Money Musing #1: Lessons of 'The Quaker Economist' Founder

GOOD-BYE, JACK POWELSON
2009 begins badly for financial editor, but what's our excuse?
By Byron Belzak

I started out 2009 badly with a personal health scare. As it turned out, nothing was seriously wrong. All the tests were negative, which means it was all one big positive outcome for me, except for the bill paying part.

So other than the money thang, life is good in 2009, as I see it.

Yup, I'm back in the saddle, behind the wheel, sitting in high cotton, and thinking about all those other corny, hackneyed adages, including it's good to be alive, I'm fit as a fiddle, and it's ALL good.

Okay, well maybe not the last phrase; even though I was given a good little scare on January 1st, I'm not crazy. It's NOT all good, ever, and especially now. You have to be living under a rock with ear plugs and blinders to ignore what's going on with the economy and in other people's lives.

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Money Musing #2: Understanding the World's Greatest Gambling Hall

SHAKY TIMES
In Response to the Collapse of the Stock Market
By Byron Belzak

On Feb. 3, 2009, I responded to an email from a friend who was lamenting the volatility of the stock market brought on in part by unscrupulous corporate behavior and executive greed.

Here's my message to Jim Beacon, editor of TheGreenerHome.com:

As my dad would say, even when he played the market, "The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest gambling hall."

That was when he was in his forties.

Now, in his ninties, he still says the same thing. Through the years he has been more right than wrong on this matter.

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