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What A Time To Be Alive
Morgan Housel ^ | Sep 12, 2016 at 4:32 PM | Morgan Housel

Posted on 09/14/2016 3:05:10 AM PDT by expat_panama

John D. Rockefeller was the richest man the world had ever seen.

But for most of his adult life he didn’t have electric lights, air conditioning, or sunglasses. And he never had penicillin, sunscreen, or Advil. This is not ancient history: One in twenty Americans were born before Rockefeller died.

The majority of Americans think the next generation of adults will be worse off than their parents.

I think of two things when I hear this.

One, the pessimists are probably wrong, extrapolating a bad decade into infinity. Two, progress is like compound interest – you don’t even notice it in the short run, but it’s mindblowing when you zoom out and see what can be accomplished over long periods.

There are so many things still wrong with the world, and the future will always be hard. But when confronted with pessimism, Warren Buffett reminds us that normal Americans “live better than John D. Rockefeller did.”

Here are some examples of how right he is.

What a time to be alive.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: economy; investing; prosperity
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To: All
Sell in September or be dismembered

I don't want to be dismembered.

21 posted on 09/14/2016 6:35:09 AM PDT by BipolarBob (I'm one big walking chemical reaction..)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
always a fun conversation.

--and not only more healthy but more realistic too.  My dad was born in 1901 before TV, radio, the airplane --in fact it was just a few years after the Whitehouse got indoor plumbing (the Whitehouse w/ an Outhouse!).  When I was born most folks in the world did not have electricity and now they do.

My theorem: 

our ever advancing civilization + all the dumb people around us = proof of Divine Intervention in the affairs of humankind.

22 posted on 09/14/2016 6:45:54 AM PDT by expat_panama
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To: Alas Babylon!

See your point, but there is still nothing as good as a real, accurate map. Always have them with me on a trip, as a backup.

What I’m looking for now is a GPS with personality. Someone has got to come up with the programming to turn that thing into a companionable device.


23 posted on 09/14/2016 6:47:50 AM PDT by binreadin
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To: Alas Babylon!
Besides me anyone else ever use one of these 'computers'?


24 posted on 09/14/2016 6:49:17 AM PDT by expat_panama
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To: BipolarBob
Sell in September or be dismembered

I don't want to be dismembered.

Aw, stocks have gone down as far as they're going to go.  Let's buy now; like, what could possibly happen?

25 posted on 09/14/2016 6:52:37 AM PDT by expat_panama
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To: Alas Babylon!

On the same topic, there are some things I want to bring back. I want to bring back, for example, a vehicle for the folks that don’t need power windows or heated seats. I want them to bring back a car that has the safety features needed, but that can be easily and cheaply repaired. It won’t need to have backup cameras or CD players or blue tooth capability.

What’s happening is that consumer items are being priced out of range for many ordinary working people. There should be options for the folks at the starting levels who need basic transportation and communication options.


26 posted on 09/14/2016 6:55:37 AM PDT by binreadin
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To: Pelham

I love all these advancements in technology. That said are we now more free? Does the modern day man have Liberty? For some reason the author fails to answer this. We can have both tech advancements and comforts of modern day living along with Freedom and Liberty. This is the dirty little secret.


27 posted on 09/14/2016 6:56:56 AM PDT by cornfedcowboy
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To: expat_panama

I did buy some (reluctantly). Bought some Mylan at $40.00. I’m up a little but not sure if I should hold. I really wanted to buy Gold but it just hasn’t quite got to my price target. Missed it by that much.


28 posted on 09/14/2016 7:02:35 AM PDT by BipolarBob (I'm one big walking chemical reaction..)
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To: expat_panama

The Mizzou mechanical engineering department had one of these babies in 1969. Never could figure it out. We also had an IBM 360 which took instructions via punch cards. The changes we’ve seen in less than 50 years!

Here I sit with the morning news and no ink on my fingers! Why just 25 years ago we were reading articles like “Will the Internet become the ‘Information Superhighway’?” which were forecasting that one day we could read the newspaper on our huge desktop computer CRT monitors.


29 posted on 09/14/2016 7:02:44 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
Oops...pic...


30 posted on 09/14/2016 7:03:28 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: BipolarBob

My thinking now is that the reason nobody knows if we’re going into more selling or more buying is because nobody’s yet made up their minds if they want to buy our sell.

I know I haven’t.


31 posted on 09/14/2016 7:48:05 AM PDT by expat_panama
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To: expat_panama; PGalt
Most of us are better off than John D. Rockefeller was. A while back, that was expressed as that an American secretary today is better off than Queen Victoria (1829-1901) was.

But I would express that differently: Slaveowners in the South were no better off than Queen Victoria, surely. And so are most black Americans.

progress is like compound interest – you don’t even notice it in the short run, but it’s mindblowing when you zoom out and see what can be accomplished over long periods.
. . . and that sort of steady incremental progress is exactly what the rules of journalism filter out. IOW, Philippians 4:8
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (New International Version)
could with some justice be summarized, “Don’t dwell only on what is reported in the news.”

Journalism is negative “If it bleeds, it leads” and superficial, both in regard to its short deadlines and because “Man Bites Dog, not Dog Bites Man” causes the news to reflect what does not usually happen (and especially, what we hope doesn’t happen). Since all journalists know this, all journalists know that they are negative and superficial, and yet they claim than all journalists are objective. News Flash! If you think negativity is objective, you are a cynic. Precisely what Philippians 4:8 warns against.

The cynicism of journalism is exactly mirrored in the politics of socialism, which explains why a Democrat politician can become an “objective journalist,” but a Republican politician cannot. Socialism is a war on wisdom.


32 posted on 09/14/2016 7:59:15 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: expat_panama

Bookmark.


33 posted on 09/14/2016 8:01:46 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion; All

Thanks for the ping/post; thread.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” - Dickens

“Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy” - Louis CK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8LaT5Iiwo4


34 posted on 09/14/2016 8:32:56 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: expat_panama

I think there needs to be a new word invented for desperate attempt at laugable anti-nostalgia comparisons between what are essentially two nations that STINK LIKE A DEAD SKUNK.

Let me enlighten the hideously ignorant author with a few OTHER things that Mr. Rockefeller didn’t have:

To worry about his daughter turning herself into an unpaid prostitute, murdering his grandbaby when she forgot her ‘free’ birth control, getting AIDS from an infected boyfriend who the public was too chickensh!t to quarantine, and him being unable to stop any of it short of kidnapping her.

He also didn’t have to worry about his wife serving him divorce papers and walking off with half or more of his estate because she woke up on the wrong side of the bed even if he had been a model husband from day one.

He also didn’t have to worry about an army of dindu-nuffins burning down or looting 6 digits worth of merchandise and real estate in the space of a week and who he couldn’t expect to be arrested (or shot) in significant numbers.

He also didn’t have to worry about where the upper two-thirds of his workforce would come from - the brains of the operations like managers, engineers, accountants, etc. - because the native birthrate was in a screaming nosedive.

He also didn’t have to worry about a repeat of 9/11 on one of his skyscrapers because his nation refused to exterminate a group of barbarians barely worth calling ‘people’ even after multiple attacks on their nation.

I could go on for pages, but I’ll make myself stop here.


35 posted on 09/14/2016 8:55:08 AM PDT by Laser_Ray
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To: expat_panama

Today you have very rich people whining about everything like that football player who has a contract worth #106 million and he is not the best player.


36 posted on 09/14/2016 1:30:01 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: expat_panama

#24 Yes. The family business used this in the office. I myself did not but I remember punch cards and manila cards stamped by metal plates to create records for the office files.


37 posted on 09/14/2016 1:44:03 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: cornfedcowboy

You noticed the same thing that caught my eye as well.


38 posted on 09/14/2016 2:38:46 PM PDT by Pelham (DLM. Deplorable Lives Matter)
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To: expat_panama
we had one thing though...one main thing....HOPE...and throw in OPTIMISM....and add a little EXPECTATIONS....

expectations because we grew up knowing that if we studied hard, worked hard, married the right person that there was no way in hell that we weren't going to do great in life, and have lots and lots more than our parents....

I don't think today's young people for the most part, have any of those expectations...

39 posted on 09/17/2016 1:16:15 AM PDT by cherry
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To: cherry
have lots and lots more than our parents....  I don't think today's young people for the most part, have any of those expectations...

The latest Gallup poll shows today's kids are smart enough :U.S. Youth Say They Will Be Better Off Than Their Parents.  It's usually that way although a few years ago there was a drop (In U.S., Optimism About Future for Youth Reaches All-Time Low) and even then it was close.   There're too many signs for the kids to miss, signs showing how say, average incomes and average wealth today are three times what they were just two generations ago.

40 posted on 09/17/2016 5:56:08 AM PDT by expat_panama
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