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Are you sure you meant to send that to me?
So true. If we drop enough no doubt buyers will come in.
I was all prepared for an up today and of course day is young yet for I'd read we usually go into this holiday up; however, as I said in a previous post - there is something about the news this morning that has really been taken hard. It's certainly not the ways the market has responded many other times.
Market really didn't like the jobless claims. Seems to me we've had bad reports before and they were ignored or shrugged off. There's something there this time that is not liked. DIA ended day yesterday at 85.03 and so far today has hit 83.89 and this is just premarket.
Lexi
Hi Newly,
Good to hear from you.:) Obviously some areas have been hit harder than others and fortunately for you, it appears that your area is doing okay. I find that more and more people are talking about the economy. In fact today at Publix there was a woman who obviously was of retirement age talking about how she had a food budget and she stuck with it, ignoring the two for one the store often has. She was saying that worked for her. When I was out to eat awhile back, the lady that waited on us said she went back to being a waitress for she'd been a realtor for years and in this economy anyone who wanted to buy expected to get it unbelievably cheap and to her it was embarrassing to be part of it. It was almost like the sellers were down and the buyers wanted to take advantage of their misfortune. My daughter is a teacher and she told me the school board was talking about not paying their insurance due to reduced funding for the schools. Teachers have never had the best salaries and insurance has always been a given. So, more and more I see evidence of hardships.
Lexi
Thanks for that input. Let me give you another example of why I think things are tight even for those that generally do quite well. I know someone who is a Rolex dealer. Now when you are a Rolex dealer and they send you merchandise you don't say you don't want it - you accept it or you don't get merchandise again. Anyway, this person had to write a check for $180,000 and accept the watches. First he called wealthy people he knew and offered them a big discount on the watches. No buyers. Finally, after many phone calls and refusals, he sold the watches at his price and still it wasn't like people were fighting to get them. He told me normally people would be thrilled to get such good buys. Not now, even the rich are cutting back. As another example I give you P.Diddy.:) He doesn't use his private jet now, instead flies commercial and has cut back on bling. LOL
Lexi
Hi Zab,
Good to hear from you again. I agree with many of your points. Every so often I get fed up with CNBC and switch to Bloomberg; however, I do like some of the guests they have on CNBC more than they have on Bloomberg.
In regards to the economy... I teach English composition on the college level, so I get a wide variety of students for they all have to have English. My students range from those fresh out of high school to those in their fifties. (Earlier I had some in their sixties.) Many of these students are going back to college to re-invent themselves so they can get a decent job. I talk to my students regarding economic conditions and what they're doing and they all say they're cutting back and will continue to do so if needed. I live in SW Florida and things are tough here. Many of the jobs are service related and construction and that's all gone down. On the other hand, I have a relative who is a fishing guide in the Florida Keys and he tells me he's having one of his best seasons. Of course he's established and his clients are in a different money class than most. Another relative just closed down his real estate business. It was a family business passed on to him from his parents and it has been in existence since the '60s. While my heart goes out to those that are suffering with loss of jobs, insurance, homes, and many other things, I do see some positives coming out of this. The biggest thing IMHO is the re-establishing of what's important in life. No longer are many parent buying shoes that are extremely expensive just so their child can keep up with other kids. Rather than spending money foolishly, many are being selective and using better judgment as how to stretch the value of their money. More time is being spent doing family things rather than running all over the state to all the amusement parks. So, IMHO, we do have some good, but of course it doesn't outweigh all the suffering.
When I hear talk of green shoots, I have to question where they are. Personally, I'm just not seeing them.
Lexi
1. I'm surprised they gave Dennis his own show. I'd written in and complained about him and his idiocy when he was on that lunch time group.
2. While Madoff deserves no respect IMHO and probably that of others, you don't do what Dennis did - in short, one day on CNBC while the group was talking about some kind of shield that kept people from seeing Madoff when he got into his car from his building, Dennis made a comment like "A bullet wouldn't be stopped by it."
3. On the times I could stomach watching him, it made me question if he was getting some kinds of monetary benefit from Wall Street CEOs for he continually defended them and their huge bonuses.
And now his talk that the recession is over. When I hear many of the commentators on CNBC talk about economic conditions, I have to question if they even get out in the "real world". They are so far removed from the people without jobs, worried about losing their homes, and all the other things this economic turn down has brought about. If Kudlow says "Drill, drill, drill" one more time as his answer to our energy problems, I'll be tempted to wring his neck.:)
Lexi
Thanks for that quality chart analysis. Over the years while looking at charts, one of the "patterns" I liked to watch was for stocks trading for a length of time in a relative tight BB range. We can call it basing or consolidating; regardless, normally when a stock moved out of this area the move was considerable. Surely looks to me like FAZ is doing just that.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=FAZ&p=D&yr=0&mn=6&dy=0&id=p86053260017
Lexi
GSAT...Have you seen all this insider buying by an officer?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/it?s=GSAT
Thanks for the update. Hopefully some volume will come in.
North Carolina, Georgia, Kansas Bank Seizures Cost $363 Million
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By Margaret Chadbourn and Ari Levy
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Banks in North Carolina, Georgia and Kansas with combined assets of $1.5 billion were seized by regulators last week, costing the U.S. insurance fund $363 million and pushing this year’s tally of failures to 40.
Southern Community Bank of Fayetteville, Georgia, and 111- year-old Cooperative Bank in Wilmington, North Carolina, were closed June 19 by state officials, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency shut First National Bank of Anthony, Kansas. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver.
Southern Community’s $307 million in deposits were bought by United Community Bank of Blairsville, Georgia, and most of Cooperative’s $774 million in deposits went to First Bank in Troy, North Carolina, the FDIC said. Bank of Kansas in South Hutchinson acquired First Bank’s $142.5 million in deposits. The acquiring banks are assuming a combined $1.47 billion in assets, mostly loans, and signed agreements with the FDIC to share more than 80 percent losses with the government.
“The loss-sharing arrangement is projected to maximize returns on the assets covered by keeping them in the private sector,” the FDIC said in each statement. “The agreement also is expected to minimize disruptions for loan customers.”
Regulators this year have closed the most banks since 1993 as a loss of 6 million jobs since the recession began contributes to mounting home foreclosures and loan delinquencies. The U.S. economy contracted at a 5.7 percent annual pace in the first quarter. More than a quarter of all states have unemployment rates higher than 10 percent, the Labor Department said last week.
Assessment Fee
The regulator estimates the seizures will cost the deposit insurance fund $363 million, led by $217 million for Cooperative Bank. The reserve in the first quarter fell 25 percent from the previous year, to $13 billion -- the lowest since September 1993. The FDIC in May imposed an emergency fee to raise $5.6 billion to rebuild the fund, with more assessments possible.
Cooperative Bank, the biggest of the three to fail June 19, was considered undercapitalized after an FDIC review last year and had entered agreements with federal and state regulators, including an April 24 accord with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, on capital and management.
The bank halted or slowed writing loans held for investment in the fourth quarter to comply with orders to improve capital ratios, according to a May 20 statement from the company.
Southern Community in October said it overhauled operations and raised capital in an attempt to survive, after receiving an order from the FDIC, according to a regulatory filing in November. The bank replaced Chief Executive Officer Gary McGaha with Dave Coxon and raised $2 million to weather additional loan losses, the statement said.
‘Substantial Dissipation’
First National Bank had “substantial dissipation” of assets, earnings and losses depleted most capital, and “no reasonable prospect” of becoming adequately capitalized without federal assistance, the OCC said in a statement.
Southern Community’s five offices opened yesterday as branches of United Community, and Cooperative’s 24 branches will open tomorrow as part of First Bank. Six offices of First National will open under normal business hours as branches of Bank of Kansas, the FDIC said.
As many as 1,000 U.S. banks could fail in the next three to five years on losses related to commercial real estate loans, RBC Capital Markets analysts said in February. The FDIC estimates U.S. bank failures through 2013 may cost $70 billion.
The FDIC classified 305 banks as “problem” institutions in the first quarter, a 21 percent jump from the fourth quarter and the highest since 1993, the agency said May 27. The agency doesn’t identify problem lenders.
The FDIC insures deposits at more than 8,220 institutions with $13.5 trillion in assets.
To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Chadbourn in Washington at mchadbourn@bloomberg.net; Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 21, 2009 00:01 EDT
Yes, was doing some fibs and noticed the 50% retrace of the move in FAS from 2.32 to 13.27 was 7.80. We aren't all that far from it and might want to watch it for some potential ST buying.
S&P Downgrades 18 US Banks, Junking 5, Amid Industry ReviewLast update: 6/17/2009 9:26:19 AMDOW JONES NEWSWIRES Standard & Poor's Ratings Services downgraded 18 U.S. banks, pushing five of them into junk territory, saying the industry's future won't be as good as the past. "Operating conditions for the industry will become less favorable than they were in the past, characterized by greater volatility in financial markets during credit cycles and tighter regulatory supervision," the ratings agency said. The moves are also part of S&P's review began in November on the U.S. banking industry's risks. "We believe the banking industry is undergoing a structural transformation that may include radical changes with permanent repercussions," said credit analyst Rodrigo Quintanilla. "Financial institutions are now shedding balance-sheet risk and altering funding profiles and strategies for the marketplace's new reality. Such a transition period justifies lower ratings as industry players implement changes," which include increased regulatory oversight and lower profitability. The banks pushed into junk territory by S&P were Carolina First Bank, Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc. (CBRC), Huntington Bancshares Inc. (HBAN), Synovus Financial Corp. (SNV) and Whitney Holding Corp. (WTNY). Synovus received the biggest cut at five notches to BB-, or three steops into junk. Among the other 13 banks downgraded include BB&T Corp. (BBT), Capital One Financial Corp. (CFC), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), KeyCorp (KEY), Regions Financial Corp. (RF), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC). All seven were among the 19 companies which underwent the federal government's stress tests earlier this year. S&P's ratings review also reassessed companies' relative creditworthiness "based on their abilities to deal with the increased risks during this transition period." -By Kevin Kingsbury, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2136; kevin.kingsbury@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones NewswiresJune 17, 2009 09:26 ET (13:26 GMT)
UPCO...Still have some shares in a few accounts. Hope it rises from the dead.:)
RSOL...Nice move.
GS...right now it's up 1.16.
If financials do what they've done of late meaning buyers coming in at EOD we could see some shorts of GS get hurt for it hit 149.75 and I'll bet lots shorted around there, then it pulled back to 148.72 and now it's in the 149s again.
Noticed it was looking good today.:)
GS...upgraded. Don't you love the way one bank upgrades the other?:)
Jobless claims in 23 minutes.
ETF...Your analysis was excellent. I read your post and your reasoning a few times. You pointed out some very valid points to support your claim that parts of this rally are very similar to other bear rallies. I've always thought this was a bear rally mostly due to the fact that the fundamentals just aren't there. I'm a TA trader too, but in analyzing this move from the March bottom I find it important to keep in mind fundamentals for while something will run on TA, I don't think it will be longer lasting.
Lexi
"PS: I am also looking for "when it breaks, it breaks big", but at this point getting more skeptical....so hey, maybe we are close, as more bears feel like me......"
I know how you feel; I've been waiting quite awhile and averaging in. Last shares I got were a 4.37 I believe. Think it was BOOM I shorted when it was like a rocket and strong as can be. It seemed it would never break down, but when it did, it sank like a rock. I must have been trading it around that 4/28/08 area and then "Look out belowwwwwwwwww.":)
"so far FAZ has been a real test of intestinal fortitude....I didn't even WATCH the markets today until the last hour, and wasn't exactly shocked to see another strong EOD rally off the lows..... "
I haven't been watching it as much of late. I know I'm not going to sell here and for now I can't add, so biding my time.
Lexi
ETF...Have you ever taken this a step further and tried to locate similar patterns in various time frames? For example, 15/30/60 minute charts, daily, weekly, monthly?
BTW, very nice work.
Lexi
Well, there's no doubt about it FAZ marches to the beat of its own drum. Years ago I bought THE LOGICAL TRADER in hopes that it would give me clues as how to be a better trader and I thought Fisher gave many excellent points. In short what I do is this:
http://www.dacharts.com/templates/descr/ACDmethod.htm
I wait until the stock has traded 10 minutes and draw a horizontal line showing the HOD and another showing the LOD and that makes the morning range. Pretty much as I understand his plan and I think not all people see it the same way - when the stock trades ABOVE THE HOD for five minutes, it makes it a long. If it trades BELOW THE HOD of that morning 10 minutes for five minutes, it makes it a short. The stop is the opposite line meaning if I go long FAZ and it breaks the LOD then that's my stop. (I think most put it a few cents below that.) The opposite is true with a short. Now, what have I discovered.... This method has helped me a lot to get a feel for a stock; however, having said that with FAZ it'll go above the HOD and you could go long, then it'll break through the stop, and can even make a new HOD. In other words it's all over. Seems to me at least of late if it's up, late day buying comes into financials and FAZ goes down.
As someone who has a history of getting into shorts too early and having them seem so strong that it is frustrating, I've found out that when something strong breaks, it is not uncommon for it to REALLY break. So...I'm waiting to see this happen with the financials since they had such a huge move up. We'll see.:)
Lexi
http://www.dacharts.com/templates/descr/ACDmethod.htm
Good to see BQI above that $1 amount.
Yes, buying more on Monday.
Is Larry Summers Taking Kickbacks From The Banks He's Bailing Out?
The Obama Administration
by Mark Ames | May 30, 2009 - 8:12am
Last month, a little-known company where Summers served on the board of directors received a $42 million investment from a group of investors, including three banks that Summers, Obama’s effective “economy czar,” has been doling out billions in bailout money to: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. The banks invested into the small startup company, Revolution Money, right at the time when Summers was administering the “stress test” to these same banks.
A month after they invested in Summers’ former company, all three banks came out of the stress test much better than anyone expected — thanks to the fact that the banks themselves were allowed to help decide how bad their problems were (Citigroup “negotiated” down its financial hole from $35 billion to $5.5 billion.)
The fact that the banks invested in the company just a few months after Summers resigned suggests the appearance of corruption, because it suggests to other firms that if you hire Larry Summers onto your board, large banks will want to invest as a favor to a politically-connected director.
Last month, it was revealed that Summers, whom President Obama appointed to essentially run the economy from his perch in the National Economic Council, earned nearly $8 million in 2008 from Wall Street banks, some of which, like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, were now receiving tens of billions of taxpayer funds from the same Larry Summers. It turns out now that those two banks have continued paying into Summers-related businesses.
According to filings obtained for this story, Summers first joined the board of directors of Revolution Money back in 2006 (when it was called “GratisCard”), the same year that Summers was forced to resign as president of Harvard after his disastrous tenure. Revolution Money/GratisCard was a startup headed by former AOL chief Steve Case. Revolution Money billed itself as the Next Big Thing in online payment, “PayPal meets Mastercard,” according to their own pitch.
In September 2007, Revolution Money announced that it had raised $50 million from a group of investors including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank. Some found the investment strange even then, because normally big banks don’t get involved in seeding small startups — that’s the domain of venture capitalists, not mega-banks. Especially not in September, 2007, when these same megabanks were Chernobyling their way into full-fledged balance-sheet meltdown.
What seems clear is that at least part of Revolution Money’s success in raising funds is due to their star-studded board of directors — which included not only Larry Summers, but also the notorious Frank Raines, the former Fannie Mae chief whom Time Magazine named to its “25 People To Blame For The Financial Crisis” list. Raines is still a board member.
Over the next year and a half, Revolution Money didn’t quite live up to its promise of competing with PayPal or Visa/Mastercard. At least some of this could be attributed to the difficulty of starting up an online credit card company in the middle of a triple-cluster credit crunch, banking crisis and recession. But there is also evidence that the company wasn’t run well. Another one of Steve Case’s “Revolution” brand startups, “Revolution Health,” (which also features a star-studded board of directors including Carly Fiorina, Colin Powell, and several future-Obama Administration officials) essentially folded last autumn when it was sold to Everyday Health last September and merged into that company’s operations.
In spite of all of this, on April 6, 2009, Revolution Money announced the happy news: it had just successfully raised $42 million dollars in the most difficult market since the 1930s. The investors? Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley — bankrupt institutions that Larry Summers was transferring billions in bailout funds to.
At the very same time that these three megabanks were pouring millions into Summers’ former company, Obama’s economic team, starring Larry Summers, was subjecting these same banks to a “stress test” to decide how deep in shit these same banks really were. The banks wanted the government to fudge the results for obvious reasons — who wants the world to know how deep of a hole you’ve dug for yourself?
When the stress test results were finally released, the banks all came out with glowing reports that beat expectations and caused plenty of skepticism.
In an interview for this article, William Black, a former bank regulator who exposed the $160 billion Savings & Loan scandal and its ties to powerful U.S. Senators, remarked,“Summers wasn’t hired [by Revolution Money] for his expertise because he doesn’t have relevant expertise in this kind of credit card operation.
Thanks, pennyadvocate. Thought this was interesting...
More Yellow Weeds: Chicago PMI
Bluntly, the Chicago PMI was a disaster:
Prices paid continued to signal broad deflation;
Employment weakened further;
New Orders and Order backlog indicated further softness;
Buying policy reversed April's short boost and is collapsing
Bright spot:
Production up one point from 42 to 43.
Note that the "bright spot" is really only a slowing in the rate of dimming, as numbers under 50 indicate contraction. So there's a slower rate of contraction - in one part of the index.
Two of the comments are particularly telling:
“If Obama continues to have the government take over and run the auto industry either by direct control or increased regulation, the recession will last for years.
“Euphoria seen in stock market has not been reflected in business conditions.
Now to be fair there were some positive comments. But the index numbers were awful.
Why is this important? Because ISM (the national index) comes out next week, and the Chicago PMI is often a good leading indicator for where that is going to wind up.
I see no "green shoots" - only gnarly weeds, and challenge people to show me where the true business improvement is supposed to be coming from.
I certainly don't see it, and the fact remains that the alleged "improvement" in the stock market over the last two months has been nothing other than a pump job, engineered in an attempt to flip consumer confidence and spur more (imprudent) borrowing by spurting capital into the market via buybacks of both mortgage and treasury debt (the former, I again repeat, being blatantly outside of Federal Reserve authority.)
The critical error in this strategy is that you can't borrow your way out of a credit binge hangover. That we are attempting to violate the laws of mathematics is clear: Home mortgage traffic is dependent on rates under 5%, as the recent spike higher effectively shut down the finance pipeline - overnight.
This says loud and clear: Prices are still too high and we continue to cram ourselves further into the "coffin corner."
Stock prices are ultimately all about profits, and nothing else.
How do you grow profits on a sustainable basis when assets refuse to clear without interest rates well below where market risk equilibrium takes them absent government interference?
The longer this continues the worse the ultimate damage will be, and for those who pile back into the stock market at S&P 900, don't tell me later that you weren't warned!
Disclosure: Still lightly short the broad market (S&P 500)
http://market-ticker.org/
Well said. The realization about this big rally has to come sometime.:)
LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL I,too, am trying to figure out WHY this rally??????????????:)
Agree with you. I live in SW Florida and a friend of mine was doing a search for homes and he remarked there are so many homes up for sale. I told him of course, much of Florida is tourism and construction and both have been hit.
Wish I had the link handy, but I don't; however, the other day I was reading about how to tell a market top and bottom and one thing mentioned regarding a top was when all bad news was pretty much disregarded. I certainly think we're at that point.:)
More bad news and FAZ is still down:
Borrowers with good credit fuel foreclosures in 1Q
Cream of the crop home loans take center stage in foreclosure crisis as recession deepens
J.W. Elphinstone, AP Real Estate Writer
On Thursday May 28, 2009, 6:07 pm EDT
Buzz up! Print NEW YORK (AP) -- The mortgage crisis is spreading and hitting new heights: Borrowers with good credit now make up the largest share of foreclosures as job losses and pay cuts exact their toll.
A record 12 percent of homeowners with a mortgage were behind on their payments in the first quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday. And the trend is predicted to continue until the end of next year, about six months after unemployment is expected to peak.
The genesis of the recession -- risky adjustable-rate loans made to borrowers with bad credit -- remains a significant factor in foreclosures. Today, almost half of all subprime ARMs are past due or in foreclosure. In Florida, New Jersey and New York the number is above 55 percent.
When those borrowers started defaulting in droves in late 2006, it forced dozens of lenders out of business and sparked a credit crisis in the summer of 2007. Businesses nationwide couldn't get short-term loans to finance new orders or even cover their payrolls. Economic production began shrinking at the end of 2007 in what has become the longest recession in the United States since World War II.
The impact has now filtered out, consuming homeowners who until recently had a good track record of paying their bills on time. Nearly 6 percent of these prime borrowers with fixed-rate mortgages were past due or in foreclosure, nearly doubling in the last year.
"These (borrowers) are the best of the best out there," said real estate analyst Mike Larson with Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla. "Clearly, borrowers far and wide are getting hit by this."
The worst of the trouble continues to be focused in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida, which accounted for 46 percent of new foreclosures in the country and reported the worst delinquency and foreclosure rates on prime fixed-rate loans. The four have suffered massive job cuts in the housing industry. There were no signs of improvement.
But experts expect the pain to spread throughout the country as job losses mount. MBA's chief economist Jay Brinkmann estimates the unemployment rate will top out in mid-2010 and foreclosures to abate about six months afterward.
The number of newly laid off people requesting jobless benefits fell last week, the government said Thursday, but the number of people receiving unemployment benefits reached 6.78 million in mid-May, the highest on record.
The continuing rise in unemployment, which economists say could reach double digits, means more trouble for the ailing financial system and the economy. Lower incomes and lost jobs are the No. 1 reason people lose their homes through foreclosure. Higher unemployment also means people have less money to spend on basic necessities, let alone luxuries.
And borrowers without jobs are harder for lenders to help with loan modifications.
Nadine Harris in Bakersfield, Calif., is hoping to modify her 30-year fixed-rate mortgage under President Barack Obama's loan modification and refinancing program introduced earlier this year.
The 55-year-old was laid off two years ago by Sears after working there 34 years. Harris found another job, but she makes $20,000 less a year. The $925 she takes home every two weeks doesn't cover her $1,522 mortgage and other living expenses. She's used all her savings to stay current on her payments, but next month the reserves will run dry.
"I'll have to scrimp to make up the payment in June," she said.
Jodi Woodsmith, a housing counselor at Self-Help Enterprises in Visalia, Calif., said in the last eight weeks she's seen more and more homeowners with similar stories walk through her door.
"Those who had savings, they've exhausted their savings hoping they could ride it out," she said.
Woodsmith said a recent change to the president's program allows borrowers to use unemployment benefits as a source of income for a loan modification. Income from spouses who are not on the mortgage also is taken into account.
Though the plan might stem some foreclosures, it might not be enough to significantly alter the crisis.
"It may be too much to say that the numbers will fall because of the plan," Brinkmann said. "It's more correct to say that the numbers won't be as high."
FAZ @ 5. Bond yields are rising and that is not good for stocks.
Many times people have to get to the point of despair before they change. Well, I think many might be there. One of my best friends is a nun and I often tell her I don't know what I would do without my faith. Like many, I've had some pretty hard lumps to take in life and if not for my faith, I'm not so sure I could have managed.
Cannot believe those numbers for so many reasons too plentiful to even post. All you have to do is get out in public and talk to people and you'll see how the confidence is.
Consumer Confidence @ 10, we'll see what happens then...
Case Shiller Home Price index @ 9 was worse than expected and moved the market down.
The thing that stand out to me is the number of parents that spent their time and money on their children being in just about every activity possible. Not only does that have families spending a lot of time on the road, but also eating fast food in their car. I think it's nice to expose your children to things, but think there is too much over doing it.
Happydog,
I was just this morning writing to someone and saying that while this recession is a horrible thing and affecting so many that there is good coming out of it. For too long I've seen many people concerned with acquiring and hoarding. Their focus on life was to see how much money and status they could possess. Now, I'm seeing more of people cutting back, being somewhat satisfied with not having all the name brands, and focusing more on doing things with family that don't cost much. We never know from one day to the next what will happen; it is so important to live our lives right.
Lexi
Thanks so much. In January of '07 I walked around with a knot in my stomach and each day seemed to have no relief. I was told my husband would probably only live three more months if things continued, and he was evaluated for a heart transplant. Fortunately, things improved, he didn't have the transplant, and now two and one-half years later I still have him with me. During the roughest times, I had many caring people who offered support. One person sent me a book, The Bend in the Road. In essence, it said that sometimes these things happen to us to get out focus back where it should be - on God. I know in my life, my faith means so much and there are times I'm less dedicated than others; however, there's not a time when hardships strike that I don't turn to my faith.
Lexi