America's Cross to Bear

Brian Slezak — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:44:21 +0000

I sometimes listen to Marketplace on NPR on the way home because it is typically on during the time I leave for home. Tonight I heard a great quote that made me think of a conversation I had with a co-worker within the last month. We were discussing the major factors of US economic fallout and how to view it in positive light. We both agreed that these times will be our cross to bear as a nation, state, city, or family. Things will right themselves, and this is a time for growth.

The quote was by Charles Handy, the “London Business School founder and Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker School of Business Professor.”

[Referring to the US econmic situation] But there may be some good news in all of that and we may get back to a saner kind of world — what Adam Smith [author of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations] called “cultivation” or “civilization” — where we don’t all sort of spend our life trying to make money, to buy things we don’t really need to impress the neighbors, and so on. But we actually do work not 60 hours a week, but 40 hours a week. Where we actually do take holidays. Where we actually get to know our kids again. ….

How tragic does that sound?

Government Relief Index, QGRI

Brian Slezak — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:21:11 +0000

I just learned of the new NASDAQ index QGRI, which

allows taxpayers and other investors to measure the performance of U.S. companies that are participating in the government’s financial relief plan,

The index started at $1000 on Jan 5. As of today it is measured at $941.42

Although it is not the greatest of tools to measure how these companies are doing, it is the first thing toward accountablity that I’ve seen. :-/

Brian Slezak » economy

America's Cross to Bear

Government Relief Index, QGRI