FROM THE DAILY RECKONING DEC 31, 2008 EMAIL

Economies are not machines. Instead, they are organic, natural phenomenon in which the principal actor – man – is subject to fits of brutal sanity, interspersed by long periods of hallucination in which he is trying to get something for nothing. Fundamentally, it is a ‘moral’ system, not a mechanical system. When people make mistakes they have to pay for them.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, GOLDBUGS!

This should be a very good year for us. Unfortunately, for the World, it will be disasterous. Use what you know wisely. Work harder than ever to prepare for what's coming. You will be on your own, no matter how many people you go through it with. Learn to say no to people that won't prepare for themselves. The wisest thing you can do is take care of yourself first, and your children second. Without you, they don't have a chance. Once again, Best Wishes in the year to come, and those that follow. GT

FROM RON PAUL'S CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY

Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, And Nobody This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

THIS WAS SENT TO ME BY MY NEIGHBOR, THE TRUCKER

I am passing this on to you because it definitely works, and we could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too can find inner peace . Dr Phil proclaimed, 'The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started and have never finished. So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished, and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how freaking good I feel right now. Pass this on to those whom you think might be in need of inner peace.

MONDAY EVENING 6:00PM PST

Well folks, Today has become eventful here in the Pacific Northwest. We have had another storm that dropped another foot plus of powdery snow on top of all the previous snow we have received. My neighbor, a long distance trucker out on a delivery, called and asked me to clean off the awning on his fifth wheel trailer, which he had not bothered to roll up, or tilt to allow the snow to be easy to sweep off. About noon today, after a much needed mid morning nap, I put on my Carharts, Elmer Fudd hat, snow boots and gloves and stepped out the door to go clean his awning. There was at least a foot of powder that had filled everything I had just cleared the day before. His awning couldn't be lowered enough to clean but the front part of it, which I did, and then, because the snow was high enough to be a pain to walk through, I got my snow blower out and cleared his driveway and in front of his awning, and then went to clear all around my area. This took at least and hour or more. I then started cleaning my entire area, which is extensive, which took lots of time and energy. When I went back to finish his awning, his girlfriend (a middle-aged woman who knows everything), who had come home, had attempted to push the awning from below, or some maneuver that managed to rip the awning completely from side to side along the roll up tube. To be fair, the awning was already ripping, but anyone with a brain should have know it took a different plan to clean the snow off of it. She didn't even come out of the trailer to say anything, even though I was making lots of noise. Nevertheless, I cleaned off the snow that had fallen off the awning to the porch, which I had previously cleaned, and I put the awning back in the proper position to keep it from being an obstruction. But the residual part of the awning was now hangin from the top of the trailer over the front door. It can be trimmed and repaired, but first you have to remove the hardware of the awning to be able to remove the remaining awning from the groove that secures it to the side of the trailer. After all that snow clearing and shoveling, I was pooped and thoroughly wet with sweat, so I decided it was time to quit and get dry. I went into my RV and stripped off my Carharts (now like getting out of a sweaty straight jacket) and put all my wet clothes into the dryer, but still had on my 'tighty whities' and my snow boots. I went into my bedroom in the front of the RV and was trying to pull off my first boot when the whole front of my RV fifth wheel front support jacks collapsed and the trailer dropped over a foot in the front and my cats went vertical. Apparently the weight of the snow and ice on the roof was too much for the pins that secure the extendable part of the jacks beyond the stable part that is gear driven. I had been just a few minutes away from jumping into my hot tub, which is along side the RV by the front door, above which had been hanging about two feet of snow and ice cornice completely around the RV. It was all now on top of the hot tub where my head would have been. Big chunks of ice the size of cinder blocks that were too heavy to lift off the tub with my snow shovel and had to be picked up by hand. I am now typing this to you as I sit in my business chair which is trying very hard to roll across the living room because of the angle of the trailer. I have to wait until tomorrow to get a local to bring a front end loader to lift the RV by the hitch and to jack it up and put in more substantial pins in the front jacks. I will never go under this RV again without it being securely jacked up with blocks. I have been under it to put heat strips on my sewage lines so they don't freeze up. There is no extra room under that part of the trailer and I would be squashed and die a painful freezing death if the trailer ever fell on me. Oh, every time I go outside to do something the damn gold market takes off and I lose the opportunity to make more than enough to fix all these problems and take a trip to Fiji. So, sometime tomorrow I will be on top of the RV clearing off the snow and ice and hoisting this monster back up to the proper position, hopefully before my back goes out from sitting at an angle trying to trade the market tomorrow morning. I don't think I will roll out of bed, but the cats are beginning to look at me strangely. Live and learn.