I cannot get my childhood out my head in the past couple weeks. Nostalgia is an old acquaintance of mine whose visits are no longer welcome. This time my cousin’s death prompted it to pay me a visit. This clever magician has its distinguished seat at the table of our worst enemies such as worry, greed, hate, dishonesty, and fear among others. This one pretends to be a close friend, one who has only good intentions, but under the elaborate disguise is a ruthless controlling pig with the singular objective of getting in our way of living the current moment to its fullest. I have seen most of the tricks this one plays to trap us in its web. Once captured, it infects our lens through which we see life, the world, and ourselves and causes all kinds of distortions…

I haven’t been in any mood to write recently. My cousin died last week in Uzbekistan. He was going to turn 50 this week. I cannot even comprehend (let alone describe here) the history or the reasons or the excruciating pain my mother’s oldest sister has had to endure. I am sitting here for 20 minutes trying to come up with a sentence or two but I cannot. Words seem cheap and inappropriate to describe the agony that her life has been. Even if I could write something, it would …

In a recent post at 0 to IPO in 7 Years, I made a comment that I did not see enough of a difference between speculation and investment and asked for a clarification. Rocky promptly presented the following crisp definition:

“My definition: A speculation is a holding (of whatever sort) where the success or failure is determined by the expectation that ANOTHER MARKET PARTICIPANT will move the price in a particular direction…

I recently stumbled upon the exact figures of US Debt to the Penny which as of a second ago indicated that public debt outstanding was $11,043,588,980,678.90. The latest monthly report is available here. I was very surprised to see we still had such debt given this prediction to have the debt paid off by now. The FAQ encourages us, the private citizens, to help pay off this debt with the following statement…

A sense of worry about the many negative unintended consequences of recent actions has come over me. Perhaps it has something to do with receiving “healthy” doses of government propaganda during my ten years in the Soviet Armenian school system. I can still remember the brain-cleansing we had to undergo…