A Real News Update

In case you haven’t heard, the market is actually up! Surprised? You shouldn’t be, unless your only source of information is found between the hours of 5:00-7:00pm on one of the three doom and destruction….I mean….quality news networks. Seriously, when is the last time you watched the local or national news and heard more positive stories about the economy, people, and cultures than you did about the bad things taking place? More than likely the answer is never. I’ve heard that “if it bleeds, it leads.” Unfortunately that phrase is all too true from the majority of today’s media outlets.

So if you’ve only been listening to all the garbage (IE. ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN’s “news cast”) coming out of the tube, here’s a quick reality check of what is actually taking place in the local and national scene:

1. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is up to 8,500.00 and climbing. This is an increase of 29% from the market low just 3 months ago, and it’s up 6% in past 30-days!!! Where’s the news on that story? Even if the market didn’t move an inch up or down until March 2010, the annual return would 29%, and yet we still have another 7 months in the year to take advantage of the low market prices!
2. There 304,059,082 people out of 304,059,724 in America that are not infected with the Swine Flu (there are only 642 confirmed cases in the USA as of today, and only two people have actually died according to the CDC). In case you’re still concerned that you may become infected with the “world-wide pandemic of the decade” and you’d like to know your chances of catching this new flu bug, here you go….you have a .00000211% of a chance. If you happen to catch this little bugger you should buy a lottery ticket the same day because you must be one of the luckiest people alive according to the numbers!
3. Mortgage interest rates are near 50-year lows, meaning you can get a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at 4.5%, or a 30-year fixed rate mortgage under 5.0%. If you avoided the stupidity of interest only, “arm” loans, and other terrible mortgage products that we’re being offered everywhere during the past few years, then you’re in a great position to go buy that first home. (PS – There’s plenty of inventory to pick from, especially if you’re fond of Phoenix, Detroit, or anywhere in Florida!)
4. The Seattle Mariners are actually leading the American West by half a game and it’s May (Hey, it’s my blog so I can be proud of my hometown teams if I want to be).

Take Responsibility, not a Bail-Out

With the media pitching story after story about government bail-outs, financial market meltdowns, and the end of the economy as we know it, it would easy to start believing that our only hope for a financial turn around is the government. DON’T DO IT! The government (or it’s involvement) is not the solution to the financial messes that we’ve made, or Wall Street for that matter. It comes down to personal choices. Small choices that add up little by little into financial success or failure. If the latter is where you find yourself, then your personal choices have got to change starting now. As in today!

Start doing something different than the way you’ve been doing it so far. Start living on less than you make. Start paying off your debt instead of accumulating more of it. Start saving for a rainy day and retirement. Start thinking for the long-term (like where investments will be 10, 20, or 30 years from now….not just a week from now). Start making decisions based on long-term, historical, and practical terms. Quit believing the propaganda that says “government is our only hope for financial survival”, because it’s not. It never has been. And nations that have tried to become that end up hurting the people far more than they ever help (remember the Soviet Union…aka communism!). Anyone who believes that the government is better equipped to run every area of your life is spewing socialism. It doesn’t work.

What does work is rolling up our sleeves and getting to work and living a responsible life. The kind of life where we take responsibility for our actions, good or bad, and we live with the consequences of those actions. We don’t point the finger towards someone else when we were the one that made the mess. Instead, we get busy cleaning up the mess and make better decisions next time. It’s not easy to live this way I know, but it’s the only way to live if you want lasting success.