So this morning when I woke up my mind kicked into gear with thoughts of how I would split my interests and posts between my Livejournal and this BLOG.
Then I began thinking about how often I would post, and the kind of posts I would enter. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks....I had thought of all the very positive educational aspects of posting a BLOG like this....but I neer thought of the potential negative side-effects.
One that I considered this morning related to my sitting down and posting some information on my own personal progress.
(no, I'm not posting net worth, but some comparison form month to month of it...as well as some sort of calcualtion of where my investments are)Some people enter this sort of accounting every month....I rarely consider it but every quarter in my normal life. Would the BLOG cause me to get too active in this regard?
The only time I was so active was back in 2000-2001 when things were quite bumpy in the investment arena. I didn't do much adjusting, but I kept a close eye, even weekely at the time.
What to do...that to do?
Suggested Reading:I'm not at all a reader of fiction, and I'm not even the kind of volume reader my wife is. So I tend to stick to non-fiction, almost bathroom reading. Lately I have read two books on the economy, with predictions for things to come. I find them interesting because I have always supported the thinking that our country has been doing some not so great things in the credit and debt department. I mean both at the federal government level, and the personal debt level.
(remember, I was born and taught that saving was the way to get ahead....not by leveraged buyouts and buying on margin)I understand the concept of a "force multiplier" and the real lever of using OPM
(other people's money), but there comes a point where social drinking can turn into alcoholism!
So the books.....the first is called "
Three Billion New Capitalists", and it is written by Clyde Prestowitz. He was the Couselor for the Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan Administration, so he knows a little bit about the inner thinking of the people in our government.
(so it seems from reading the book)Anyways, I will review it more fully later, but it is jam packed with information about how we got from being the largest creditor nation in the 80's to our current state of largest debtor.
(by an order of magnitude too...but more on that later)
The socond book is called "
The Second Great Depression" by Warren Brussee. This is another interesting book that goes through a similar description of the various imbalances that have been set-up in our economy and with the dollar. Brussee's opinion comes out quite loud and clear in his book title.
(Prestowitz is not so pessimistic, but he at least sees some hope for a solf "belly-flop" landing....my words, not his)Brussee was a quality Engineer from GE who apparently wrote two other books on Six-Sigma quality made-easy. He seems to aproach the problems in the economy as an Engineer would, but looking at the numbers and seeing how they add up.
(and how they might add up in the future)But the economy is too complex to follow a simple set of equations, so there is plenty of room for speculation...and Brussee does plenty of that. But he does parallel the activities of today with the bubble economy of 1929, and so his theory does have some historical basis.
The Brussee book does not have as many mind crushing statistics as "Three Billion New Capitalists", but iti s not lightweight either. I recommend both, but don't let your brain come out of gear and forgot to do some thinking on your own.
Hey, check out this site put up by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
