Musings of a Madman

- Beliefs are the foundations of our lives
- We are what we think
- Affirmations – Thoughts determines attitudes
- Blackbelt of the Mind
- Saying things each day can change your attitude
- You have the power to reprogram the most powerful computer in the world.  You just have to do it.

• CEO – Chief Embezzlement Officer.
• CFO — Corporate Fraud Officer.
• BULL MARKET – A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.
• BEAR MARKET — A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.
• VALUE INVESTING — The art of buying low and selling lower.
• P/E RATIO – The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.
• BROKER — What my broker has made me.
• STANDARD & POOR — Your life in a nutshell.
• STOCK ANALYST — Idiot who just downgraded your stock.
• STOCK SPLIT — When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.
• FINANCIAL PLANNER — A guy whose phone has been disconnected.
• MARKET CORRECTION — The day after you buy stocks.
• CASH FLOW– The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.
• YAHOO — What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.
• WINDOWS – What you jump out of when you’re the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.
• INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR — Past year investor who’s now locked up in a nuthouse.
• PROFIT — An archaic word no longer in iuse.

By Reva Bhalla (STRATFOR)
On the day after 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush declared a global “war on terror.” Al Qaeda had first reared its head years before in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 U.S. Embassy attacks in East Africa and the 2000 USS Cole bombing, but it was not until the World Trade Center towers came crashing down that the global international security community became almost completely consumed with battling global jihadism. Professors of political Islam came out of the woodwork, Osama bin Laden became a household name, university students started pouring into Arabic language courses and, for the first time, terrorism became a national security priority. This era became known as the “post-9/11 world.”

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By George Friedman (STRATFOR)

* The Russian Resurgence
German Chancellor Angela Merkel went to St. Petersburg last week for meetings with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. The central question on the table was Germany’s position on NATO expansion, particularly with regard to Ukraine and Georgia. Merkel made it clear at a joint press conference that Germany would oppose NATO membership for both of these countries, and that it would even oppose placing the countries on the path to membership. Since NATO operates on the basis of consensus, any member nation can effectively block any candidate from NATO membership.
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