The Marina Dock April 2008 Newsletter

The Marina Dock Newsletter April 2008

My Fellow Marina Dockers:

It's April and it's time to file our tax returns for 2007 as we patiently await our portion of the tax rebate promised by the Feds from the stimulus package passed recently by Congress. This check is supposed to arrive sometime this month or next, based on the computations I will get somewhere between three and six hundred dollars. I am not sure how much stimulation I can squeeze out of six hundred bucks but it will be as welcome as the flowers in May nevertheless. Again we would like to remind everyone it's not too late to make a tax-deductible charitable contribution for 2007. If you have contributed over the last year, thank you again, and you have questions on your contribution statement contact us and we will take care of it for you. We made it through the lean months of March and April because of a matching funds check we received for $5,000 This is the second year in a row that this donor has helped us out. If you work for a company or a corporation who does matching funds please consider us a worthwhile cause. If we index link our monthly operating expenses to inflation they are now running somewhere in the region of $25.000.00 a month.

The news on the economic front continues to get worse, the heady days of high flying laissez-faire economics appears to be a distant memory. For some reason, and I am not sure why, I am intrigued by the vagaries of the free market economy, for someone who is essentially broke, I spend a lot of time perusing the financial pages looking for clues and insights into the financial chaos that is now being played out in the global economy. Maybe being financially challenged is one of the prerequisites for being a financial analyst. Needless to say the Marina Dock is feeling the hurt financially, right now we are code red, on a scale of one to ten we are about an eight and we are definitely in need of some financial relief. This month, April, it looks like I may have to delve into my own personal line of credit to shore up our operating expenses, for now my credit is good and credit is available but I don't know how long more I can cover the monthly shortfall.

Forecasters are predicting this recession could extend into 2009 and beyond. If your question is will we survive this maelstrom of economic woes, my answer is "absolutely" for me "God is" rather than a Bush league pinch hitter, (forgive the play on words here), to be called upon in moments of crisis. We may have to take some draconian measures to do so, but we will do whatever is necessary to keep our doors open. If my memory serves me correctly this will be the Marina Docks fourth recession and fourth administration .The bottom line being we are survivors and we are creative and tenacious when it comes to dealing with life on life's terms. There are those who may ask "what about letting go and letting God." My response to that: God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves and God doesn't do commercial paper, real estate leases, financial planning, unsecured loans, or make parking tickets disappear. God is for keeping us humble and protecting us during spiritual emergencies.

FUNNY PAPER

Do you ever watch those daytime TV financial gurus espousing on Wall Street and the Economy and try to figure out all the abstruse rhetoric and terminology they use to describe money transactions and market volatility? Terms like "asset backed commercial paper, special investment vehicles, collateralized debt obligations, sub-prime loans," which I believe, used to be called high-risk loans. You get the impression the goal is to confuse us with smoke and mirrors, rather than offer any explanation as to why your dollar has declined 10% against all major currencies since the beginning of this year.

Recently Paul Krugman wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times on the current crisis and the parallels to the crash of 29. It was not; according to Krugman the 1929 Wall Street crash that caused the Great Depression but the ensuing run on banks in 1930-31, Krugmam, writes.

PARTYING LIKE IT'S 1929

"Why does the financial system need salvation? Why do mild-mannered economists have to become superheroes? The answer, at a fundamental level, is that we're paying the price for willful amnesia. We chose to forget what happened in the 1930s - and having refused to learn from history, we're repeating it. Contrary to popular belief, the stock market crash of 1929 wasn't the defining moment of the Great Depression.
What turned an ordinary recession into a civilization-threatening slump was the wave of bank runs that swept across America in 1930 and 1931.This banking crisis of the 1930s showed that unregulated, unsupervised financial markets can all too easily suffer catastrophic failure. As the decades passed, however, that lesson was forgotten - and now we're relearning it, the hard way.

That, in brief, is what happened in 1930-1931, making the Great Depression the disaster it was. So Congress tried to make sure it would never happen again by creating a system of regulations and guarantees that provided a safety net for the financial system. And we all lived happily for a while - but not for ever after.
Wall Street chafed at regulations that limited risk, but also limited potential profits. And little by little it wriggled free - partly by persuading politicians to relax the rules, but mainly by creating a "shadow banking system" that relied on complex financial arrangements to bypass regulations designed to ensure that banking was safe.

For example, in the old system, savers had federally insured deposits in tightly regulated savings banks, and banks used that money to make home loans. Over time, however, this was partly replaced by a system in which savers put their money in funds that bought asset-backed commercial paper from special investment vehicles that bought collateralized debt obligations created from securitized mortgages - with nary a regulator in sight.

As the years went by, the shadow banking system took over more and more of the banking business, because the unregulated players in this system seemed to offer better deals than conventional banks. Meanwhile, those who worried about the fact that this brave new world of finance lacked a safety net were dismissed as hopelessly old-fashioned.

The New York Times March 21st-2008

It's NOT all BAD news

Right now none of us are particularly happy about the ways things are going with the world and the economic meltdown. However we may find solace in the fact that even in times of global warming, military conflict and economic hardship there are still ways to feel good about ourselves and at the same time make a difference in the lives of others. This groundbreaking piece from the journal Science published in The Manchester Guardian a few days ago could not be more apropos. Who said the American public doesn't read? Not only do we read but also we are a generous and compassionate people who intrinsically want to do the right thing and help those less fortunate in our midst.

IT IS BeTTER to give than to receive

Money may not buy you love but it might buy you happiness if you spend it in the right way, US researchers say. In studies they found that the old adage "it's better to give than to receive" is correct: spending money on others or giving to charity puts a bigger smile on your face than buying things for yourself. "Most people would think that if you make more money you are going to be a lot happier," said Michael Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School. "Our results, and a lot of other people's results, show that making more money makes you a little bit happier, but doesn't really have a huge impact on you. Our studies suggest maybe that little changes in how you spend it make a difference "The researchers' work is published today in the journal Science. Norton and his colleagues questioned 632 Americans about how much they earned and how they spent their cash. They also asked them to rate their own happiness. Regardless of income level, those people who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not.

In a second study, the team questioned 16 employees in line for a company bonus of $3,000-$8,000. The team asked the subjects about their happiness before and six to eight weeks after the bonus, and how they spent the money. The size of the bonus did not determine how much happiness grew. Instead, the amount spent on others or given to charity was correlated with how much individuals' happiness levels had risen. The team also gave 46 volunteers either $5 or $20 to spend. They instructed the participants to spend the money on themselves or someone else. Again, the altruistic group reported feeling happier whatever the size of their gift.
Norton said: "So instead of buying yourself a coffee buy your friend a coffee and that might actually make you a happier person." Professor Stephen Joseph, of the University of Nottingham - an expert in the psychology of happiness who was not involved in the study - said: "Most of the research in the past has said money isn't that important in terms of happiness. The things that are important are things to do with relationships, with other people, and things that help to promote meaning, the purpose in life. I think that's what this study speaks to."

Although the clear implication of the study is that altruistic spending will make you happier, Joseph said it would be wrong to use the research to formulate advice. "Being prescriptive about how people spend their money, even if it is for seemingly worthwhile causes, is a very dangerous path to go down. Research like this describes society - it doesn't tell us what society ought to be." Professor Ruut Veenhoven, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said the study showed that the economic view of human motivation was incorrect. "This may come as a surprise for economists who have learned that humans are essentially egoists," he said. So why don't people give more money away to make themselves even happier? "Often people don't know what really makes them happy," he said. "Doing nice things to other people isn't so bad after all."

James Randerson, science correspondent

J.R.'S ALTOID THERapY

Last week my sponsor J.R. was in town and I heard he was speaking at an evening meeting in Marin so I went for a refresher. John R. became my sponsor sometime in the early nineties when I was in the throes of a psychological meltdown precipitated by a failed relationship, or should I say by an unsuccessful attempt on my part to take someone hostage. I was working downtown in the financial district at the time for a prestigious law firm and had ambitions on eventually becoming an attorney. Then one day I crumbled under the weight of too much emotional baggage and the unresolved wreckage of my past. I was in terrible shape, spiritually bankrupt and desperately in need of relief .One day just before lunch after several months of gut wrenching procrastination, I finally made the decision to find a new sponsor, someone I thought with multiple years of sobriety, someone I perceived as nonjudgmental that I could trust and confide in would fit the bill. One day on my lunch break I walked outside into the blazing noonday sun not even sure of where I was going and practically collided with the dapper J.R. as he was entering the same building.

Why he was entering 101, I will never know. I was too preoccupied by my own neurosis and angst to even care, he was there and that's all that seemed to matter to me the time. I did wonder about it later though, for as long as I had known John he was a man of leisure and independent means, not someone you would associate with mundane stuff like a nine to five job. One was more likely to see him lunching with the swells or the San Francisco literati, people like Herb C. and Charles McC. On other occasions he would be seen soaking up the rays after the noontime meeting at the Levi Strauss Building with his fellowship friends and San Francisco legends Frank B, Atherton and Wade D. On this day John gave me a concerned look, offered me an altoid and said "My God you look terrible, what's going on" I blurted out something incoherent about this relationship problem and then without drawing a breath asked him to be my sponsor and to listen to my fifth step. Without hesitation he said "absolutely, just give me a call when you are through with your fourth step and we will arrange a meeting I will be more than honored to help you out." I believe in retrospect my fifth step was fearless and thorough, and John was very gracious and kind to me in the process, slowly over time the depression lifted and I found a new freedom and a new happiness, and the darkness that consumed me that day never returned.

The other night John called on me and I told him "the fact that I did not have to consult him or seek his counsel over the last sixteen plus years is a testament to his sponsorship skills and his ability to bring out the best in people. After the meeting we embraced and he offered me an altoid. Which is John's way of saying you are ok. He looked as dapper as ever and regaled us with stories of Old Virginia and the halcyon days of Old School ties and tennis with RFK. What a colorful character and what a breath of fresh air is our J.R. in an age of mental atrophy and rampant mediocrity. J.R. lives in Santa Monica these days and his friend Wade lives in Nebraska. Frank B lives forever in the memories of those who had the pleasure of knowing him. Atherton passed away about 20 years ago but I recently heard a fellow share in a meeting about the time a man came up to him after his first meeting and talked to him and changed his whole perspective on living a sober life. He mentioned that he could not remember the man's name nor did he ever see him again. I knew by his description and other details that it was Atherton, and I told the guy that Atherton had died shortly after this encounter.

The solution is love,

"Irish Tony"