I don't believe in god. I never have. I don't believe in religions. I study them, but I don't practice them. I try to understand them to be sensitive to the beliefs and traditions of others, and to attempt to appreciate the motivations behind religious thought and deed. But they are irrelevant to living my life.

Long ago as a freshman at CUNY's Queens College I was introduced to Taoism. Taoism began in ancient China as a religion, then morphed into a dogma free/deity free philosophy. Since my late teens I've tried hard to apply MY understanding of my Tao to my life. I have the freedom to choose my own path and not judge the paths of others. But since I have freedom of opinion, I fall prey to judge. I try not to. But I do.

Through the Tao, I'm both a peacemaker and a warrior since Taoism couples with the art of self-defense. I understand my right to protect myself when needed, and to protect the defenseless when they need me. Since I'm by nature protective, it suits my sensibilities to aid the weak, where I fancy myself absurdly as inordinately strong.

Last year's Markets

Note: Since we do the numbers weekly, we will be taking Friday, January 2nd as the end of 2008, and, since there was a lot of change in the markets last Friday, our year-end numbers will differ from those using December 31 as the last day of the year.

Gold closed the year at $876.80 and ounce, up 4.0% from $842.70 for the year and 4.3% from $840.80 for the quarter. Oil closed at $46.35 a barrel Friday, down 51.8% from $96.16 for the year and 50.2% from $93.10 for the quarter. The gold/oil ratio closed at 18.92 Friday, up 116.0% from 8.76 for the year and 109.5% from 9.03 for the quarter. The dollar closed at 0.7183 euros Friday, up 5.7% from 0.6795 euros for the year and down 1.0% from 0.7255 for the quarter. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Friday at 9,034.69 down 32.4% from 13,365.87 for the year and 12.5% from 10,325.38 for the quarter. The yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 2.37 Friday, down 41.8% from for the year 4.07 and 34.2% from 3.60 for the quarter.