Are you ready to retire?

 I retired 25 years ago (Oct. 2025), and I've lived through a number of down turns in the stock market, which now is my income. Dot com bubble hit just as I was planning what I'd do with all that time. Remember that one? It was during the Clinton years, although he wasn't responsible for the bubble or the burst. I was just learning how to read the WSJ and follow the stocks! Checking daily could make one faint. For those of you about to retire, here's a reminder.

"The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Internet, resulting in a dispensation of available venture capital and the rapid growth of valuations in new dot-com startups. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, investments in the NASDAQ composite stock market index rose by 800%, only to fall 78% from its peak by October 2002, giving up all its gains during the bubble."

Repeat. Giving up all its gains during the bubble.

If you sold anything since April 2 and the tariff announcements because you were listening to the legacy media, aka the "sky is falling and it's Trump's fault" media, then you're just not ready to retire yet.

On being a conservative in 2021

When I left the liberal left (i.e., the Democrat party) in 2000 I only knew about the one issue that mattered most to me: abortion. Democrats supported it, wanted it, lusted after it, used my tax money to support it, and campaigned on it. So I left the left--the party that said they cared about the workers and the little guys, but lied about it for years.

At the time, I didn't know much about Republicans except what I'd been told by academics and the media. They were bad I was told. I had to find out about "conservative" ideas and values on my own, because Republicans were sort of . . . spineless, and weak, and weren't good at selling their ideas. So here's what I'd like to see from Republicans--perhaps the impossible dream.

Attitudes/sentiments/beliefs for Conservatism

Family (I include pro-life protections in this)
Faith (freedom of religion for all faiths)
Fair (opportunities for all)
Patriotism (respect and honor for the country's history, values, laws)
Security (strong, but not corrupt or bloated, military)
Free markets (as little gov't interference as possible)
Safety net (for the unborn, the weakest, the elderly)
Practical, prudent policies (no more 2000 page bills no one reads)
Fiscally wise, low taxes (capitalism, but not oligarchs like Bezos owning Washington Post or Big Tech controlling the presidency)
Separation of the 3 branches of government as intended
Merit, intelligence, ambition and ability rewarded
Natural and built environment protected, but not worshipped
Local control where possible, national direction where necessary

and I'll add more as I think (or sleep) on it.

Will the real Nazis please stand up

Why did the Democrats, and some of your liberal friends on Facebook and Twitter call our President a Nazi and Fascist? Next to racist, it was their most popular word. Probably because they know most people don't know what that is, or only associate it with camps for Jews as they saw in old WWII movies. The fact that his grandchildren are Jews and his closest advisor is a Jew is just not important for those liars.

Why didn't they call him a Communist? Those governments were far more powerful than Hitler and killed 10x the number of people. They are both forms of socialism--Nazi is just short for National Socialism. They are hoping you are ignorant. Fascism is when the government controls private industry to enlarge its power and control the people. Communism is a little different--the government owns the businesses as well as controlling them after extracting all the wealth from the owners. That fits our current situation of Big Tech which has flipped that--controlling our government, with the power to shut down our President because he believes in election fraud. It's not as though Democrats have never claimed a stolen election or fraud or questioned the electoral votes. We hear it each time their candidate doesn't get the WH or a governorship (Stacy Abrams still preaches that she won Georgia; Hillary Clinton spent 4 years claiming fraud because the Electoral College didn't work for her). Were their Twitter accounts or platforms shut down?

Big Tech is also controlling major businesses pushing them to outer Wokeland. Academe can't exist without Big Tech. With the lockdown, even your child's education and future is being controlled by Big Tech and the food you put on the table. Nazi Germany NEVER had the kind of control over their people that Big Tech with cooperation of the government has over us.

Rumors of economic downturn, again

Remember when Trump took the oath of office, and all the liberal economists were predicting disaster? I’ve looked back through the 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 predictions. It isn’t all stock market talk—it’s farmers in Tennessee, or truck drivers cross country, or realtors.  Each little blip brings out the “what are we going to do about this monster in the White House?”

The last recession ended in June 2009--before the first dollar of ARRA went out the door. They come around about every 10 years (GW Bush inherited the 2000 recession), and usually the recovery is fast unless the government interferes too much with "help." I wonder why liberals keep trying to talk us into an economic down turn? Maybe because they are desperate to see Trump fail and will damage the whole nation for that goal? The October Census report on poverty and the November report on jobs where almost mind blowing for the Democrats--they are so eager to bring down the most successful president in our life times.

Serendipity strikes again

When I had settled on retiring in October, 2000, I thought I might need a hobby, so I began keeping a small notebook in my purse to write in at the Caribou Coffee Shop on Lane Avenue in Upper Arlington where I stopped before going to work at the Veterinary Medicine Library at Ohio State University.  Because of the new millennium, the 2000 motif was everywhere, so my little notebook made in China, was “Year 2000 Tribute Millenium Series.”  As I would go through the paper—usually the Columbus Dispatch or Wall St. Journal, I’d jot down things that interested me—group meetings, movies, book reviews, special events, musical groups, recipes, web sites, conversations overheard—just about anything.  I had never heard of blogs at that time (not sure they existed), but that notebook was the start of my blog.

I had forgotten where I put the notebook, but a few minutes ago I was looking for something in my desk and there it was.  On September 22, 2000, I had jotted down “Almost Famous,” a movie with 4 stars. “Fictional account of Cameron Crowe’s teen years with Rolling Stones," I wrote.  Lennox 24, 4:50. Patrick Fugit (17) plays the 15 year old William Miller.”  Then I added later—“very good, saw 9/22/00.”  I had apparently flipped the notebook over and was writing on the verso of pages I’d filled earlier in the year.

Anyway, to make a short story long, I thought, “I wonder what happened to Patrick Fugit.  I recalled he was a very good actor in that movie.  In fact, the whole movie was good.

Internet search:  Found him.  His latest movie—wait for it—is “Robert the Bruce” which was just released last month in Scotland.

Cast: Jared Harris, Zach McGowan, Emma Kenney, Melora Walters, Talitha Eliana Bateman, Anna Hutchison, Patrick Fugit, Kevin McNally, Gabriel Bateman, Angus Macfadyen, Mhairi Calvey, Diarmaid Murtagh, Shane Coffey, Anthony J. Sharpe, Gianni Capaldi.

 

Patrick in 2000

Patrick in 2019

Marketing strategy for Lakeside

While looking for my map of the Great Lakes (wanted to figure out exactly where Lake Superior was) I found a power point illustration for a 2010 lecture at Lakeside on marketing strategy for our little town. I found a chart showing the recession of 2000 was over by November 2001 (how often are you told Geo. W. Bush inherited a recession) but with slow job growth and the recession of late 2007 was over in June 2009 with even slower job growth, and with both, plus the one in 1991, it was the private sector, not government programs that created the recovery. Looks like we're about due, doesn't it? But government won't learn, no matter who is in office.