20 Things To Start Doing in Your Relationships, and other Weekend Reads

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Here are this week’s reading diversions for your personal enlightenment. Have a lovely weekend!

Dennis Merritt Jones: The Power of Silence: Learn How to Drop the Rock

I have been a devoted fan of silence for many years. Silence plays such an important role in our lives and yet we take it for granted; that is to say, we seldom anchor ourselves in the present moment long enough to listen and appreciate what silence brings. As an example, have you ever been in a conversation with someone who never seemed to take a breath — they just pummeled you with rapid fire words? It’s times like that when I think a new recovery group called, “On-and-on-and-on” might be worthwhile.

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A Link Between Alzheimer’s and Cold Sores – Oprah.com

The sores are triggered by the herpes virus—most often, herpes simplex virus type 1 (not to be confused with HSV-2, which predominately causes genital herpes). In recent years, a growing body of research, much of it championed by a British scientist, has begun to suggest a startling fact: The same virus known for sabotaging people’s social lives could be responsible for the majority of Alzheimer’s cases.

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5 Best Bone Builders | Lifescript.com

How healthy are your bones? Osteoporosis, which literally means “porous bones,” affects 28 million Americans and leads to more than 1.5 million bone fractures each year. The condition, which stems from a combination of genetic, dietary, age-related, hormonal, and lifestyle factors, results in fragile bones that are extremely susceptible to breakage.

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7 Habits of Highly Frugal People

If you are tired of living paycheck to paycheck, of having your phone regularly cut off or having to make excuses to skip dinners with your friends if the money has run out before the end of the month then you can use the seven habits of highly effective people to take control of your money situation and live a more frugal lifestyle, and a happier one.

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Heart Health Month: 8 Surprising Heart Facts We Learned Over The Last Year

If you already exercise regularly, eat a nutritious diet full of heart-healthy foods and keep stress levels in check, you’re on the right path toward a tip-top ticker. But there’s always more research evolving to teach us more details about what keeps a heart healthy for life. Here’s a look at some of the most surprising, uplifting and promising results that surfaced since the last American Heart Month.

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10 Alzheimer’s warning signs – latimes.com

The Alzheimer’s Assn. has compiled a list of 10 warning signs of Alzheimer’s and how they differ from mental glitches that shouldn’t faze you. They include:

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5 Foods That Can Trigger a Stroke | Caring.com

Few things feel more terrifying and random than a stroke, which can strike without warning. And fear of stroke — when a blood vessel in or leading to the brain bursts or is blocked by a blood clot, starving brain cells of oxygen and nutrients — is well founded. After all, stroke is the number-three killer in the U.S., affecting more than 700,000 people each year. Here are five foods that cause the damage that leads to stroke.

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12 Relationship Truths We Often Forget

It’s easy to make your relationships more complicated than they are.  Here are twelve simple reminders to help you keep them on course.

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20 Things to Start Doing in Your Relationships

Family isn’t always blood.  They’re the people in your life who appreciate having you in theirs – the ones who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways, and who not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be.  These people – your real family – are the ones who truly matter.

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Patient Communication Study Shows Doctors Regularly Withhold Truth

According to a new study, published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs, some physicians are not always forthright when it comes to patient communication, withholding information about medical errors, relationships with drug companies and severity of a person’s prognosis.

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Valentine’s Day — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts

The history of Valentine’s Day–and the story of its patron saint–is shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient rite?

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7 Things You Didn’t Know About Charles Dickens

Born in 1812 to middle-class parents in the English city of Portsmouth, Charles Dickens—like several of his protagonists—entered the workforce at a young age. When his father was sent to debtors’ prison, 12-year-old Boz (Charles’ childhood nickname) helped support his family by pasting labels on shoe polish bottles in a factory. He later landed a job at a legal firm before covering the House of Commons as a reporter.

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Tags: Bone Builders, British Scientist, Dennis Merritt, Fragile Bones, Frugal Lifestyle, Genital Herpes, Herpes Simplex Virus, Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1, Herpes Virus, Hsv 2, Lifestyle Factors, Living Paycheck To Paycheck, Money Situation, Paycheck To Paycheck, Personal Enlightenment, Porous Bones, Power Of Silence, Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, Simplex Virus Type, Startling Fact
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Eric Sprott: “Wither Green Shoots”

Monday, July 12th, 2010

This article is a guest contribution by Eric Sprott & David Franklin, Sprott Asset Management

With the summer now upon us, the “Sell in May and Go Away” adage has proven itself true once again. The major market indexes are all turning downward, and while they haven’t dropped enough yet to warrant panic, we certainly want to be positioned properly if this trend continues into the fall. The market tea leaves are no longer sending mixed signals either – most of the new data is decidedly bearish. So what happened to all the ‘green shoots’? What happened to the strong recovery the market rally was promising?

Economic data released over the past two weeks have decimated any remaining belief in a lasting economic recovery. Slowdowns are appearing in the US, Europe, Japan and even China. Auto sales, housing starts, employment, consumer confidence, factory orders, consumer purchase intentions – just about every aspect of the economy that can be measured, is showing decided weakness.

Of particular interest to us over the past year has been the GDP forecasts released by The Consumer Metrics Institute in Colorado (“CMI”). CMI caught our attention with their real time tracking of consumer retail sales data. Consumer spending represents 70% of GDP, and that spending can provide great insight into the workings of the underlying economy. CMI’s retail sales data has indentified a long, negative contraction in the economy based on their data set for the last 180 days. This was confirmed most notably in Walmart’s poor first quarter sales results when CFO Tom Schoewe stated, “More than ever, our customers are living paycheck to paycheck.”¹ If that sentiment applies to other large retailers, it doesn’t bode well for 2010 GDP.

CMI also predicted 2010 Q1 GDP growth at 2.62% all the way back in November 2009. It took nearly seven months for the actual US GDP data to eventually be released, but when it finally did (after three revisions, no less) it turned out that CMI’s prediction was bang on. Interestingly, when the real data came out, CMI founder Rick Davis noted that the inventory component underlying the 2.7% Q1 GDP growth figure had moved from 1.65% up to 1.88% – meaning that the bulk of GDP growth, almost 66%, actually came from inventory swings rather than consumer demand. No wonder factory orders fell out of bed this past week! With the re-stocking complete, there aren’t enough new orders to clear the fresh inventory. And if two thirds of Q1 growth came from inventory swings (or just plain re-stocking etc.), it makes us wonder what we can realistically expect from the next two GDP announcements. CMI provided the following guidance for the balance of the year, stating that “We expect GDP growth to be flat for the second quarter, but with inventory adjustment reversals absolutely killing the reported ‘growth’ number just four days before the U.S. mid-term elections.” If that turns out to be correct, it will be unfortunate timing for the elections.

An important question to ask is whether the March ’09 rally was really justified at all. Were the green shoots real? Or was the market just looking for a way to justify the effects of government-induced ‘easy money’? The stock market is supposed to be an efficient, forward-looking indicator after all – and the rally that began in March ’09 was supposed to signal a robust recovery. So where’s the recovery? From the time the term ‘green shoots’ was first uttered by Ben Bernanke on March 15, 2009, the S&P 500 rallied 36% to June 30, 2010 and by as much as 60% to April 26, 2010. If the green shoots were really just the early indications of weeds, was the market wrong to appreciate so dramatically?

Tags: China Auto, Cmi, Consumer Confidence, Consumer Spending, David Franklin, Economic Data, Economic Recovery, First Quarter Sales, Gdp Forecasts, GDP Growth, Gold, Living Paycheck To Paycheck, Major Market Indexes, Market Rally, Mixed Signals, Paycheck To Paycheck, Purchase Intentions, Retail Sales Data, Tea Leaves, Us Gdp Data, Walmart
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