During mid-June’s celebrations for the Obama Presidential Center, former President Obama spoke to former staffers and alumni: “I think nostalgia implies this sentiment that there’s this thing in the past that was somehow golden and better, but is unattainable now,” he said. “And it lets us off the hook, because it makes us feel like, ‛Well, you know, that was wonderful, but now, this is the reality, and there’s not much we can do about it.’”

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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
­—most often credited to Mark Twain (although scholars have found no proof of that)

If you grew up in Portland, you likely remember Marko Haggard—news commentator, professor at PSU, Oregon’s first ombudsman, and a character profiled in a 1982 local press piece “Gadfly or Guru?” He was both and spoke colorfully.

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There is an oft-used metaphor of an iceberg where the mass above the water is only about 13% of the total size. What is seen on the surface is only part of a much larger story. 

We rounded out the year with a seemingly strong US stock market, evidenced with an S & P 500 returning 16% for the year.* Some might surmise that this means that our economy and consumers are in good shape… Let’s dive in.

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