“To celebrate growing older,” Regina Brett, a columnist at The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, in 2006 wrote the 45 lessons life taught her. She subsequently, upon turning 50, added another five. (By the way, she is 53 years old and not 90 as some Internet websites state.) The column follows below.

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

...

Risk aversion has re-entered the investment equation with risky assets such as equities and commodities bearing the brunt of the selling orders, while gold bullion, government bonds, the US dollar and the yen are attracting safe-haven money.

The global stock market pullback seems to be gathering momentum with three markets on my radar screen now trading below their 50-day moving averages, indicating a reversal of the secondary trend. These markets are China, Hong Kong and Chile, with most others uncomfortably close to this intermediate support level (see table below). I am of the opinion that more markets will fall below the 50-day lines and that we will at least see some degree of reversion to the key 200-day moving averages (often used to distinguish between primary bull and bear markets). The table provides the key levels, as well as the declines since the recent highs.

Click here

...

This story of the disappearing "lumber" freighter just keeps getting stranger and stranger, as this excerpt from the Moscow Times shows.  At least we know that it wasn't a completely inside job - even though Russian officials are still acting awful cagey, NATO did assist them in tracking the ship down?  So one would assume that if the government were playing a role in a supposed arms trafficking transaction, which seems like the most plausible explanation, they probably wouldn't have to ask for help.

Yet the official version of what transpired is fraught with inconsistencies, prompting observers to suggest that Russian authorities are trying to cover up a smuggling or trafficking operation.

When Swedish police first said the ship had been hijacked near the island of Gotland on July 24, they cited the crew as saying masked men had bound and beat them before fleeing in

...

Diane Francis, columnist at the Financial Post, wrote up a short column about the Eligio Cedeño case in Venezuela interviewing Robert Amsterdam, making mention of the Rusoro controversy, which has a Russia-related angle."Venezuela said it will offer a joint venture to Russian-owned miner Rusoro to operate the Las Cristinas and Brisas gold projects, currently under contract to two Canadian companies, Mining minister Rodolfo Sanz on Thursday. He told a Russian delegation that a memorandum of understanding would soon be signed with Rusoro. It appeared that Sanz intends to replace the Canadian companies who operate the projects that contain some of Latin America's largest gold deposits, with Rusoro, but he did not mention their names."Why would this be happening, given the fact that the Canadian companies had signed a deal and invested millions in good faith already?"What's happening in Venezuela is not understood by Canadians," ...

Edward is already plugging this article by Daniel Gross over at Demography.Matters but I think it is important enough to deserve circulation here at Alpha.Sources too. Basically, Daniel gets to the heart of the matter in terms of Japan when he argues that one of the principal reasons that Japan is not rising is that it has failed to do the homework in the human capital department or as Gross phrases it; while Japan is still leading in engineering, this is not the case with respect to social engineering.

Japan still retains its lead in engineering. A showroom at Panasonic's headquarters displayed a heated, multifunction toilet seat that conserves energy. (Wouldn't leaving the seat cold conserve even more?) The sleek Shinkansen bullet trains roll up to their appointed spots on time. TKX, an 87-year-old Osaka-based company that makes abrasives, has adapted its expertise to cutting silicon ingots into wafers

...

Author: wealthtrackAdded: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:55:37 -0800Duration: 354

What are the most important, simple steps you can take to secure your financial future? Public television's Consuelo Mack WealthTrack has assembled three of the top financial planning experts in the country to find out. Long time "The Wall Street Journal" columnist Jonathan Clements, now at Citigroup, Kiplinger's Personal Finance "Ask Kim" columnist, Kim Lankford and one of Worth Magazines top 100 Wealth Advisors, RegentAtlantic Capital's Christopher Cordaro will appear on this week's Consuelo Mack WealthTrack on public television. Distributed by Tubemogul.