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I was listening to a friend of mine who is a real estate wholesaler say that on radio yesterday morning as I was driving back from the gym. "No one alive today has seen conditions any where near what we are seeing today." Horse hockey. My mom and dad did, but of course, they are long dead. My aunt Mildred, on the other hand, at age 90, remembers the situation well.

That is part of what we talked about today. People are constantly complaining about not being ready for retirement. Well, my aunt retired...at age 84. The only reason she quit was because of her knees and feet. That's all. She loved working with people and still loves people to death today.

It is amazing the kind of grasp of things she sees today and compares what she went through with what she sees today. She worries about what I do and thought that I had blown up everything I have worked for. I have not, but that goes to show you how compassionate she is for other people.

Her family (my family) came from very humble roots. I am the second person in my family to have received anything other than a high school diploma.

You see, she had it tough. Her husband was murdered by a policeman when he returned from his first business trip (which he financed from his business) to New York. She raised three boys alone. Two of them are gone now. Her sons were all college educated. Her grandkids are also college educated, and working. One of her last living son's sons in law may be teaching business at Boston College next year. He just received his Ph.D. from Emory University.

She lived through the Great Depression and remembers how bad it was. She worries that her only remaining son and his wife may not be able to fund a retirement because of the craziness she sees in banking and in the credit markets. Throughout these crises though, she has always found a way to make it for herself, and find a way to help others along the way. Her character is strong and her mind is pretty sharp for 90.

Phil Gramm, himself a bank lobbyist, was considered insensitive back in July when he said that America had become a nation of whiners, I can't help but think that in one way he was, and probably is, right. We have had such enormous prosperity as a people that we cannot take even the slightest adversity, particularly when the adversity of debt was largely self-inflicted. 

If my Aunt Mildred could, she would still get out there and make it somehow. Now she wonders if others have the stamina to do the same.

I kind of wonder also, but again, I am an optimist.