The Source of Our Peril…..What’s Well Begun….Boomers Not Going Gently….Econ Recon: “In other words, no recession” and “It’s Not All Good News”

“Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The Road of Life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision”

Author Unknown

The Source of Our Peril

The destruction of EgyptAir Flight 804 early last week (widely attributed to terrorists) reminds us how dangerous our world is. Vistage Speaker Herb Meyer (former assistant to CIA Director William Casey) brings his remarkable gifts of analysis, born of his time in the intelligence community, to bear on the problem to help us better understanding the source of our peril.

In a 20 page booklet just published by Mr. Meyer, Why is the World So Dangerous, he looks for the causes of the chaos and, sadly, finds them close to home. That’s the bad news; the good news from Mr. Meyer is that he reminds us that we’ve faced this problem before and we already know what to do about it. (The Booklet shares the same title as the now declassified memo that Mr. Meyer wrote in 1983 to Director Casey predicting the end of the Cold War.)

If you’d like a quick overview of the booklet, (and a well-deserved tribute to the author that Mr. Meyer is far too modest to publish himself), check out this one page article from Ricochet.

 “What’s Well Begun…..

….Is half done”, goes a popular saying. This appears to apply to child raising as well. Check out this recap of 13 findings (with links to the underlying research) regarding how parents set their kids up for success. Share this with every parent or soon-to-be parent you know!

Boomers Not Going Gently.…

….into that long retirement. If 50 is the new 40, 65 may be the new 55. This recap of boomer demographics from Bloomberg shows why the boomers are postponing retirement; some because they can, others because they need to. There are all sorts of implications here for the job prospects for Millennials, buying habits by age groups and other considerations. Find out why Boomers in increasing numbers are saying “I’ll Never Retire”  (nicely summarized in four charts).

Econ Recon:

In other words, no recession: Some bad news on retail sales arrived recently from the department store sector. Economist Brian Wesbury advises to look at the larger picture and concludes this is a business model problem with traditional retail versus online retail, and not a warning about the larger economy; in other words, no recession. Check out his analysis in a recent posting of his blog titled “Forget About Macy’s” .

It’s Not All Good News: Alan and Brian Beaulieu at ITR Economics are still positive on the economy but caution that “the good news will not be felt by everyone…”