MARCH 2010 NEWSLETTER

This month we will take a break from the doom and gloom forecasting and discuss some the reasons to be optimistic about the long-term. This past month I had the opportunity to hear Nick Murray speak. For those unfamiliar, Nick Murray is a successful writer, public speaker and all-around Renaissance man. I describe his as a “perma-bull” (“Own stocks for forever.”) While he and I disagree on the ability to accurately make predictions about the future, the message he delivered that resonated with me was:

This helps to provide perspective in times of perceived crisis and serves to remind us that we have been through rough times before. Since the world is not ending, it becomes all the more important to pro-actively plan for your future.

Nick Murray also does a great deal of reading and every year he makes a recommendation of five books that he has found to be particularly poignant. One that he recommended a few years back recently reminded me of one of the reasons we should be optimistic about our future. The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil, outlines how the yearly doubling of computing may one day allow for the merging of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR). This would enable human beings to have the choice to essentially live forever. If humans realize the ability to live forever, there is a high probability that we may also develop the ability to solve some of the world’s energy, pollution, and water problems. In addition to tending to the environment around us, it also would become imperative to build adaptive financial plans that support us well beyond today’s typical length of retirement.

Dan Sullivan, founder of the very successful ‘Strategic Coach’ program, recently commented on the power of hard work and ingenuity that is America. Dan writes a quarterly newsletter comprised of quotes he gathers from periodicals and his travels around the world. In the Winter 2010 issue of “The Global Thinker” he discusses these strengths in detail. What is amazing, is that one of the first mentions of American’s love of work for its own sake was actually made by “a 26 year-old French aristocrat who spent six months travelling the country in 1831.” (Global Thinker – Winter 2010). Alexis de Tocqueville, who penned the two-volume work Democracy in America, was “struck by the extraordinary love of work that he saw in American people. This has been a constant theme among hundreds of other historians, political scientists, and economists from around the world.” A strong work ethic and focus on constant development cannot be discounted in terms of how it can contribute to and help bolster an economy.

My thinking is that this rough patch we are going through will not bring the world to an end. That being said, it is likely that we be severely tested in the years ahead. It always comes back around to the importance of having a plan and being able to adapt it to changing times. The natural progression of evolution shows us that these changes happen more and more quickly. For example, did you know that a 62-year old, nonsmoking couple should plan on at least one spouse celebrating their 92nd birthday?

We are here to help you make those years the best of your life,

Until Next Month,

Your Advisors at Dominion Wealth