Musings from Florida

It took me all day to get to Florida, and it’s too bad I’m turning around so quickly and headed home tomorrow.

But it’s been a rather eventful day. While I was surrounded by anti-social (as opposed to the "friendlier" unsocial) folks on two flight legs from Vancouver, I find out a few things after I land in Florida.

I turned on my cell phone to check my messages only to find out that Boris Schlossberg and Kathy Lien had put out a sell on the AUD/JPY at 1:30 p.m. (PT) and two hours later and after six follow-up SMS messages had exited with a 150 pip profit. I thought, wow nice – only if I HADN’T been on a flight. Oh well. That’s the first big winner in a few weeks, and it would have been nice to be in position for it.

Then I got into my hotel room, turned on the TV to find out that the bailout bill DID NOT pass, the Dow lost over 777 points – the biggest single-day point loss in history, and now since I’ve settled in the Asian markets have taken a tumble too.

America lives in its own bubble. If indeed Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s "partisan" speech shortly before the vote really did sway the vote from pass to fail, shame on the democracy that the United States is founded on. It is pride that has created this crisis, and it is pride which further spreads the United States’ dirty laundry for the entire world to see.

Driving around the Orlando area tonight, my partner at Trading Post Douglas Sereda purchased a number of things from a 7-11 and couldn’t believe that it only came out to $12. In brief chatter with others in the 7-11, it was clear that their sentiment is for this whole corporate America mess to fail.

I look around and everything is so big, so much land is taken to build buildings and parking lots that as Doug mentioned you would need a water bottle to walk across the street from the 7-11 to the Walgreens. There is an excess here – bigger, faster, more has a limit.

As a consumer you can see it, and when I compare it to what we have in Canada, there is a definite differences in the modesty of how things are presented.