Happy New Year Or Just Another Year

I have been relatively quiet for quite some time now. Maybe I am not a true journalist with the ability to create new and interesting pieces daily. It is a difficult job and my hat is off to those that truly write on a daily basis and "provide real, new and good information" without repeating themselves on the same topics.

The original purpose of this blog was to get the truth out about what was called the "mortgage meltdown". As you have seen from my previous posts, I have maintained that this was not just mortgage related but rather was an economic meltdown with the worst yet to come.

I was right. When I said that the real problem and fraud was higher up the food chain, I was right. When I said the SEC was closing a blind eye to the situation, I was right. And when I said this was a "national disaster", I was right.

Now I am not trying to say "I told you so" or "I knew what I was talking about" or "you should have listened to me", I am simply trying to say that if you open your eyes, look around and read between all the "propaganda" lines in our media, you would see what really is.

As a businessman and entrepreur for most of my life, optimism was the key ingredient to success. "The glass is half full" was always the outlook. Positive thinking, I always believed, made positive things happen. Contrary to that philosophy, I always believed that "positive - negative" thinking would make negative things happen.

There seemed to have always been just two ways to approach life and business, optimism and pessimism. Pessimism was never in my vocabulary as it lead to my theory of Positive Negative Thinking.

So what has happened to me and my outlook on everything this past year especially? I have learned there is another outlook in addition to optimism and pessimism - REALISM.

I have come to realize that optimism creates a false sense of security and hope and that pessimism totally destroys any sense of security and hope. It is living in a world of realism that can allow us to survive, plan and act accordingly seems to be the only alternative.

So much of our media is still creating what I call "feel good" reports that I believe that it is truly an attempt to keep everyone from the real truth. Is there something "they" are hiding or not telling us?

As we can now reflect back on 2008 we see that there was much deceipt. False, optimistic reports from special interest groups and their economists picked up as headlines by main street media and fed to the people as fodder.

Many are still on that optimistic path of - if I say it is ok is will be ok. I cannot subscribe to this way of thinking any longer. To me, it is much like having cancer yet not being told - which is the way it was years ago. It was believed, by the medical community that if we had a terminal disease we were better off not knowing. Indeed, when my father was diagnosed with lung cancer, our physicians instructed us not to tell him the truth. We carried on this deceipt until one day he called me aside and asked me if we all thought he was stupid. I said of course not, why do you ask. He said, everyone keeps telling me I don't have cancer and that with a few treatments I will be fine and continue to live out my life. He went on to say that at first he believed it because "he wanted" to believe it. Then he said, he questioned why he was the only patient at his chemotherapy and radiology that was "not" a cancer patient.

I admitted to him at that point that he was right and that we had been, by hiw own doctors instructions, keeping the truth from him. His response was forever eye opening to me. He said had he known the truth from the very beginning, he would have made different decisions at that point. He would not have postponed travel plans he had made months before. He would have done many other things in relations to my mother, myself and my brother. He said he would have done some things solely for himself - things he had put off for years. His last comment on the subject was that he would have lived his last remaining time in a much different and more satisfying way for himself.

Reality hurts but reality is real. So as we close out 2008 and look forward to 2009, forecasts are coming in that it "will be better". As always we always wish for the new year to be better then the one before. But is it really going to be better? I don't think so.

Let's look around at the entire situation. Unemployment is up, foreclosures increasing, inflation in many areas is up, credit facilities not available and defaults increasing. The domestic auto industry on the brink of collapse, savings and equity virtuallyl wiped out accross the nation.

The glimmer of hope we all now have is that President Elect Obama will come riding in and save the day. I don't think he can. While I look forward to his Presidency and believe that he can make some changes in the way Washington operates, the problems nationwide and internationally are bigger then any one President has ever faced and bigger then any one person can handle.

In the fifties and sixties we were all being told to build bomb shelters in our homes in order to save ourselves from the threat of nuclear attack from the then Soviet Union. Much of the nation did prepare themselves that way as did all the municipalites.

Those precaustions were a reality. Optimists might have said, it will never happen. Pessimists might have said, it is bound to happen and cause a real panic. The realists said this is the situation and it is a real possibility. Knowing this we should all do what we have to do and make plans to survive.

Now is the time to prepare ourselves to survive. Know what is happening and what affects it is having on each of us. See the reality and take actions to live your life accordingly. Don't get lulled into a false sense of security. If it is going to get worse, which people like Paul Volker, former Secretary of the Treasury says, we need to be prepared.

So my message for the New Year, 2009, is open your eyes, smell the decay and protect yourselves the best way you can. We are still in "The Perfect Storm" which we all must ride out. Dont' let your guard down. We all can and will weather the storm (a little bit of optimism here) if we all know the truth.

As always, have a safe New Year.