Gene Morphis ' View

I watched Fareed Zakaria tonight being interviewed by John King on CNN. The topic was job creation. My summary of Zakaria's points were: the Republicans are saying no to any government programs that might help, and President Obama for some inexplicable reason isn't prepared to propose the kind of bold initiatives required to get the unemployed millions back to work. Mr. Zakaria: I agree. I'll give you some bold proposals to get job creation. • Approve every outstanding offshore drilling permit, as long as rigs are in place or under construction within the next 180 days. That drilling is exempt from any EPA laws or rulemaking. • Notify the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that any plan submitted must be reviewed and approved or disapproved with specific guidance on requirements to be approved within 90 days of submission. Notify all utilities, investment groups etc. that any new nuclear plant that is capitalized and breaks ground in calendar 2011 is exempt from all env...

I've been watching economic developments and financial markets for over thirty years now (yikes!) and I'm certain I've never seen anything like the last two weeks. As I noted before, 2003 and early 2004 were unprecedented investment times. Every asset class went up: gold, silver, oil, farm commodities , residential real estate, commercial real estate, stocks and bonds. Anything one invested in prospered. In the last two weeks, essentially the opposite has occurred - so much for the benefit of a diversified portfolio. There are a number of root causes of this, but it mostly stems from the grinding deterioration of the U.S. housing market, which put large numbers of various kinds of mortgages upside down. In turn, we've learned that these mortgages were held by a wider range of investors than one would have guessed, and some of those investors had borrowed money to buy the mortgages...so the over leveraged home supported and over leveraged hedge fund.....generally...

In 2003 (most recent data) 19,408 people lived too long. In what seems to me to be the most under-reported story I can think of, the death rate is declining noticeably. In 2003, 2,448,288 people in the U.S. died. In 2002 2,443,387 died. So, 4,901 more folks left this life. "What about it", you might ask. Well there were 2,865,000 more Americans, and 19,409 should have died, using the 2002 death rate. Our average age is moving up at nothing short of an astonishing rate. (Although one could argue that it can't move up more than one year per year.....). Why is this happening? Lots of reasons. Statin drugs are extending the lives of heart attack victims, or preventing heart attacks all together. The percentage of people driving drunk and killing themselves (sad) or killing others (tragic) is down. Seat belts, air bags, crumple zones better brakes and tires. Higher survival rates for premature babies (big statistical impact of living to a normal age length vs. dying less than...