An Apology - Please?

I had an original thought this morning - and those are rare - so here it is.

The current economic environment is being compared to "The Great Depression". At least, they, the media, says it's the second worst economic time since "The Great Depression".

Well then, I demand an apology. From who or whom? From my grandparents, parents, aunts & uncles and such. All those people that told us all those terrible stories about 1929 and the 30's. I mean, let's face it, if this is like it was then, well, come on. It aint that bad. Don't get me wrong, I am close to losing my job. We were given a 5% pay cut last week - ya - cut. So I'm scared - I'm not kidding - my job is next. But yesterday morning I did something I've never done. I had a real tough digging job to do for my new fence, and not being as tough as I use to be, I went to hire 3 guys off the corner Exxon lot to help me out for the day. As I pulled up, at least 30 guys ran to my car shouting 'me, me, me!' To cull the crowd, I rolled down my window and shouted "I need 3 guys for fence posts, $8 per hour!" 3/4 of the guys walked away. Yes, walked away - $8 was not worth their time. So I picked the 3 best guys who wanted to actually work - and I paid them $12/hr for it. Point: Recession? Depression? 1929? Hopeless?

I demand an appology people.

If now is like then, I want answers. What's the deal? Ya, people are hurting everywhere, houses are up for sale. I'm not be-littling that, I may be joining you soon. But come on?! If we're experiencing 1929 all over again - 1929 wasn't that bad - was it?

Or are we being played?

"The Best Job in The World" (5 days left!)

Every morning I go to work and as I place my card up against the reader to open the door, I secretly pray that the green light comes on and it beeps, allowing me to enter the door. These are tough times. And the company I work for has 200,000 employees. They wouldn't miss me. I'm expendable - very, very, expdendable.

I think we're all wondering about our jobs - aren't we?

So this guy pointed me to the "best job in the world" - and told me to submit my application. He did, and he's sure he will get it. (he's a fellow Kilimanjaro trekker). You have to submit a 60 second video and an electronic application. You have to check it out, you can watch the videos of all the applicants - its amazing. There's something else going on here, but I can't figure it out.

What do you do at this job? You live on an island off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Free rent and living expenses. It's for 6 months. You are the island caretaker. You get paid $100,000 US. You feed the fish and write reports back to headquarters to encourage tourism. This job was made for ME. But I think some of my clever nephews and nieces are more likely to win if they apply some of that incredible talent they have into the application. Go for it! At least check out the web-site (caution, its a little slow to load) - you won't believe it - the level of international attention - absolutely amazing. Watch for my application video, it will be out there soon!

http://www.islandreefjob.com/

If we don't get this job - the best job in the world - there will be others. Keep looking.

The Worlds Population - Think About It!

Not too long ago I had read somewhere that approximately 85% of ALL the people who have ever lived, are alive today. It took me back - I mean - I didn't know what to make of it. Dealing in the world of statistics, I was skeptical. Mark Twain once said, "there are 3 kinds of lies: 1) lies, 2) damn lies, and 3) statistics".

So this morning I didn't have any meetings, no calls, no nothin. I went to google and typed in something like "world population", and got, as you can imagine, all kinds of hits. But none that validated this statistic. I took what I found in various places and created a spreadsheet.

Starting at zero (0) AD (the time of Christs birth), I loaded what experts believe was the total global population by year - in 50 year increments. I was able to back into the number of births and deaths to arrive at the net increase or decrease in the total population. And I did that all the way to today, and through 2050. It's a beautiful spreadsheet - a piece of art really.

Guess what? 83% of ALL people who have lived (were born) since the time of Christ, are alive today. Mull that over in your head. Get your arms around it. At 6 billion people on the globe, 83%, since Jesus was born in Bethlehem - are alive - NOW.

Should this change anything we do, how we think, where we go, who we talk to, what we say?

Scot