Douglas L. Ross - My Personal Reflections

It's amazing how many people are talking about Black Swans. Even the immanent former IBM strategist Irving Wladawsky - Breger is talking about them and citing Nissim Taleb . Meantime, Taleb is working on "domesticating the unknown."

Dr. Albin F. Turbak, Ph.D. from Sandy Springs, GA wrote a very interesting blog post picked up and printed by one of our local newspapers today. The gist of his argument is that Congress, government regulators and the Fed were seduced by unsustainable economic growth and allowed (even encouraged) banks to run what amounted to a Ponzi scheme (primarily with mortgage backed securities). When the bank Ponzi scheme collapsed, it sent the world economy into a depression based on fear and uncertainty. He blames the Ponzi scheme and those who allowed it for wiping out half the retirement savings of innocent bystander consumers. Although I largely agree with his analysis and I like his simple, easy to understand explanation, I disagree with one important aspect of what I think he is saying. To me, the value of our collective "retirement savings" was at least partly an illusion caused by the Ponzi scheme that Dr. Turbak pointed out. So, since we never really had it (because it was an ...

I thought President Obama's inaugural speech was a little disappointing when read for substance from afar, although I can imagine that it might have seemed more uplifting in person. I think the Wall Street Journal got it right in their pre -inaugural " The Opacity of Hope " editorial as they concluded: "The complicated nature of our world means that every modern Presidency is to some extent a leap into the unknown. Mr. Obama's meteoric rise makes him a bigger leap than most. We don't know if he is a genuine man of the left, or a more traditional pragmatist. The audacity of our hope is that as President he will use his considerable talents to return his party to the policies of growth, opportunity and the vigorous defense of U.S. interests that marked it the last time the country had such great expectations for a Democratic President -- under JFK." To me, Obama didn't start well with his first official act being this rather vague and plainly accusa...

I love the website "on-this-day.com" because it's so interesting to have a glimpse back in time each day at special things that happened on this day. I was surfing their site today and peeked at a related link which they maintain with the birthdays of famous people. I discovered that one of my hero's (Bret Farve, already a legendary Green Bay Packers quarterback at just 40 years of age) was born on October 10, 1969. This happens to also be my birthday. Pretty cool.

From all of us in the Ross Family, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year.

For anyone interested in really "big questions" and what some of the worlds best thinkers are saying about them here is an interesting series from the John Templeton Foundation: John Templeton Foundation : Life's Big Questions : Archive

On my flight home this week by coincidence I was seated by a young single black woman about 30 years old who worked for a big retail bank (which isn't going under) and whose job is still secure. She did not have a Masters degree but was obviously intelligent and ambitious (she was quite deliberately networking me and trying to set me up as a future contact that might work to her advantage). In a moment of candor that she might have regretted later, she revealed to me that she had recently purchased her first home and gave me a few more details than I would have normally expected. It was an 1800 square foot starter place in a nice new suburban sub-division for about $150k. She had put down about 20% and had a fixed rate mortgage at about 6.3%. With taxes and insurance, that made the payment about $1000 per month and that was apparently just a little more than her salary would justify. But she was making it ok . It turns out that she was revealing this to me because she had two thin...