50 Things You Should Feel Great About
By Morgan Housel | More Articles
July 15, 2011 | Comments (12)
There are no jobs. Washington is a mess. Greece is nearly bankrupt. Italy isn't far behind. North Dakota is flooded. Arizona is an inferno. Oil is nearly $100 a barrel. Forty Mexicans were killed by drug violence in one day last week. This guy fell to his death catching a baseball in Texas as his six-year-old son looked on.
Welcome to 2011. And welcome to the 24-hour news cycle. It lives on this stuff.
Good news is out there -- you just have to look for it. In the spirit of optimism, here are 50 things you should feel good about.
50. Biomedical gerontologist Aubrey de Grey thinks the first person to live to see their 150th birthday is already born. Medical technology is awesome.
49. The average American spends less than half as much of their income on food today as they did in the 1940s. No one ever talks about long-term food deflation.
48. Stock returns only look awful if you use the dot-com bubble as a starting point. Since 1995, the Dow has returned about 11% per year (including dividends). That's a healthy return by any standard.
47. Mark Zuckerberg has made over $3,400 per minute of Facebook's existence. Capitalism is alive and well.
46. A cancer-stricken man from Eritrea just received an artificially grown trachea derived from his own cells. More awesome medical technology at work.
45. Bad news: 68% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Positive spin: The exact same percentage felt that way in 1991. Pessimism is nothing new.
44. Part of the reason Medicare and Social Security are money pits is because people are living much longer than expected. I can think of worse problems.
43. The U.K.'s economic dominance fell sometime in the late nineteenth century, but for the most part, it's been a nice place to live ever since.
42. Many fear the U.S. economy will end up like Japan. Next time you hear that, remember that unemployment in Japan hasn't been above 5.6% in the past 20 years.
41. MIT just created solar cells that can be printed on paper or other fabric.
40. If you're reading this article, you're part of the 30% of the world with Internet access. 70% of the planet would love to be in your shoes.
39. Nine percent of American households are millionaires. It's not just the very top who are doing well.
38. GDP per capita in the United States is 12 times higher than it is in China. Remember that next time someone mentions how domineering China's economy is.
37. 9.2% of the population is unemployed, or 16.4% if you count those who've given up looking. Positive spin: 83% of the country is gainfully employed.
36. Overall cancer death rates in the U.S. fell more than 1.5% per year from 2001-2007. Falling cancer death rates have saved nearly 1 million Americans over the past two decades.
35. 2010 was a record year for both patent applications and patent grants. Innovation is nowhere near dead.
34. Today's personal savings rate is six times higher than it was in 2005.
33. American households' debt load is now the lowest since the early 1990s.
32. Life expectancy for someone born today is eight years longer than someone born in 1960.
31. Three years ago, many thought Ford (NYSE: F ) was toast. Today, it's profitable and growing, all without a bailout. Smart management still wins.
30. One of corporate America's biggest challenges right now is what to do with record amounts of cash. Nice problem to have.
29. TARP will cost taxpayers an amount that rounds to zero in the grand scheme of things.
28. 115 stocks in the S&P 500 are within 10% of their all-time highs.
27. Retirement savings are nearing an all-time high.
26. A BMW plant in South Carolina gets two-thirds of its power from methane siphoned off a nearby trash dump.
The rest below...
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/07/15/50-things-you-should-feel-great-about.aspx
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