There are two messages in this article, but they are related and we think you’ll find them beneficial.
The first is a story about George, a former business owner and a friend of ours. We’ve been meeting at 6:30 am on Monday mornings for 6 years mostly to talk about spirituality and how it pertains to our current world. Though he is advanced in years, George made the thoughtful decision toward, and was accepted into, a seminary. But that’s NOT the story. The real story is how he’s going to be moving out of a large home and into his ‘new home’ for the next 4 years; a 9’ x 11’ quarters. Much had to be given away as what he could bring had to fit in a suitcase, not a storage locker. His shared discovery was that this process was not hard…it was freeing. Enjoyment and great memories in life relates far more to who is in the picture, than to what is in it.
The second message is the overwhelming negativity of the press at the moment (whether on taxes, politics, the Euro, the you-name-it), but the inexorable rise in the stock market nonetheless. Sure, we’ve had some declines in June / July, but even with these adjustments your Core equity investments both in the United States and internationally are up 7-11% so far this year! Behaviorally, we’re likely thinking ‘the other shoe has to drop’, but I’d ask you to consider what if the markets are actually up because good things are happening with private enterprises? I’ve attached an article from a mid-westerner by the name of Jim Paulson (a well-regarded PhD economics guy often quoted in the press). His company article ‘Baffled’ might resonate with you on this belief of concern, but then cut through all the doom and gloom with some hard numbers and a solid long-term view for optimism. Though longer, it outlines 10 points that I feel you might find stimulating for thought.
In that later light, let us remind you that we don’t know what we don’t know. A ‘null void’ problem as our former genius VP of Engineering would have said. Below is a recap of that observation in an excerpt from Leonardo Maugeri’s book “Oil: The Next Revolution”;
“When the Kern River oil field was discovered in 1899, analysts though that only 10% of its unusually viscous crude could be recovered. In 1942, after four decades of modest production, it was estimated that the field still held 54 million barrels of recoverable oil, a fraction of the 278 million barrels already recovered. As observed by Morris Adelman, ‘In the next 44 years, it produced not the 54 million barrels, but 736 million barrels, and it had another 970 barrels remaining.’ But even that estimate proved incorrect.
“In November 2007, U.S. oil giant Chevron, by then the field’s operator, announced the cumulative production had reached two billion barrels. Today Kern River still yields 80,000 barrels per day, and the state of California estimates its remaining reserves to be about 627 million barrels.”
We’re skeptical on the financial market players as you know, but less skeptical of the entrepreneurs and creative companies that comprise it. Therefore, we’re going to continue to pursue the reasonable risk opportunities that have paid off in the past, and likely improve your account and give you more options. However, remember that who you enjoy those dollars with is the real bottom line.
So here’s our deal; we’ll try to do the former, you do the later, and we’ll get two birds with one nicely balanced capitalistic stone. Keep the faith.
