It seems that stock market trading is quite different from when I was dabbling in it in the past. In those days I studied several different parameter including the P/E ratios and such before deciding which company to invest in. And when I did buy a stock I held it for at least a couple of years. Now days trading in the stock market seems more like gambling at the roulette table than anything else. The only way you seem to be able to make any money is to try to time when you sell back your stock. Now a long-term hold … Continue reading Gambling or Not??

Continue reading Reflections — Ottawa Canada July 2011

Source: Column: Washington leadership’s grade is a solid F – USATODAY.com. Cal: McConnell and Boehner, challenge the wealthy. The “rich” should be the model for reaching out and helping people so that we can have less government and lower taxes. Churches should be called upon, too. Those megachurches with ornate architecture and huge budgets? How about living up to your commission to help the poor? Bob: You’re right. Boehner and McConnell, when it comes to taxes, you are tone-deaf and cowering before the Tea Party and the bombastic my-way-or-the-highway Grover Norquist. You both know that the tax code needs to be changed to eliminate … Continue reading Give them an "F"

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. Henry David Thoreau These are words written by Thoreau in his famous book Walden Pond.  Anybody who has read any of Thoreau knows that he was a guy who marched to his own drummer. That alone makes him one of my heroes. Although he died at the age of forty-four he left us with many things to think about. All of us seniors need to quietly contemplate this most famous quote. Will you go to your grave with the song still in … Continue reading A Song Still In Us??….

A Quaker friend recently introduced me to the concept of attentive idling. The concept is so thought provoking I want to pass it on to all you seniors out there.  The idea behind these words is that all of us need to occasionally shut down our iPods, smart phones, PDA, and the like and just listen and observe things around us.  The last ten years or so has given us devices that make it possible to go through an entire day constantly being bombarded by artificial stimulus. When that happens it drowns out the things of nature and of God. … Continue reading Be An Attentive Idler…..

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Abraham Lincoln I haven’t put up a Lincoln quote in quite a while so here is one that interlaces with what Will Rogers also said. And it seems very appropriate to the current crop of presidential wanna-bes out there. The one who keeps his/her mouth shut long enough will become the nominee :) Continue reading Quotes – The Wisdom of Lincoln

  As promised here is another mural found on the side of a building during our recent visit to  Old Town Quebec. Continue reading In The Slow Lane – Another Quebec Mural

Source:  Golden decade is ending for defense industry, and stocks – USATODAY.com. The article above is about how our defense budgets and prosperity of the our military contractors might be taking a hit in the coming years of apparent austerity (that is except for the richest of us). It mentions that military budgets might be trimmed as much as 10% in the coming years, especially if the super committee in congress can’t re-direct the cuts to other areas. Here is a quote from the article; just click on the link above to see the whole article: The U.S. spent $1.3 … Continue reading All I Know – Where Did Our Debt Come From??

I shrink a little more each day. I am among a rather small percentage of men who suffer from severe osteoporosis. That along with three compression fractures that were caused by falling on ice about eight years ago has caused me to lose more than three inches in height. But now it seems I am also losing muscle mass as well. Here is an interesting article about that subject. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/health/research/31muscle.html?ref=business Below is a quote from the article: Why muscles wither with age is captivating a growing number of scientists, drug and food companies, let alone aging baby boomers who, despite having spent years sweating in … Continue reading Seniors Only — The Ever Diminishing Senior

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/a-war-tax-its-still-not-a-bad-idea/2011/08/11/gIQAfJLwHJ_story.html Anyone who has seen much of this blog, particularly the “All I Know” category knows that I am pretty much anti-war in all regards. So, when I ran across the above article it immediately caught my attention.  Here are some words from the article. Click on the source above to see the whole thing. These days, one of them, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), believes such a levy should be on the agenda of the debt-reduction “supercommittee.” “These wars ought to be paid for and not put on a credit card so that our kids will have to pay for this in … Continue reading All I Know — How About a War Tax??

The condition called midlife crisis is pretty well documented. That is where a person is beginning the second half of his life and realizes that things aren’t going as planned. The response to that sometimes is constructive but often is isn’t. When people throw off their spouses, get a sports car, and look for babes (hunks, I guess for you ladies) to party with that is not a good thing in the vast majority of cases. I am convinced that there is a similar but often more constructive change that occurs to people as they move into their retirement years. I … Continue reading Remaking Yourself in Your Senior Years…

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich – NYTimes.com. Click on the above to see an op-ed piece by Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world. It clearly says something very different than the current Republican party mantra. If we could just send the same bunch of men to Washington for the good of the nation, and not for political reasons, we could have the most perfect government in the world. -June 8, 1924 Will Rogers But what do I know…. Continue reading All I Know — Stop Coddling the Super-Rich