As some of you have noticed, I have not written a blog on The DL for quite some time; in fact, the last time I wrote a blog was back in the month of October!  My life has been absolute craziness, as I am currently in three top leadership roles at my high school and am one of the "power children" that attempt to do everything at a perfectionist's rate.  Although this can sometimes be ridiculously stressful, I enjoy every single minute of it - keep me busy and productive with worthwhile work and I'm a happy camper.

The first exciting thing I did last week was listen to a man named Brian Anderson who made a very special memory for me and my family.  Anderson's passion in life is living it at 200%.  He was a member of the Army at the beginning of the Iraq War and his life before the Army consisted of enjoying time with family, friends, and working at American Airlines as a baggage handler.  In 2000, Anderson realized his life was in repetition and that he needed a change - a year later on September 11, 2001, he was deployed to basic training at Fort Hood.  Anderson was shipped to Iraq and, during his first tour in 2003, was on a special task force that hunted down the Playing Card Insurgents.  After his first tour, he was shipped back for his second eight months later and had no idea that his somewhat normal life would be changed forever.  On his second tour of Iraq, Brian Anderson lost both of his legs and his left arm when his Hummer was hit by an IED.  Anderson recalled the entire situation and remembered how his sense of humor kept him alive.

Today, Brian Anderson realizes that he is secluded to a wheelchair and sometimes his prosthetic legs.  This experience, however, didn't stop him from doing the things he wanted to do - instead of thinking, "Why me," Anderson told us he constantly thought, "What can I do now?"  Some people that are in Brian's place in life are left with a large mental scar that inhibits them from conquering their unconquerable boundaries.  Brian Anderson, on the other hand, has learned to cope with his precarious plight and do certain activities that people with two legs and a left arm wouldn't even consider doing:  wakeboarding, snowboarding, and skateboarding just to name a few.

The reason why I decided to bring Brian Anderson's story to the DL is because it allows all of us to put our own troubles into perspective.  So you make a bad trade, so you and your wife/husband get in an hour argument, so you lose a prospective client; you still have your amenities that most of us take for granted.  My best friend constantly uses the phrase, "You only live once."  This applies so well with the way Brian Anderson is currently living his life and how every single one of us should live our lives as well - if we all had a positive attitude and the mindset to conquer the world with King Kong-like ambition, we would all be happier and more successful than we would be with a negative view of certain periods in our life.

As Tuesday evening passed and I told Brian's story throughout the day on Wednesday, Wednesday evening was even more action packed, as I was given the opportunity to listen to Dr. Joseph Stiglitz talk about his thoughts on the recession and the way the current administration is handling the entire situation.

Dr. Stiglitz started off the evening discussing his general thoughts on recessions during the Post-War Era and how they seem to set up in the same pattern every time:

1. An inventory issue of some kind, causing corporations to realize they have too much inventory and begin selling it at sporadic prices.
2. Inflation fears from a devalued dollar, causing the Fed to figure out that they made a mistake somewhere along the interest rate road.
3. An economic crisis with the possibility of a financial crisis as well.

After discussing this topic for a short period of time, Dr. Stiglitz began going into the steps leading up to this particular recession:

1. The Loan Bubble - caused by the Financial Institutions that loaned money to anyone and everyone (these same Financial Institutions also caused the pop of this bubble).
2. The Housing Issue - Dr. Stiglitz briefly mentioned the sudden drop in the prices of commercial real estate and housing markets around the nation.
3. Manufacturing - Talking about this topic the most, Dr. Stiglitz felt that the United States entered the same problem that it entered during the Great Depression with regards to farming.  He said that we've lost our comparative and competitive advantage in the Manufacturing industry and that the United States is experiencing a surplus in industrialization capacity.  He also mentioned that we have to allocate the labor in this particular industry to other industries that are struggling to keep up in our nation.

The main question that Dr. Stiglitz presented during his speaking event was, "What will replace the American Consumer?"  I found this question interesting, as most of us understand that the American Consumer is not only our nation's largest consumer but is also an enormous consumer from an international perspective.  He went on to explain that the laziness of our nation's population is not helping the consumer situation.

Dr. Stiglitz also brought up a couple of interesting individual facts about the current state of our economy.  He discussed how the 10.2% unemployment rate is somewhat false, is it is only adjusted along side of the Initial Claims statistic.  He also pointed out that if the United States economy doesn't produce a growth of at least 3.5% by year's end, there will not be enough jobs to employ the incoming labor force coming out of college in May of next year.  

At one point during his speaking event, Dr. Stiglitz reminded us that he was bearish in 2005 and every year after that.  He stated that his bearishness was a result from his speculation of a financial meltdown, saying that the financial institutions' incentives were too good to be true.  "This isn't historically new," he said.  "The financial institutions of today have just found new ways to do what was done during the Great Depression."

Something I found interesting about the evening was Dr. Stiglitz' take on the aftermath response to the financial crisis and the recession itself.  "Many say we spent too much, but I don't think we spent enough," he stated.  His belief on the stimulus bill is that too much went to tax cuts and not enough went to productive restructuring of the nation's economy.  All in all, he felt it was designed terribly.  He also mentioned that through the design the government has in store for the U.S. citizen with regard to mortgages, there are plenty of foreclosures to come in the future.  His take on the financial institutions getting the money they did is that the government held a double standard when comparing the Auto Industry versus the Financial Sector.

As for the stock market, Dr. Stiglitz said that individual equities are doing well because there is no substance behind the dollars that flow through them on a daily basis - the liquidity is there but there is no proper investment in the equities themselves.  Wrapping up his speaking event, Dr. Stiglitz prefaced his closing discussions with the phrase, "We can take away one thing from this recession, and that's that Adam Smith and Free Market Capitalism don't work as well as they were intended too."  Although somewhat of a dismal report, the insight and education I engulfed myself in on Wednesday night was incredible.  Dr. Stiglitz' intelligence far surpasses those in power positions spread throughout the United States government, making me wonder why he's not in charge of deciding what to do when it comes to what our nation spends money on.

To top off the week, I was off school on Friday and traded throughout the morning.  During the afternoon, I paintballed with a bunch of my buddies and got dominated to the extreme (I also ran into a tree like a clutz, cutting up my face and bringing bloodstains to my jeans).  To end the day, I sat in a hot tub with a large amount of attractive women and had a 777 cigar, handmade in Nicaragua.  Last week in the Life of Moose was indeed a good one, and they can only get better from here on out.

Be ambitious, be driven, be motivated - Financial Rockstars of the Davian Letter, just be.