Author: Paul Handover

Patting the dog’s back and positive thinking

We all know that patting a dog’s back always gets a wagging tail in response.

But when everything is piling up against us, sometimes we forget to pat our own back.

Nice little reminder here.

By Paul Handover

A week in review!

Well, it’s been exactly a week since Learning for Dogs was promoted to a couple of Forums and a couple of hundred email contacts.

Just wanted to say ‘thanks’.

Thanks, first of all, to the good guys and gals at WordPress.  They provide a really impressive product and lots of great support.

Thanks to Google for some really smart search optimisation tools.

Thanks to all the friends and colleagues who have given me feedback.

And, finally, thanks to all of you who have looked in at the Blog and especially those who have chosen to subscribe.  As new Blogs go, it looks like this is getting off to a great start.

Going to take a break for a few days but, automagically, Posts will be published each day.

By Paul Handover

Truth in Media

CNBC and Karl Denninger

Karl was a guest of CNBC’s The Kudlow Report screened last Friday evening.

Great entertainment but so little bandwidth for serious discussion about really important investment matters.

Karl then recorded a couple of YouTube videos, which must have taken some time to prepare, to show that some subjects cannot be reduced to a few minutes ‘hip’ broadcasting.

Two versions of getting to the truth of a situation.

All three vidoes can be viewed here. (In total about 30 minutes but well worth the time.)

By Paul Handover         Disclosure: Heavily invested in Long-Dated US Treasuries.

Brahma Kumaris, an update

It has been brought to my attention by a concerned reader of this Blog that there may be some aspects of the above organisation that would be unacceptable to many of you.  Whether or not this is true is besides the point.  The previous postings and the link to that organisation’s web site have been deleted.  We will find an alternative way to offer you a small distraction from the busy day.

The feedback was very much appreciated.

By Paul Handover

Moon landing exactly 40 years ago today!

At exactly 20:17 UTC/GMT today on July 20th 1969 mankind started a journey to outer space when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon.

That time translates to:

  • 14.17 Pacific Time
  • 16:17 Eastern Daylight Time
  • 20:17 GMT/UTC
  • 21:17 British Summer Time

NASA’s 40th Anniversary Web Site has all the details including the link to a replay of ‘real time’ audio of the event.

By Paul Handover

What’s the Truth about Global Warming?

Let’s start with an admission.  For a long time the arguments supporting global warming seemed irrefutable.  Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth seemed to popularise what was suspected.  We aren’t doing enough to combat planetary warming and it is going to destroy man’s habitat on Planet Earth.

But over the years a few doubts have started to bubble up.

  • Governments find global warming a great excuse to raise taxes (I know, call me a cynic!).
  • Most of those taxes have little effect on changing behaviours, surely the point of government policy.
  • Demographic changes mean that global population levels will fall drastically, of their own accord.
  • Research into global warming is frequently funded by Governments so, perhaps, there is a natural bias in favour of giving Governments what they want to hear (see first point).

So it was interesting to read in a recent Fortune Magazine article about Professor John R. Christy raising some well-argued alternative views.  But, hey, Fortune Magazine would promote an anti-global warming agenda, wouldn’t they!

But a quick Google search came across a fascinating lecture recorded on YouTube with the title, Global Warming – what do the numbers show? It runs for an hour but surely the truth about the state of the planet is worth at least an hour of your time.  Watch it.

By Paul Handover

Maybe Dogs should be in charge?

While dishonesty, in all its forms, is ultimately counter-productive (well, that’s the thesis of this Blog) sometimes integrity, as in a steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code, is complicated.

Take, for example, something very clear.  A person pays for an item in cash at a checkout and is short-changed.  That person has every right to point out the error and receive the correct change.  A person pays for an item and is given too much change.  A person with intergrity points out the error and pays back the excess change.  A person without integrity thinks this is a lucky day and walks out the store feeling pleased. Read the rest of this post

Baseline Scenario

This is an impressive Blog.  Impressive because of the number of subscribers and commentators.  Impressive because of the credentials of the authors, Simon Johnson and James Kwak, and impressive because of the quality of arguments presented by the authors and commentators and the force of reason that pushes back against the establishment.

Some of the content is quite technical although the Blog does have a good supply of articles to help those starting into the subject of the global economy.  But you could do no worse by starting with the article written by Simon and published in May 2009 in The Atlantic.  Called The Quiet Coup it is a masterful attempt at trying to explain where the real power lies in the US.  (And, as a Brit, I would not be surprised to see the same situation in the UK.)

Then ask yourself the questions: Is there any political integrity left?; Where is this ‘integrity’, or lack of, taking the US (and UK)?; What does the end-game look like?

By Paul Handover

Dogs and flying.

Anyone who has owned a dog will know that there is something very special about the relationship between a dog and humans.  Dogs have the ability to provide the purest form of unconditional friendship and for us complicated humans this closeness is so precious.   I mean who would have thought ……

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Resting and Playing

Few people go through their lives without periods of great angst and emotional pain.  Many at this very moment will be in the middle of situations that, perhaps, could be described as hopeless.  What on earth does that have to do with resting and playing?  Because, however grim life may look like just now, a period of rest or play makes things better.

Dogs (and many other warm-blooded animals) are masters of resting and playing.  Now, of course, it would be wrong to see these behavioural traits in the same way that we regard resting and playing but nonetheless they are great examples for us.  When dogs used to live their lives in packs, within the pack would be an Omega dog, the joker dog, whose role was to keep the pack ‘happy’.

One of the things that is apparent when travelling on the European Continent is how many countries still preserve Sunday as a day of rest.  Sadly not England and, it is suspected, nor America.  Maybe having a day of rest from whatever stresses and strains are in a life has much to recommend it.

So to with play.  And here’s a wonderful example of a group of humans having incredible fun and producing a remarkable result.  What’s the point?  Who knows.  But you can be sure that not one of the participants came away from that stage feeling worse than when they went in.

By Paul Handover