we're seeing the beginning of a contraction as small businesses are closing in the neighborhood shopping centers. Everyone is pulling back, spending less, going less, doing with less, and the exuberant days of endless spending are gone, at least for a while.

The question is how deep and how long will this last? Is it going to be a deep recession? Are we going to see a Depression? My guess (keeping in mind how tuned my prognostication skills are) is that this will be a pretty deep recession that will take a couple of years at least to turn around. And it'll be longer and deeper if Obama, Pelosi and Reid have control.

So, looks like it's safe to deposit some of your cash back in the bank now, although I think it's always a good idea to have some safely stashed away just in case. Keep an eye on what's happening, digging deeper than the pablum given us by the MSM. There's a lot of great sources of info available at your fingertips on the web. Do a little walking with those fingers and stay informed.

It's Hard to Believe This Is Happening!

I still find it almost surreal, like the Twilight Zone is playing in the next dimension over, and I keep flipping back and forth between reality and fiction. Except I'm not sure which is which.

Is it reality that the world's financial markets have totally frozen up? That the bankers of the world are so stricken by fear and lack of trust that they are no longer lending, even amongst themselves? Is there no honor amongst thieves?

Is it reality to watch this play out before you on cable tv? To watch 24/7 of nonstop coverage of first this failure and patchup, then that failure and another patchup, and then another failure and a patchup and then another and another and another and another, ad nauseum!

Or is it reality that life amongst most folks, the ones that, unlike me, haven't been paying much attention to the crisis, other than to catch the little snippet here and there. The people that only listen to this politician or that politician scream about the evil rich and how their unbridled greed caused this whole mess, then scream at the TV in agreement that the evil bast**ds need to be punished and there should be a limit on how much they can earn. All the while, not daring to miss a single episode of Dancing With The Stars, or the latest sitcom.

Or is the reality what the conspiracy kooks are saying, that this has been planned all along by the Illuminati, or the Rothchilds, or the Rockefellers, all or part of whom are in cahoots with Bush and his cronies. That this is just part of the plan, that this crisis has all been manufactured by some secret group so as to force the unaware public to accept a New World Order. With a new single currency, and world organizations running the financial institutions, which in effect, gives them rule over the world.

What's REAL???

Man, I don't know. But whether it's all part of a master plan, or just the result of a wild set of crazy circumstances, it sure looks like we're going toward some master, world-wide plan to solve the crisis. The finance ministers of G-7 just so happen to be having a meeting today and on through the weekend in Washington. They'll be joined by the G-20 members later this weekend. Together they account for 90% of the global economy. (All of this is covered in a great piece by Stratfor, a website that covers geopolitical issues and events. You can read the whole piece here.) Was this a coincidence?

There's also starting to be more rumbling that one way for this group to get their hands around the problem and come up with a solution is to call for a Bank Holiday. This was also reported in Bloomberg today, quoting the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi as saying that the world leaders are thinking about closing the world's financial markets "while they rewrite the rules of international finance".

Wow, 'rewrite the rules of international finance'. That's an ominous statement!!

I think that no matter what reality you think this is, the best thing you can do is prepare yourself. If you haven't already done it, go to the bank or ATM tomorrow and withdraw some cash. How much is up to you and which reality you subscribe to. But don't be caught by this. Monday is conveniently a bank holiday in the states. Columbus day. So that gives them one more day to position themselves to declare the Bank Holiday. I think it's coming. So be prepared. (I have some more thoughts on preparedness in a previous post)

The Mess Continues

It's early Friday morning and the news continues to be troubling. The Asian markets took it on the chin and are way down. Right now the DJ Futures is off close to 200 which foretells another off day for Wall Street.

The G-7 is meeting in Washington and have a very hard task ahead of them.

The G-7's dilemma is that even after a battery of policy actions, money markets remain gridlocked as banks shun lending to each other for fear they will lose the money or because they need it for their own funding needs. The cost of borrowing dollars for three months yesterday surged to the highest this year.

The U.S. was also weighing a proposal to insure all U.S. bank deposits, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The plan was only at discussion stage and would be aimed at preventing an exodus of cash from financial institutions, the newspaper said. To remove the ceiling on deposit insurance government agencies would need to agree there was systemic risk to the economy, thereby invoking the legal power for action, the Journal reported.

While the Treasury still aims to buy troubled mortgage- backed securities from financial institutions, a direct capital injection would offer more immediate relief by giving banks quick access to funds they could then lend out. Bloomberg, Oct 10, 2008

Oct 7th has come and gone, but the Crisis still Looms

I'm very thankful that, so far, the prognosticators of an Oct 7th calamity have been wrong. Other than a really dicey global financial market, nothing untoward happened at 7:10 UTC on Oct 7th as predicted.

So much for the cry of Chicken Little.

But I don't think we're out of the woods yet. While there hasn't been the much feared run on the banks, I don't advise putting your money back into the bank just yet. There's still tremendous turmoil in the market and despite the unprecedented efforts by the Fed and Treasury, the clogged up flow of capital hasn't been released yet. I'm certainly not trying to be gloom and doom here, but the world's markets are walking a very narrow tightrope and just about any unexpected news or another bank or major financial institution failure could start a domino effect that would turn very nasty. So, keep your money safe for a few more days, maybe as one person said, until the end of the month. You certainly won't be missing out on much interest and the peace of mind is worth ten times that much.


While I philosophically oppose the interventions being made into the free market the last few weeks by the Treasury and the Fed, I have to admit that they've done some pretty amazing scrambling. Without their interventions, we'd be in a whole lot worse situation. So, let's just hope that between the world's Central Banks there is enough wisdom and understanding of the immensely complicated and interwoven financial markets to make some wise and timely decisions. Unfortunately, this is one of those times when our very way of life really does depend upon it.


And don't even get me started on how important it is to elect McCain and Palin in 29 days! I hate to imagine the mess we'll be in if Obama, Pelosi and Reid have complete power in Washington!!

Ok, It's Time to Say It!

I've been noodling about this post for a number of months now. I've started to write it several times but it just didn't seem the right time. I think now is the Right Time.

Some of you reading this will think I've totally lost it, that I'm several cards short of a full deck. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm gullible, easy to sway and convince. There's probably truth in all of the above.

But I'm as serious as a heart attack about this. Something's coming, something is coming soon that's going to be pretty darn bad and it's going to affect everyone of us. Sure you say, what with the Money Crisis we're in it's easy for me to say this today. But while the Money Crisis is surely part of the picture, what I'm talking about is bigger than that.

There's too many parts to this to narrow it down into one simple read. But I've been coming across information for months now about something predicted for the first of October. I haven't been looking for the information, I've not been googling trying to find more info. No, it's just in my normal, looking at this, checking out that, type of reading that I've been coming across increasing amounts of information about a major calamity/event that's to occur in early October. Some said the 7th or 8th. Some said October 14th. But all said early October.

This event will cause a major disruption in our daily lives. How that's going to manifest itself I don't know. I hope it's not a physical event, such as an earthquake, or a man made event such as a terrorist attack. It could just be that the Money Crisis comes to a head and the financial system implodes. Or it may be a combination of some of the above. I wish I could be more exact. But it really doesn't matter what the cause/catalyst is. The main thing is that you take some precautions.

So what does this mean and what should you do. First of all I think you should go to your bank Friday or Saturday, don't wait until Monday, and withdrawal as much cash as you would need to survive for a month or two. If you feel like taking more out, fine. Don't wipe out your 401k's and savings plans based on this crazy prediction, but you should have a goodly amount of cash on hand. Then, without using up all of the cash, go to the grocery and make sure you have enough food and water on hand to last a few weeks. Again, don't break the bank stocking up on food. But have a nice amount of storable food stashed away. Even if I'm wrong about this, you can always eat the food later. So make sure you're getting things you like to eat ;-). Also, keep your car's gas tank as close to full as you can.

I think what we are going to see next week is some type of calamity/event that will cause a closing/run on the banks that will cause them to close for a few days/weeks. That will cause a shortage of food, fuel, etc. It won't be pretty. So don't advertise that you have the supplies. Keep it to yourself. This isn't an end of the world type event, but when our normal way of life is interrupted it will get hairy for a while as people learn to adjust. So just be prepared.

So, by now you probably think I'm crazy! I hope I am. But I sincerely hope you will take my advice and do these few things. I really believe it's worth the effort in these uncertain times. Besides, if I'm wrong you can just put your money back in the bank, eat your food and go drive somewhere. But if I am right, you'll be glad you took the steps.

To give you a sense of some of the info I'm basing this crazy post on, go to these two sites.

This first link is to a transcript of a talk recorded in the last few days. http://www.projectcamelot.net/clif_high_half_past_human_26_sept_2008.html
This is from Project Camelot, a site that's all about getting information out that the MSM won't talk about. It could be total BS, and I do believe some of it is BS. But, overall I find Project Camelot and this particular piece hard to dispute, especially since it's not the first time I've seen this type of prognostication.

The second link is to a companion blog to the person interviewed in the above link. Again, take it with a grain of salt, but I believe there's enough truth there to cause me to write this blog.
http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm

Then to tie it all together with the banks, here's a piece from Forbes titled : The Mother of all Bank Runs.

Good luck and may God Bless You.

A Colorful Moon

Here's an enhanced photo of the moon. The natural colors found on the moon have been enhanced (the saturation levels increased) so that you can see what colors are found on the surface of the moon. So much for calling it the "Silvery Moon". What a beautiful place.