The Current Administration - A Case of Financial Mismanagement

The current administration has overseen the largest growth in government spending in our country’s history. In my opinion, many of our recent woes are directly attributable to this. The blame cannot be really placed squarely on Republicans or Democrats, Congress or the President, since the largest new spending measures had significant support on both sides of the aisle: homeland security spending, the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, and the recent financial bail-out. At the same time that spending increased at unprecedented levels, taxes were cut causing our budget surplus from the Clinton years to slide away and become a tremendous deficit.

This is where the economic effects can start to be observed. First, exporting countries such as China started investing their vast financial reserves in dollars and thereby funding our deficit. As the deficits and spending increased and the U.S. economy started to falter, contagion spread around the world about the strength of the dollar and foreign countries with U.S. dollar reserves started turning instead towards the euro or yen. This greatly diminished the value of the dollar and caused oil prices to reach record levels since oil sales are primarily denominated in dollars. Record oil prices caused large increases in prices Americans were paying at the pump and wrecked havoc on manufacturing and transportation companies who ultimately passed on the price increases to consumers. All this, while Americans were already overextended after having gorged themselves on easy credit card debt and home equity loans secured by inflated home values.

Another unwelcome effect was one of the greatest wealth transfers in world history as oil exporting countries raked in the dough at $100+ oil. Unfortunately, not many of these oil exporting countries have our best interests at heart. Saudi Arabia, flush with oil money, has founded thousands of madrassas in Pakistan (schools teaching Islamic extremism). Also, these particular countries are the ones currently ready with cash who would like to acquire hard U.S. assets and significant stakes in our ailing banks. With all these negative effects, my greatest hope with the new administration is that spending is controlled; however, I don’t think we’ll get that from either candidate.

Shark Alley

 Mike and I went cage diving with great whites this weekend and had a blast!! These creatures are amazing!
 Mike getting suited up to get into the cage. Man, was the water cold!
 At one point Mike and I were both in the cage and a shark swam by so close that his tail hit the side of the cage and gave us a good smack. What a rush!
 What a great experience! We have now gained a deeper appreciation for the great white.

Hout Bay

 We took a drive over to Hout Bay (about 20 minutes from here) and Nicholas loved watching this fat seal getting fed in the harbor.
 This is our new nanny, Jennifer. She's been great with Nicholas!
 We all went to the World of Birds in Hout Bay one afternoon, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of Nicholas on top of this gorilla. Just check out that pose!
 My what big eyes you have : )

Hermanus whale watching

 On Mike's day off, we drove to the town of Hermanus for the annual whale festival. We saw several South African Right whales like the one in these pics.
 
 Nicholas loves balloons so he couldn't help snatching one at the festival. It was windy so I had to buy a cap to keep my ears warm.
 Mike and Nicholas posing with the world's only whale crier...he walks along Main Street blowing his pipe to alert visitors to the best whale sighting spots. Notice that Nicholas is fascinated by that pipe.

Carrie's attempt at blogging

While Mike's been the blogger in the family, I thought I'd try it out too. Today is a holiday here - Happy Birthday to my brother. I took Nicholas to the toy store this morning and we had fun picking out some new toys. He really loves his Thomas the Train pool filled with balls. Next on our list is to go buy a backpack (one we can put Nicholas in) so we can go hiking around here...anyone have any suggestions? Oh, to add to Mike's booklist, I can recommend "The Invisible Wall" by Harry Bernstein. It's a well-written memoir about a Jewish boy growing up in England around World War I. The invisible wall refers to the religious divide between Jews and Christians on his street. While the book revolves mainly around Harry's life growing up, there's a side story about his sister falling in love with a Christian boy and the ramifications that has on his family. I really enjoyed it, but what amazed me was that the author published this first book of his at the age of 97. And he has a sequel out this year, "The Dream", which I'm planning to read. What a great tribute to the fact that age doesn't have to be an obstacle in achieving your dreams.


Hugs and kisses from South Africa!!

Reading in Spurts

I tend to read stuff in spurts so here's a couple groups of good books I've read recently. It's interesting to get different points of view on similar topics for a richer learning experience.

Self-Improvement/Motivation:
- Who Moved my Cheese? - dealing with change
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - the Heart of the Rose technique is a really powerful way to improve controlling your thoughts!
- The Alchemist
- La Buena Suerte/ Good Luck: Claves De La Prosperidad

Very interesting to compare & contrast the themes and ideas in these 4 books.

Middle East:
- Winter in Kandahar by Steven Wilson - historical novel set during war in Afghanistan
- Ascent from Darkness - sequel to Winter in Kandahar. Historical novel set in Syria & Iraq during Iraq War
- Three Cups of Tea - true story of Greg Mortensen's efforts to promote peace by building schools for girls in Pakistan during the rise of the Taliban

Great reads - really helped me fill in my hole of ignorance about this part of the world. None was as well written, however, as The Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

First Night Out

Checking out the neighborhood in front of the apartment. Nicholas quickly spotted 2 neighbor dogs, one of which looks a bit like Cheerio. He went after them right away. It turns out their owner is part of a group that gets together regularly to speak Spanish. Behind us you see part of the the Twelve Apostles mountain range. It is quite a comforting reminder that the Twelve Apostles are right here protecting us both physically (the mountain range) and spiritually (the living Twelve leading Christ's restored church here in the latter-days).
We attended a free, outdoor comedy show. Where in the world is Peppy? He refused to sit with us; instead, preferring to slide in between his two new friends. I love this picture because it shows a representative cut of the local population and Peppy fitting right into it.
Enjoying some ice cream while looking out at the ships in the bay. You can see Table Mountain in the background.
Ice cream = all smiles!