SIBLINGS AND OTHER ISSUES

______(2006) TIME/ 7/10/47-55

A new magic bullet has been discovered. Numerous variables have been studied relative to the creation of your personality. It is your brothers and sisters. Much has been said about this in the past relative to your birth order. Basically, older children learn to be caregivers and are more conservative and middle ones are the lost souls. The youngest are the rebels. Parents spend a lot of time on the first child and much less on the baby of the family. They are also more stricter with the older and more lax with the baby. There is a little more relative to sex and age and that's that.

Its not that way anymore. New research appears to suggest that siblings play a powerful role in your life. The categories are not so neat but it suggests that if a parent dies, older children quickly play parental roles .Sisters teach brothers about females and the reverse.

We have been down this road before, but past research looked at PARENTS, then GENES, PEERS, NEIGHBORHOOD, SOCIAL CLASS, GENDER ROLES, and now SIBLINGS. All of this came about as the research still had a missing piece or two, so now it is siblings. Spouses come late in life. Parents pass on. Siblings are with you more than anyone else and can play a lot of time in your childhood and for some adulthood.

FIGHTS play a big role in determining how you master your environment.Did MOM like you? Favoritism plays a part in how you order your life.Did you identify with an OLDER sibling? This can flavor your sex life and sex roles.If you grow up with an opposite sex or other sex individual, you are likely to grab onto the traditional sex roles.Do early BONDS grow stronger with age?

My own opinion is that this is one more variable to consider. Don't throw away the other aspects. As an example, generally speaking GENES account for 50% of behavior. So how much can be explained by SIBLINGS? This is extremely important when considering PARENTS, PEERS, and the other variables listed above. Keep siblings as an important but not necessarily complete explanation of the environment.

________(2006) THE ECONOMIST/ 7/1/29.

The eyes of Texas are upon you. So guess what oil rich Texas is doing? They are making windmills.

As oil an gas are diminishing sources, windmills can now make money. It appears that oil should climb another dollar a gallon this summer so wind mills are making their way through the Texas plains. Most are built in windy but desolate areas, but offshore rigs with propellers are centrally located near big cities. How can you make a windmill pretty? All of this may be addressed in the future. Windmills are now profitable.

ELGIN (2006) BUSINESS WEEK 7/10/ 26-28

GOOGLE is the premiere search engine. People go there to get information fast. So what happens? Few people go to the other gadgets like maps, blog search, finance, social networking, news, talk, shopping, and gmail.

NUCLEAR POWER/ 34

Nuclear powered should be attracting a lot of investors, but they are not. The power stations cost too much, take too long to build, and costs involve over runs. The history is something like this.

Original estimates for the existing stations was 70 billion. The final bill was 224 billion. That is 219% of cost overruns. The insurance is expensive. They generate energy and they don't hurt the environment, but they do or can blow up. In a new age of terrorism, it is a bit frightening. So wall street is skeptical about bringing a new generation of nuclear power.

So can we count on coal (alternative energy plays a small but growing role) Yes, the particulates can be taken care of, but a new gadget to reduce heat cost 1 billion per unit. So, is that cost effective? Don't know. .

HOW FAILURE BREEDS SUCCESS/42-52

It used to blasphemy to discuss the failures that have occurred in business. It was best to hide them from the press and the shareholders. However, failures can be a learning experience. If you tolerate risk, you tolerate failure. Can the following success learned from past failures and prompt even more profits? To learn from failure, one needs to FORMALIZE FORMS THAT OUTLINE THE FAILURE/ SHARE PERSONAL STORIES/ MOVE GOALPOSTS/ BRING IN OUTSIDERS/

PROVE YOURSELF WRONG/ CELEBRATE SMART FAILURES.

BLOGS/ 20

Watch out for blogs. Some appear to be legit, but are really a new venue for advertising.