Hawk Bait 2

     Greetings, All -- Here it is Friday the Thirteenth again, but we are in luck because our chain has been unlocked and we are back in business.

     It all started with, "Honey, I think we should redo the bedroom and the closets."  That has translated into several days of brutal work emptying drawers into boxes, assembling clothes racks and unloading closets onto them and more moves than a bee in a garden.  The contractor is coming in on Monday.  We will have several weeks of upset, but are sure that, in the end, it will all be worth it, or so I have been informed.

     This morning, the world financial news is not great.  We understand that the debt of several European nations has been "downgraded" by the ratings agencies.  By the way, these are the same raters who led everyone to believe that all was well just before the 2007-2008 financial debacle.  In addition, today the euro is falling like a stone against the dollar as is just about everything else.  What does this mean?  Is someone crying "Wolf" or is there more to it than that?  Beats us, but we are optimistic on American recovery, no matter what.

     Everyone likes to talk about the weather, we included.  This twelve-month past has been something out of a statistics textbook around here.  Recently, the river has had ice, then no ice while the air temperature has ranged between Winter and Spring.  Looking back, we had a bigtime blizzard a year ago and we are having a balmy January -- so far.  We have had the torrential rains of Irene and an absolute drought for several weeks before it hit our neck of the woods.  To top it off, we had an earthquake.  Fracking?  No one knows.

     The cost of energy is a troublesome issue.  It appears to us that the U.S. is on the verge of a major transition from the products of imported petroleum -- gasoline and fuel oil -- to domestically produced natural gas.  For decades, many electric power plants have been equipped to burn coal or natural gas, choosing the cheaper.  Now, the cadence is picking up out there in the real world.  Truck manufacturers are now expanding their development work to the use of natural gas fuel in hybrid trucks.  More to the point, natural gas producers are working toward making their less expensive fuel available throughout the nation.  This appears to us to be nothing short of a revolution in the making that will help our nation enormously.

     There is a lot going on in business, technology, diplomacy and economics these days.  A time of turmoil such as this creates entirely new industries and new ways of thinking.  The airline industry came of age during the Great Depression and its aftermath.  In times past, the eras of steam and the industrial revolution, railroads, the steel industry and many others emerged from dark times.  So, keep the faith.  America deserves it and so do you.

     Best wishes, Billy Hawkfinder