President Bush Says what others have been saying....does that make it sink in more havinfg the President say it?

PRESIDENT BUSH OUTLINES THE PROBLEM WITHOUT EMOTION:
The speech by President Bush was actually a lot less emotional than I thought it would be. I wondered exactly how he would approach it...I mean, he certainly made it clear that we are in a heap of trouble....operating in an area we never have.

But for my money, he was almost monotonic....non-emotional about the whole thing. I expected one of two things....I expected a worried, tone....or a "Let's pull together and win one for the gipper" sort of approach.

I heard the words....and they are the same words I have heard over the past few days from all kinds of other economists and others close to the situation. The USA, in fact the global economy is sitting at a point where things could go very very badly....and no one is really sure if what we are about to do will really fix things.

But even so, they also know that doing NOTHING will clearly end up in a meltdown.....so as my father used to say, "do something even if it is wrong.....just try!"

So this is our government trying.....and I suppose it might be such an important point in history, that approaching it calmly and with focus and thought might be far better than with worry or bull-headed action. Maybe the President approached it perfectly....only our future will be able to properly judge that.

I hope he did for all our sakes.

JACK WELSH WANTS ACTION:
On another program, I saw Jack Welsh, former superstar head of GE getting all charged up and demanding government action. He wasn't sure that $700 billion was the right amount, but he was sure that inaction was no solution....not just no solution, but EXACTLY the wrong solution.

He sure seemed excited about the problem....if anyone wasn't sure we were in need of action, all you need to do it watch Jack Welsh talk about the problem for about 30 seconds, and you will be convinced that this isn't a small run of the mill issue.


WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
What do people like you and I do in the mean time? That is the $64,000 question I suppose.

I'd say you watch the economic situation unfold and try to jump into the right place at the right time. I think this kind of spending means printing money. I think this means inflation...devalued dollars.

I have some money in foreign currency and CDs at Everbank. I also have some Gold....all told, about 12% of my investments are there....with about 80% in about 5 high quality bond funds....and a smattering of money at my work 401K in money markets, bonds and some stocks.

I have Chinese Yuan, Euro, Swiss Francs and as I noted, some gold.

Is the the right thing to do.....I have not a clue, but it fits the several visions of what I think will happen now....this isn't a business as usual time.