One Word 365: Discipline

Towards the very end of 2013, I stumbled upon a website that intrigued me with it's premise. The site is "OneWord365.com", and the premise of the program is that you choose one word you want to focus on in the coming year.

Such a simple premise, but one with the potential for a great deal of power. Almost any New Year resolution that anyone has ever made can be boiled down to one word, so I decided to give the program a try. And so here we are today.

My one word is "discipline", though I don't mean it in the negative sense, where punishment is involved (though at times it may seem like a punishment is going on, for sure.) No, my efforts are more towards the concept of "self-discipline", the training and control of oneself and one's conduct which is usually undertaken for personal improvement.

Frankly, I feel that my life could use a little personal improvement in a number of areas, and my own efforts at undertaking greater discipline in those areas this year could, if successful, mean major, positive change in my life. Those main areas include diet, exercise, finance, and what I am calling "presentation", how I am presenting myself to the outside world.

I realize it is nothing more than a concept at this point, a thought in my head, supported only by the idea being expressed in some words here at my website. But I am going to begin planting that idea, specifically that word "discipline", into my consciousness, and am going to begin taking action towards greater self-discipline as well.

The Bailout and the Bloodbath

The Down Jones Industrial Average, the most popular and famous benchmark to guage the strength of the American economy, plummeted down almost 700 points today.

The index, which is based on the scaled average of the stock prices on 30 of the largest and most widely held companies here in America, was celebrating the one-year anniversary of closing at it's all-time record high of 14,164. Today it closed at 8,579.

Just last Friday, October 3rd, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street and the banking industry. US News & World Report stated "A failure to pass the bill would have been devastating for markets."

But you can't just pick on one publication, because there were many individuals and media outlets, and quite obviously the Congress and President Bush, who believed the same thing.

So despite calls from myself and many like me that they were bastardizing capitalism, they passed the bailout package and signed it into law to keep us from devastating losses and to save our economy.

Oops! Here we are a week later, and the Dow has been devastated by a stock market crash.

$700 Billion Dollar Roller Coaster Quick-Fix

Our government is considering, and is at this moment negotiating, a $700 billion dollar package to 'rescue' the economy from what is being sold to us as certain ruin.

This 'ruin', of course, was completely and totally self-inflicted. Interest rates at historic lows combined with a loosening of lending policies, especially by mortgage companies, resulted in a number of bad loans to poor credit risks that was inevitably going to come crashing down around many people and companies.

Those who bet on an ever-expanding economy were right in the long run, because the fact is that over time the economy will likely expand, assets will increase in value, and investments will rise.

But some people also forgot that the economy takes ups and downs, much like a roller coaster, on the way to the ultimate thrill of an ending. Some people are going to get caught in a 'down', they are going to lose in the market. That is the risk involved in the ride, that every once in awhile one is going to run off the tracks and crash.

The ride is often a true thrill, because you have great highs where you soar, where your investments rise and you feel invincible as your account balances inflate. However, you also have to suffer the anxiety of the downturns.

The economy will adjust from time to time, weed out the bad, and hit that roller coaster dropoff. Your stomach may rise into your throat at this point, and you may even scream out of sudden fear for your safety, the safety of your assets in this case.

Greed is Not Good

"...Greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA." - Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street"

The Catholic Church divided sin into two classes - venial sins, which were relatively minor, and the more serious cardinal sins, which became known classically as the 'seven deadly sins'. These were said to "destroy the life of grace" and brought the threat of eternal damnation on those who practiced them, unless absolved through a formal confession or forgiven through an act of perfect contrition by the offender.

One of these was the sin of 'Greed', which is seen as a sin of excess, and is applied in particular to the acquisition of wealth. It is closely aligned to avarice, which can manifest itself in bribery, robbery or theft by means of violence, trickery, betrayal, and even treason. It also covers the scavenging and hoarding of materials, as well as manipulation or abuse of authority.

In the film 'Wall Street', Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko delivered the above now-famous speech at a shareholder's meeting. Gekko was trying to woo shareholders to accept a bid that his company was making to takeover the Teldar Paper company.

Gekko's sales pitch highlighted that the current Teldar management was bloated, wasteful, and borderline incompetent. Either that, or they were intentionally abusing their positions to ensure their own personal gain, and those shareholders be damned.

Freddie & Fannie Getting Some Help

You may have heard of them, but you probably don't know a whole lot about them. They are your good friends in the area of housing, and their names are Freddie and Fannie.

That would be Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to be more precise, and as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was quoted recently they "play a central role in the housing system and must continue to do so in their current form...".

On Sunday, Treasury and the Federal Reserve moved to secure the finances of the two giants, to ensure that they do not drown under the weight of what is termed the current 'correction' in the housing market.

Freddie Mac is the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, a mortgage finance system that makes home ownership and quality rentals a reality for more American families, reducing the costs and expanding the choices by linking Americans to the world financial capital markets. It is stockholder-owned, and is authorized to make loans and loan guarantees.

Freddie Mac was chartered by Congress back in 1968 in order to provide competition for Fannie Mae, so the two are not so much a couple as they are competitors in the housing capital market.

Fannie Mae is the Federal National Mortgage Association, which was founded back in 1938 as a part of Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal' programs. Fannie is also a stockholder-owned company that is authorized to make loans and loan guarantees.