Birthday Greetings from Joe Cocker

Go play at wordle.net

“Circle the pitfalls and highlight the opportunities. Then build a vision of how it could all be better and work like hell to make it happen.”

- Michael Dell

The Wall Street Journal and Businessweek have both posted articles about the disparity between the reality and perceptions of today’s economy. Historically speaking, we have very small problems and we are likely to get through them effectively. As one author points out, 94% of Americans are not at risk Mortgage foreclosure and most that are won’t lose their houses anyway. Furthermore, most people are NOT trying to sell their homes so a down market is simply a headline.

Am I (or the other authors) saying there aren’t problems, no, but I do want to emphasize sanity. First of all, the media is incapable of reporting middle of the road news. The entire mechanism works off of sensationalism and arguments. Even if 99% of scientists say such and such, the reporter will find a representative of the 1% for “balance.”

Second, the world economy is exploding and new opportunities arise every day. Is it disruptive? Changing? Scary? Sure, but don’t blame anyone but yourself if you’re not keeping up with what’s truly going on and exporing, learning about and preparing ways to ensure a life for yourself.

“Music is spiritual. The music business is not.”

Van Morrison (b. 1945) Irish musician, The Times (July 1990)