My second annual New Year’s interview with myself

Just like last year A New Year's interview with myself, I'm starting the year with an interview with myself. I have to face it, this is because of my great love of self …

That's me on the right, Mom on left, at Christmas

Q. Tom you recently saw, Dr. Zelenetz, your lymphoma oncologist …

A. Yes, just yesterday afternoon, for my six month visit. I came through with flying colors – normal bloodwork and CAT scan. I feel good. I wasn't concerned going in, but it's nice to get the confirm with normal tests. He is doing an immunoglobulin test to see if there's some issue there, because of my frequent colds and respiratory infections.

Q. Any other issues?

A. Well I have gained about six pounds just since October, which is really irritating. I just eat too much. But my gym workouts are going well. I have tweeked my back a couple of times recently, but that cleared up quickly both times.

Q. Brigid and the boys are doing well?

A. Oh yes, As I always say, Brigid is a star. An amazing woman. People who meet her almost instantly love her. I always say it's the accent, but of course it's more then that. It's funny, when people who know us meet up with her, they almost always then look at me and say to her "I'm praying for you." What's that all about?

Joe is doing well at Fordham Prep and running in the indoor track season. He got a second place in a 4 X 200 relay the other day. He's doing fairly well academically, but struggling in spanish. And he's 15, which is just a tough age. I remember when I was 15 and a sophomore in high school. I think it was the worst year in my life. 

Tim is an all rounder; good academically and plays every sport. He made the all star team in the 6th grade Little League football league. But his best sport might be baseball. I expect by this time next year he'll be the tallest Faranda – although that's not exactly saying much. He still weighs too much, but is maybe a little lighter for his size then he was last year. This coming year he's going to start lifting weights. Tim wanted to start a couple of years ago, but I thought it was best to wait until he was twelve, and he's just recently turned twelve. The other thing i wish he'd start to do is read more on his own. He scores well on reading tests, but only reads what he's required to read, unlike Joe, who loves to read. Joe has always been more intellectually curious then Tim.

Q. What about your personal goals for 2009?

A. As I said last year, I'd like to grow my financial advisory practice. Despite the economy, 2008 was a solid year business-wise; in fact even with the financial meltdown starting in September, I had a good fourth quarter.

Q. How did the financial turmoil effect you and your clients?

A. Well, there was a general deflation of financial assets. Stock, bond and real estate assets all shrank. For example the stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 34%, and as measured by the S & P was down even more; 39%. My brother Phil is in the real estate business, and he feels that real property values have shrunk about 20% in our area. And with the notable exception of government bonds, bonds also dropped in value. A lot of this is irrational. And right now, we are seeing a bubble in government securities.

The good thing is, none of my clients, whether small businesses, or retirement and pension plans, or individuals, have panicked. To give myself a small pat on the back, I think this is because my clients knew what they owned, and why they owned it. And no one has been reduced to eating dog food, or can't pay for their children's education, or have to stop taking vacations. But there's no question, people have financial losses.

Q. Besides your business, I'm sure you have some other goals …

A. Absolutely. Last year I mentioned I had a big stack of books I wanted to get through. I did a bad job of doing serious reading last year – I spent too much time following the election, reading things like political pundits, and other stuff that is basically intellectual gloppo whip. I started reflecting on this in mid-December, and then at the end of the month read a couple of columns about reading – one by Peggy Noonan,and the other by Karl Rove. I actually posted the one by Rove a few days ago, in which he writes about his annual reading contest with President Bush. Well if the President of the United States can get through dozens of serious books a year – history, biography, etc, etc – I should be able to do at least two a month. So that's my goal in that department.

Also, I want to get out and do more trekking – in the beautiful Hudson Valley as well as finish the Appalachian Trail section for the length of NY State. I keep saying I want to do the New York AT, but so far have only done about 25 of the 81 miles. I would love to do the other 55 this year.

Q. You were in England over the summer. How was that?

A. Fantastic. I was over for about nine days – I joined Brigid and the boys who'd gone over five days earlier. I hadn't been to England myself since the summer of 2001. I saw all of Brigid's family, with the exception of her brother Nev and his family, who are in Australia. And we saw good friends of ours going back to our days in the late 70's in Jamaica. It was wonderful. Back in July I put up some posts about our trip, but not enough. I never even did a posting about York, which is where Brigid's family lived and where her sister Kate still lives. I love York – it's a beautiful and historic small city – and I think I'll still do a posting with pictures in the New Year. Even though it's six montha after our trip.

Q. Doesn't your weblog eat up a lot of your time?

A. You asked me that last year. And the answer is no, not really, although this interview will probably take over an hour. That's unusual. Mostly I am posting interesting articles which I've read, with a couple of small personal comments, and then I cut and paste the link and some excerpts from the article. Since I read the article anyway, the work of posting only takes five or ten minutes.

Occasionally it takes longer. A post with lots of pictures and comments takes time, although less time then it used to. My optonline internet at home and verizon FIOS in the office allows for pretty quick uploading of pictures. The time on pictures is more enhancing them and cropping them.

The weblog is a good exercise for me. It keeps me diciplined and focuses my mind. You'll recall I originally started the blog to communicate with people when I was having my chemotherapy. 

Thinking about it now, in a way it's a little like going to the gym – it's therapeutic!

Q. You voted for McCain, and your guy lost. What do you think…

A. Yeah he lost. A pity. To quote Palin, "doggone it". I still feel Obama is an empty suit – it's amazing how poor he is in press conferences – no better than Bush. Obviously he's great at set piece speeches with a teleprompter. Unfortunately McCain ran a mediocre campaign – I'll never understand why he didn't go after Obama for ridiculous things like he's going to give 95% of people a tax cut, when about 38% of people pay no income taxes anyway. But it's water under the bridge now.

Obama seems to have surrounded himself with moderate people when it comes to economic policy. We'll see. Most people vote their pocketbook so there's a strong incentive for him to get and keep the economy going. He'll want to be re-elected in four years. And now he says he'll take the advice of military people when it comes to our defense and Iraq and Afghanistan. I think many of his whakko campaign promises, which all politicians make to be elected, are off the table. We will see.

Its on the social issues that he's a true fanatic – he wants to further spread the abortion on demand gospel worldwide. But I've posted on that and it's no sense going back over it.

My last thing – Sarah Palin. I was surprised and disappointed by some people I knew, especially some women, who seemed to just instantly despise her. I heard all sorts of rationales, like her interview with Couric, or the fact that she didn't go to a big time college, or where the heck is Alaska anyway? which I'd never have expected from some of them.  

But I think it was primarily her Evangelical beliefs. I thought she was a star. Ran against her own party in Alaska, out-debated Biden, and of course gave some great set piece speeches. After the election I saw her in a live interview with Larry King for half an hour and she was very good. So with the Couric interview, where only about 12 minutes of a two hour interview was shown over several nights – it would have been interesting to see the whole interview.  

 Only one more question – this posting will already be too long.

Q. Back to business, any predictions about the economy and the markets this coming year?

A. Yikes. I was way off last year, when I said I thought the economy would do OK, and the stock market would go up 10-15%. Good thing I don't base my financial advice on predictions about the movement of stocks, eh?

Of course the markets will eventually recover, it's a question of when. And will this current asset deflation by followed by inflation due to all the money creation by the fed, or to stagflation like we saw in the late 70's? Or neither? Some may claim to know, but take my word for it, no one knows.

The only thing I would say is – corporate bonds and municipal bonds look good now. And avoid government bonds. The current financial bubble is government notes and bonds.

Q.Tom, it's always a pleasure to speak with you.

A. Hey! As I said last year, it's been a slice!