…the high was 72 degrees. It was a Tuesday.<\/p>\n
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Family<\/strong><\/p>\n State of the Union<\/strong><\/p>\n You were born during a time of great prosperity…at least for some people. All and all the economy was reasonably strong in 2006. The country was in fairly good shape although the divide between the wealthy and poor here in the US continued to widen. That being said, the standard of living for even the most poor here was still several orders of magnitude better than most of the developing world.<\/p>\n Technology companies were seeing massive growth and huge profits. For example, six of the top ten fastest growing companies in 2006 were high tech companies (Akamai Technologies, Perficient, iMergent, Ceradyne, InterDigital Communications, F5 Networks, and CyberSource). The Internet was a new frontier and while we had seen amazing things happen, we had barely scratched the surface of what was possible. Wikipedia had become the largest, most accessible and dynamic collection of knowledge ever to exist. Information was more accessible than ever before, breaking down many barriers, and empowering everyday people. All of this made it much harder for organizations like large companies, lobbying groups, and government bureaucracies to hide behind a curtain of misinformation. Staying in touch, learning about other cultures, and publishing information to the world had never been easier. This was all good. Plus it was really easy to find recipes.<\/p>\n In tech, the news was dominated by companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Several start-ups were making revolutionary products and large companies, unable to copy this innovation, were snapping them up. The print media was still trying to figure out how to make money online. The music industry had spent all of their time suing their customers and missed the online music revolution. Apple’s iTunes music store and iPod music player stepped in to fill this void. Laughably, the movie industry was going down the exact same path and I suspect Apple will happily take their profits as well while they are busy litigating.<\/p>\n Over the last ten years cell phones have become ubiquitous. I suspect you won’t differentiate between “cell phones” and “phones” so this will seem like an odd thing to say. As of 2006, phones were largely for voice and have only rudimentary access to the Internet. I believe this will drastically change over the next decade. Two of the most popular phones were the Blackberry and the Motorola Razr. These probably look like bricks to you.<\/p>\n The US auto industry bet on “big” during the early 2000s. There was a huge demand for large cars and the US auto industry did nothing but satisfy this demand with gigantic, gas guzzling SUVs. In a shocking lack of foresight and overabundance of hubris, they completely missed the potential of hybrid and electric cars. Over the last year, oil prices have soared and US automakers were killed by foreign car makers like Toyota, which focused on these technologies over the last decade. From my perspective, a plug-in hybrid is the perfect car. It allows you to use an electric car for the first 25 (ish) miles, but continue to drive for as long as you need on gas. This is a great fit for the US auto market where consumers think they drive 200 miles a day, but actually only drive, on average, 19. How people who think about cars all the time missed this, is a mystery to me. I’m so disgusted by US automakers that our financial planner is under strict guidelines to avoid all investments in these companies.<\/p>\n Very little success had been found trying to help developing countries (note the broad generalization — there are plenty of exceptions). Africa was in a ton of trouble and the Middle East was (and probably still is) a mess. Europe was slowly forming a single union (the EU) and had agreed on a common currency but not much else. This is not unlike the US. China and India were booming and will be a very dominate players on the world stage over the next twenty years. Both China and India also had a huge income gap like the US.<\/p>\n You were born in a time of great political ineptitude. Our president was an idiot. He was smug and self-righteous. He was a horrible leader. He was close-minded. The administration in the white house was incorrigible. They lied to the American people and dragged us into a war which has killed countless people for no apparent reason. The war drags on with no end in sight. The administration had very little regard for our civil liberties. They used fear as a tool to get what they want. They set up prisons where we held people without charging them. The administration was somehow convinced that taking away freedoms would ensure our freedom. (I can’t see anywhere in history this has gone wrong.) When the twin towers were destroyed we had an opportunity to change the world. The world was listening. We squandered this opportunity and instead created a whole new generation of people who want to destroy us. As a country we have spent irresponsibly and are deeply in debt. The administration blurred church and state in a way that leaves me speechless. Any form of radical fundamentalism, whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian or other is terrifying. It leaves no place for diversity, tolerance or growth. Sadly, enough damage has been done by this president that many of these problems will become your problems.<\/p>\n Prices, numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n The day you were born, the Dow Jones industrials closed at 11,669<\/strong>, the S&P at 1,336<\/strong>, and NASDAQ at 2,261<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Regular unleaded gas was $2.10 a gallon. I hope you don’t know what I’m talking about when you read this because everything is electric.<\/p>\n A loaf of bread was between $3 and $4.<\/p>\n One dozen organic (cage free) eggs was about $4.<\/p>\n Entertainment<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Jul,](\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/62\/171718299_53205b74d3_m.jpg\")
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