President Bush recently called for increased powers for the Federal Reserve.[1] Before we make that leap, perhaps we should evaluate who is really responsible for the current sub-prime mess. Companies from banks to rating agencies to underwriters are being sued or suing others as lawyers try to determine who was ultimately responsible for the disastrous sub-prime collapse. In the meantime, Congress is considering giving the Federal Reserve more power to control and protect the economy. Everyone is missing the real culprit in all of this. The sub-prime mess was caused by the actions of the Federal Reserve and the natural business reactions by all of the parties involved (with some notable exceptions).
What caused the sub-prime mess was cheap money. When money is cheap financial institutions loan as much as they can. That is how they make money. Obtain it at a low rate and loan it out at higher rates. When all the good solid deals are done and money is still available, lenders and all good investors see opportunity. Higher risk deals, referred to as Alt A and Sub prime loans, yield higher interest rates and a greater spread between the cost of money and the income from the loan.
First, a bit of history. Increasing home-ownership has long been the “American Dream,” and therefore a political objective of the administration in power. In the 1960s Fannie Mae’s charter was changed to help banks make more loans. They began the process of buying mortgages from banks so that they had new money to loan. Fannie Mae then bundled these mortgages and with investment bankers, registered them as securities and had them rated by Standard and Poor’s and other trusted securities rating houses. The investment bankers then sold them to investors. These were designed to be long-term investments whose value was based on the underlying collateralized mortgage loans. This process was virtually identical to a similar process used for years to sell municipal bonds, corporate debt and commercial paper. These bundled securities were referred to as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs).
Over twenty years ago, investment bankers began to facilitate auctions where these CDOs could be purchased and sold. Auctions were held more or less monthly. As a result, investors began to purchase Auction-Rated CDO Securities (ARS) as short term high yield and fairly liquid investments for cash that they would need in the near term.
ARS were rated from investment grade, AAA, to “junk” quality. The latter of course came with the highest return on investment possibility and the highest level of risk. Bundled sub-prime loans often found themselves rated as junk or nearly junk in this manner throughout time, even into this decade. Junk bonds, also popular in this era, were rated in the same manner, and also continue to be traded today. ARS were purchased and sold based upon those ratings and have been reliably traded up until the recent crisis.
So, many smart people were investing in securities rated by smart people that were created by smart people and traded by smart people for years. What drove this recent and unprecedented situation?
The answer is simple, the actions of an unbelievably irresponsible Federal Reserve. The Federal Funds Rate is set by the Federal Reservs’s Board of Governors and is the rate at which bank’s borrow money from the Fed. It is the leading driver of interest rates.
On September 17, 2001 the Fed lowered this rate to 3.0%. Historically this was seen as a drastically low rate, one reached only once since 1962. Nonetheless, in an over-reaction to 9/11, the Federal Reserve lowered the Fed Funds rate even further, below 3.0% for the first time in 40 years.
Ø From July 1990 to January 2001, the Fed Funds rate hit a high of 8% (July 13, 1990) and low of 3% (September 4, 1992), but averaged about 5.25% (from the Fed’s website).
Ø On January 3, 2001 the Fed Fund rate was 6.0%.
Ø September 17, 2001 it hit 3.0%.
Ø October 2, 2001 the Fed dropped this rate to 2.5%, below 3.0% for the first time since the early 1960s, nearly 40 years. Then dropped it further.
Ø November 6, 2001: 2.0%
Ø December 11, 2001: 1.75%
Ø November 6, 2002: 1.25%
Ø June 25, 2003: 1.0%.
While all previous forays below 3.0% lasted only briefly, this time the Fed Funds Rate sat at 1.0% for a full year and did not move above 2.0% for over three years. It did not eclipse 3.0% again until May 3, 2005, a period of three years and eight months. This time of incredibly low interest rates is simply unprecedented in U.S. history and led to dire but predictable reactions in the markets.
What lender had any experience in such an environment? Spurred by post-9/11 rhetoric, they did what banks do, they made loans. This had vast consequences that compounded upon one another to create the disaster we are currently experiencing.
Banks felt pressure to make loans. When all of the good loans were made, the only way to invest the cheap cash available was to make more sub-prime loans than usual.
For loans to be made, people who could not afford a home had to decide to buy one using a sub-prime mortgage.
Demand for homes went up.
In 2004, when rates were 1.0% and not coincidentally in the midst of the presidential campaign, home ownership hit all-time highs. Millions achieved a dream they never believed they could reach.
The Bush Administration pushed through a reducing oversight of the mortgage business. Home demand increased.
Whenever demand increases, however, prices rise and that is precisely what occurred in the housing markets.
Home builders saw this and began building more homes.
Since interest rates were low, builders could borrow money cheaply to build even more homes. Bright experienced builders simply did what they do best.
Lenders also saw that home prices were rising, so well-educated conservative bankers rationalized higher loan to value ratios to put more money to work and get more people into new homes.
Home supply increased to meet the new demand.
The only way to do a sub-prime loan is on an adjustable rate basis, but then rates had been so low for so long, who could have predicted what would come next?
The other shoe dropped. The market certainly predicted that rates could not stay so low, hence the use of ARMs, but everyone assumed that after 3 years and 8 months of unprecedented rates, the extremely bright albeit ivory tower economists at the Fed would raise rates gradually over many years to soften the landing. The system was designed for this. It took over 7 years the last time rates were this low to get to 5%.
Had the rise in rates occurred gradually back to 5.0% over a 4 - 6 year time-span, the sub-prime mess would have been wholly averted. But of course, that is not what happened. The Fed over-reacted yet again.
Greenspan left and Bernanke entered. He and his group began to raise rates, but not gradually. They yanked them up over a short period of time. Beginning on June 30, 2006, it went up and fast.
Ø November 10, 2004: 2.0%
Ø May 3, 2005: 3.0%
Ø June 29, 2006: 5.25%
Rates rose too much, too quickly. In just two years the Fed raised the Fed Fund rate 17 times for a total increase of 4.25 percent. That was one of the steepest and longest climbs in terms of net rate increase in the last twenty years.
No one could react. Houses were being built. Loans were made. Adjustable rate mortgages of all kinds were suddenly untenable. A three-year ARM done in 2004 at 4.0% adjusted to 8.0% or higher. The house of cards fell and banks, investment bankers, investors and borrowers, found themselves on the wrong end of a bad situation. So whose fault was it?
Every player acted economically rationally. Banks loaned money at good rates and helped good people buy a home. Borrowers borrowed what they could afford, and made logical assumptions about future rate adjustment and home values. Builders built homes. The process of creating mortgage-backed securities operated just as it had for all of the years that this vehicle had existed. Rating agencies rated them. Investment bankers, relying on these ratings, sold them. Investors bought them and sold them at monthly auctions.
All players operated rationally, except one. The one everyone else relied upon to know what it was doing: The Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve’s blunder raising rates so precipitously created the following predictable Economics 101 results:
ARMs adjusted too much too fast causing great and unrecoverable pain for millions of borrowers. This had to be foreseeable by the Fed.
Good solid middle-class hard-working and excited first-time homeowners, suddenly could not pay their loans and defaulted.
These people were now worse off than before they joined in the American Dream of home ownership.
At the same time, higher interest rates killed the demand for new housing.
Combined with the glut of newly constructed houses, the decline in demand caused housing prices to fall.
Home builders could not sell their home inventories, defaulted and declared bankruptcy.
Individuals with decent credit could not even refinance their homes to get out from under the oppressive increase in their ARM payments.
More homeowners defaulted or became house poor.
Higher mortgage payments decreased available cash to spend.
Consumer spending decreased damaging retailers and sending the economy into a tailspin.
Investors panicked and refused to purchase any kind of ARS at the auctions. Investment banks could not purchase everything and the auctions failed. The only way for investors to sell and get their cash was gone.
Accountants got conservative and relied upon post-auction sale prices to value many remaining and strong non-sub-prime CDOs and corporations were forced to restate financials.
The stock market plummeted.
Lawyers filed lawsuits to figure it all out.
Banks are struggling.
Investment houses are declaring bankruptcy.
The dollar is sliding.
Foreign companies are buying up strong U.S. companies in droves.
U.S. financial markets are falling apart.
And now the Congress is considering giving the Federal Reserve MORE power to screw up the economy? Perhaps they should go back to basic economics and try again.
About the Author:
Ned Lips is a BDM with UHY Advisors FLVS, Inc. and leads its national thought leadership program. He is an attorney, having graduated with High Honors from George Washington University, who practiced in St. Louis for 12 years before becoming an entrepreneur and now business strategist. He also teaches the MBA Capstone Strategy class at St. Louis University as an adjunct professor.
[1] St. Louis Post Dispatch, June 20, 2008, Business Section, Page B2.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The Iraq War
Solving the Iraq War Crisis
US Political Discord: My niece, Ali is writing a paper on the Civil War and asked for my help. The issue to discuss related to whether the Westward expansion of slavery caused the war.
I remembered most of this from my days with Mr. Ross Wagner at Kirkwood HS in AP American History. Despite the hype, slavery had nothing to do with the War at all. No one cared abut black people. That is evidenced by the fact that it took over 100 years for them to gain even the most basic rights of citizenship, like voting and land ownership. What caused the Civil War was years of economic and political discord between the North and South on a myriad of issues and the retirements of three great Statesmen from Congress who held this country together, Daniel Webster of Mass., John C. Calhoun of S.C. and the Great Compromisor, Henry Clay or Ky. The lack of Congressional statesmanship and presidential leadership resulted in the near downfall of our country.
I certainly see that lack of Statesmanship, compromise and executive leadership today. Perhaps we are heading down a similar path. Not, of course, civil war, but perhaps to some form of political melt down.
Oil: I sat through a presentation by a renowned economist last week on the reliance of our country on oil. Our economy relies less than half as much on oil than it did 25 years ago, and that reliance is dropping. We get very little of our oil from the Middle East and so long as they continue to sell it to someone, we will be able to purchase oil at market rates, even if Iran does not like us. They have to sell their oil. No matter what anyone tells you, like slavery, we are not fighting for oil.
Easy-to-get oil is gone. Prices are rising and will not stop. Alternatives are growing in leaps and bounds because the economics work. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal and wind. As the oil minister of Saudi Arabia warned OPEC in 1972, "The Stone Age did not end for want of stone and so the oil age will not end for want of oil." He is right. This is and will happen.
Fundamentalist Fanatics: From the moment the religion was created formally, some 300 years after the death of Mohamed, Muslims have used religion to terrorize and take control of nearby countries.
From the moment the religion was created formally, some 300 years after the death of Jesus, Christians have used religion to terrorize and take control of nearby countries.
From the moment the religion was created formally, some 300 years after the death of Abraham or Israel, Jews have used religion to terrorize and take control of nearby countries. Other than Canaan, they just weren't as successful.
Jerks will use religion to control the weak of mind and spirit to their advantage. Get used to it.
Political Control of the Middle East: What western people do not understand is that Baghdad is the jewel of the Middle East. It is the historic center of civilization. It is coveted and has been fought over for millennia. We opened the door for another great fight for its control and that is mostly what the current military event is about. Very little is happening in other parts of the country.
Iran will never dominate the Middle East. There are multiple sects of Muslim in the Middle East, all of whom hate each other. The Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, and the Turks in Turkey will never let the Shiites of Iran control the Middle East. Put that one to rest.
Note, this inter-nation conflict is not about oil either. Like the Balkans and other regions of the world, this battle for control of the Middle East is centuries old. The Huns, the Ottomans, the Persians, the Romans, and others have fought for and ruled this area way before oil was found (that was in the 1920s). This is not about oil even as between them.
Note that this is not about religion. Same argument. The Muslim religion began in the late first millennia. These folks had been fighting way before that. Who is dying now. Not Americans. Middle Easterners are killing other Middle Easterners. Religion is just the latest in a long line of motivators by leaders bent on domination.
These peoples simply do not like one another very much and it did not start in 2002 and will not end with our departure.
Is this a "War?" Technically it is not a war. We won the war and defeated our enemy, Saddam Hussein's regime. We won and we did that with a coalition of forces. We are now defending an ally from incursions from foreign countries and from revolutionaries within. We would certainly do this for our other allies, for example Israel. George Bush has failed miserably in communicating this to the population.
Why did we go in?: That is the dead horse. We may never know the reasons, but it no longer matters. Now we have to figure out how to get out.
What if we don't win? I have suggested to Hilary Clinton's campaign that the answer to that is to change the definition of winning. Why does President Bush get to define it. If Hilary is presidential material, she should define it and drive toward that victory. We have to "win" as a country. Don't ever doubt that.
So the only option is to convince the American population that we have won by defining winning in a way we can be comfortable with.
What if we leave and don't stabilize Baghdad? Lets say we leave. If we leave now, we could create a vacuum that launches World War III. I think people care about the people of Iraq and do not want to leave them in a disastrous civil war loaded up by foreigners.
Sunni countries and leaders hate Shiite countries and leaders. They all want Baghdad. Kurds hate the Turks. India hates Pakistan. Palestinians want independence. Lebanon is a split country. Saudi Arabia is a split country. Oil is everywhere and dwindling in world power value as costs and prices rise. Middle Eastern economies are seeing this. Russia needs Iran economically. The French and Germans are very tied in to the region. Qaddafi would love to be unleashed. Italy and France are very tied in to Northern Africa. Al Qiadah would love to add turmoil and dispair to their recruitment arsenal. Everyone hates Israel. We have to defend Israel. So we would be back in anyway. Is that the side we want to be on???
I would hate to be the President who makes that decision. Talk about rising oil costs.
What was the gravest error in Vietnam? First we went in for the wrong reasons in an area that did not really matter in the grand scheme of things, allied with a corrupt non-democratic regime. OK, so that is pretty much the same.
Why did we lose? We failed to kick the North Vietnamese butts. You certainly cannot tell me that if we had really gotten after it we could not have blown North Vietnam off the map until they said uncle? We never sent in the forces necessary to win. It is in all the history books analyzing that war. We did not send our "A" game. Mostly because we did not care if we won. History has proven that the stakes were very low. Who cared.
So, what are we doing in Iraq? Fewer people are fighting this war for the US than even in Vietnam. It is a bigger area. It is more relevant. The enemy is harder to find. And the stakes are very high!
Why don't we consider learning from history and going in to truly win this war? Remember it matters not why we went in, only that we are there and need to get out. The "Surge" seems to be working, shock of the week.
I suggest sending our "A" game. 12 month plan. A large aggressive surge with 400,000 troops (institute a brief draft if necessary), our full air, naval and tactical support. Establish marshall law. Take and hold what we take. No one goes anywhere except through US troops. No news reporters. No private mercenaries. No civilians. No allies. No Iraqi troops. Not until we are ready.
Stabilize the country, lock down the borders tight, control the oil fields and take over the oil trade for this period (see below), give rewards for turning in bad guys, root out all insurgents and kill them dead. Let the Iraqis handle all prisoners. Three months tops.
Stay there six months, control every street corner, highway and transportation hub day and night. Add Iraqi military. Turn over policing the cities gradually to Iraqi police, but only on teams with US military. Bring in negotiators to work with the factions, union leaders to rally and organize workers, business people to restart the economy and help the Iraqis rebuild everything. We should not need to blow much stuff up at this point.
Most important, find a true leader with charisma to run for President, have new elections. Iraq needs a leader who the people will follow. If we don't find him, someone else will.
On day one, privatize the oil industry. (this is what the big internal fight is about). Create at least five corporations and divide the oil up logically. Create pipeline companies the oil industries have to pay to get their oil to the ports. Create refining companies the oil is first sold to. Create distribution companies to deliver the oil from the refineries to the ships. Etc. Privatize the whole system and let it run. Allow the creation of new companies. The buying and selling of assets, etc. Pass strict reporting and anti-corruption laws, like Sarbanes Oxley, and enforce them, thus creating a growing accounting and legal profession.
Give every Iraqi equal shares of stock in all new oil-related corporations, that way it does not have to be perfectly even. Put them on the NYSE so that they trade and can be bought and sold easily. Let this play out for the first six months while the US runs these corporations for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Build an Iraqi management team in each and train them on corporate governance. Name a president of each corporation and create boards of directors, etc. Get Transparency International or some other international player in the good governance game to oversee this. At six months, turn them over to the management team and get out. One year later, hold corporate elections just like any corporation.
Three months after the political elections begin to withdraw first from the cities turning controlled environments over to the Iraqis and still controlling the borders and Baghdad. One year later, we should be 80% out. Retain a couple of military bases in Iraq for strategic purposes in the Middle East. Be a strong ally. My plan.
US Political Discord: My niece, Ali is writing a paper on the Civil War and asked for my help. The issue to discuss related to whether the Westward expansion of slavery caused the war.
I remembered most of this from my days with Mr. Ross Wagner at Kirkwood HS in AP American History. Despite the hype, slavery had nothing to do with the War at all. No one cared abut black people. That is evidenced by the fact that it took over 100 years for them to gain even the most basic rights of citizenship, like voting and land ownership. What caused the Civil War was years of economic and political discord between the North and South on a myriad of issues and the retirements of three great Statesmen from Congress who held this country together, Daniel Webster of Mass., John C. Calhoun of S.C. and the Great Compromisor, Henry Clay or Ky. The lack of Congressional statesmanship and presidential leadership resulted in the near downfall of our country.
I certainly see that lack of Statesmanship, compromise and executive leadership today. Perhaps we are heading down a similar path. Not, of course, civil war, but perhaps to some form of political melt down.
Oil: I sat through a presentation by a renowned economist last week on the reliance of our country on oil. Our economy relies less than half as much on oil than it did 25 years ago, and that reliance is dropping. We get very little of our oil from the Middle East and so long as they continue to sell it to someone, we will be able to purchase oil at market rates, even if Iran does not like us. They have to sell their oil. No matter what anyone tells you, like slavery, we are not fighting for oil.
Easy-to-get oil is gone. Prices are rising and will not stop. Alternatives are growing in leaps and bounds because the economics work. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal and wind. As the oil minister of Saudi Arabia warned OPEC in 1972, "The Stone Age did not end for want of stone and so the oil age will not end for want of oil." He is right. This is and will happen.
Fundamentalist Fanatics: From the moment the religion was created formally, some 300 years after the death of Mohamed, Muslims have used religion to terrorize and take control of nearby countries.
From the moment the religion was created formally, some 300 years after the death of Jesus, Christians have used religion to terrorize and take control of nearby countries.
From the moment the religion was created formally, some 300 years after the death of Abraham or Israel, Jews have used religion to terrorize and take control of nearby countries. Other than Canaan, they just weren't as successful.
Jerks will use religion to control the weak of mind and spirit to their advantage. Get used to it.
Political Control of the Middle East: What western people do not understand is that Baghdad is the jewel of the Middle East. It is the historic center of civilization. It is coveted and has been fought over for millennia. We opened the door for another great fight for its control and that is mostly what the current military event is about. Very little is happening in other parts of the country.
Iran will never dominate the Middle East. There are multiple sects of Muslim in the Middle East, all of whom hate each other. The Sunnis of Saudi Arabia, and the Turks in Turkey will never let the Shiites of Iran control the Middle East. Put that one to rest.
Note, this inter-nation conflict is not about oil either. Like the Balkans and other regions of the world, this battle for control of the Middle East is centuries old. The Huns, the Ottomans, the Persians, the Romans, and others have fought for and ruled this area way before oil was found (that was in the 1920s). This is not about oil even as between them.
Note that this is not about religion. Same argument. The Muslim religion began in the late first millennia. These folks had been fighting way before that. Who is dying now. Not Americans. Middle Easterners are killing other Middle Easterners. Religion is just the latest in a long line of motivators by leaders bent on domination.
These peoples simply do not like one another very much and it did not start in 2002 and will not end with our departure.
Is this a "War?" Technically it is not a war. We won the war and defeated our enemy, Saddam Hussein's regime. We won and we did that with a coalition of forces. We are now defending an ally from incursions from foreign countries and from revolutionaries within. We would certainly do this for our other allies, for example Israel. George Bush has failed miserably in communicating this to the population.
Why did we go in?: That is the dead horse. We may never know the reasons, but it no longer matters. Now we have to figure out how to get out.
What if we don't win? I have suggested to Hilary Clinton's campaign that the answer to that is to change the definition of winning. Why does President Bush get to define it. If Hilary is presidential material, she should define it and drive toward that victory. We have to "win" as a country. Don't ever doubt that.
So the only option is to convince the American population that we have won by defining winning in a way we can be comfortable with.
What if we leave and don't stabilize Baghdad? Lets say we leave. If we leave now, we could create a vacuum that launches World War III. I think people care about the people of Iraq and do not want to leave them in a disastrous civil war loaded up by foreigners.
Sunni countries and leaders hate Shiite countries and leaders. They all want Baghdad. Kurds hate the Turks. India hates Pakistan. Palestinians want independence. Lebanon is a split country. Saudi Arabia is a split country. Oil is everywhere and dwindling in world power value as costs and prices rise. Middle Eastern economies are seeing this. Russia needs Iran economically. The French and Germans are very tied in to the region. Qaddafi would love to be unleashed. Italy and France are very tied in to Northern Africa. Al Qiadah would love to add turmoil and dispair to their recruitment arsenal. Everyone hates Israel. We have to defend Israel. So we would be back in anyway. Is that the side we want to be on???
I would hate to be the President who makes that decision. Talk about rising oil costs.
What was the gravest error in Vietnam? First we went in for the wrong reasons in an area that did not really matter in the grand scheme of things, allied with a corrupt non-democratic regime. OK, so that is pretty much the same.
Why did we lose? We failed to kick the North Vietnamese butts. You certainly cannot tell me that if we had really gotten after it we could not have blown North Vietnam off the map until they said uncle? We never sent in the forces necessary to win. It is in all the history books analyzing that war. We did not send our "A" game. Mostly because we did not care if we won. History has proven that the stakes were very low. Who cared.
So, what are we doing in Iraq? Fewer people are fighting this war for the US than even in Vietnam. It is a bigger area. It is more relevant. The enemy is harder to find. And the stakes are very high!
Why don't we consider learning from history and going in to truly win this war? Remember it matters not why we went in, only that we are there and need to get out. The "Surge" seems to be working, shock of the week.
I suggest sending our "A" game. 12 month plan. A large aggressive surge with 400,000 troops (institute a brief draft if necessary), our full air, naval and tactical support. Establish marshall law. Take and hold what we take. No one goes anywhere except through US troops. No news reporters. No private mercenaries. No civilians. No allies. No Iraqi troops. Not until we are ready.
Stabilize the country, lock down the borders tight, control the oil fields and take over the oil trade for this period (see below), give rewards for turning in bad guys, root out all insurgents and kill them dead. Let the Iraqis handle all prisoners. Three months tops.
Stay there six months, control every street corner, highway and transportation hub day and night. Add Iraqi military. Turn over policing the cities gradually to Iraqi police, but only on teams with US military. Bring in negotiators to work with the factions, union leaders to rally and organize workers, business people to restart the economy and help the Iraqis rebuild everything. We should not need to blow much stuff up at this point.
Most important, find a true leader with charisma to run for President, have new elections. Iraq needs a leader who the people will follow. If we don't find him, someone else will.
On day one, privatize the oil industry. (this is what the big internal fight is about). Create at least five corporations and divide the oil up logically. Create pipeline companies the oil industries have to pay to get their oil to the ports. Create refining companies the oil is first sold to. Create distribution companies to deliver the oil from the refineries to the ships. Etc. Privatize the whole system and let it run. Allow the creation of new companies. The buying and selling of assets, etc. Pass strict reporting and anti-corruption laws, like Sarbanes Oxley, and enforce them, thus creating a growing accounting and legal profession.
Give every Iraqi equal shares of stock in all new oil-related corporations, that way it does not have to be perfectly even. Put them on the NYSE so that they trade and can be bought and sold easily. Let this play out for the first six months while the US runs these corporations for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Build an Iraqi management team in each and train them on corporate governance. Name a president of each corporation and create boards of directors, etc. Get Transparency International or some other international player in the good governance game to oversee this. At six months, turn them over to the management team and get out. One year later, hold corporate elections just like any corporation.
Three months after the political elections begin to withdraw first from the cities turning controlled environments over to the Iraqis and still controlling the borders and Baghdad. One year later, we should be 80% out. Retain a couple of military bases in Iraq for strategic purposes in the Middle East. Be a strong ally. My plan.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Guideline for Life
The four tenets of Bohemian Taoism - a Lips family original philosophpy from Jon and Christie and adapted by Me, Ned Lips.
1. Be in integrity with yourself
"Integrity is one of several paths. It distinguishes itself by being the right path, and the one upon which you can never become lost." MH McKee
2. Honor what is and others
"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need." Mick Jagger
3. Do what you are inspired to do today
"The past is too unpredictable and the future completely uncontrollable. Live for the now for that is all there really is." Ned Lips
"Do or do not, there is no try." Yoda.
"If you have the chance to sit it out or dance - dance." Some song I can't remember.
4. (My adjustment to Jon and Christie's) Be as excellent as you wish to be, for you can be.
"Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise; risking more than others think is safe; dreaming more than others think is practical; and expecting more than others think is possible." Anonymous
1. Be in integrity with yourself
"Integrity is one of several paths. It distinguishes itself by being the right path, and the one upon which you can never become lost." MH McKee
2. Honor what is and others
"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need." Mick Jagger
3. Do what you are inspired to do today
"The past is too unpredictable and the future completely uncontrollable. Live for the now for that is all there really is." Ned Lips
"Do or do not, there is no try." Yoda.
"If you have the chance to sit it out or dance - dance." Some song I can't remember.
4. (My adjustment to Jon and Christie's) Be as excellent as you wish to be, for you can be.
"Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise; risking more than others think is safe; dreaming more than others think is practical; and expecting more than others think is possible." Anonymous
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