So New Years Eve is upon us. What will tomorrow bring? What will 2009 bring?
What promises will you make to yourself tonight and how long will they last?

A wise man once said Do not worry about tomorrow, today has enough issues of its own.”

Today also has enough opportunities too!!

So as you prepare your New Years Resolutions ponder this.

“If Tomorrow Never Comes”

If I knew it would be the last time
that I’d see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly
and pray the Lord, your soul to keep.

If I knew it would be the last time
that I see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss
and call you back for one more.

If I knew it would be the last time
I’d hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would video tape each action and word,
so I could play them back day after day.

If I knew it would be the last time,
I could spare an extra minute or two
to stop and say “I love you,”
instead of assuming you would KNOW I do.

If I knew it would be the last time
I would be there to share your day,
well I’m sure you’ll have so many more,
so I can let just this one slip away.

For surely there’s always tomorrow
to make up for an oversight,
and we always get a second chance
to make everything right.

There will always be another day
to say our “I love you’s”,
And certainly there’s another chance
to say our “Anything I can do’s?”

But just in case I might be wrong,
and today is all I get,
I’d like to say how much I love you
and I hope we never forget,

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone,
young or old alike,
And today may be the last chance
you get to hold your loved one tight..

So if you’re waiting for tomorrow,
why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes,
you’ll surely regret the day,

That you didn’t take that extra time
for a smile, a hug, or a kiss
and you were too busy to grant someone,
what turned out to be their one last wish.

So hold your loved ones close today,
whisper in their ear,
Tell them how much you love them
and that you’ll always hold them dear,

Take time to say “I’m sorry,” “please forgive me,”
“thank you” or “it’s okay”.
And if tomorrow never comes,
you’ll have no regrets about today.

Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ ww.MassiveAction.co.nz

It is both ironic and tragic what is happening in the Middle East at Christmas time.

A conflict between 2 brothers thousands of years ago has now resulted in 2 nations whose hatred for each other will never cease till Jesus returns.

“Religious fervour”, “Patriotism”, whatever you want to label it is a powerful yet so often misguided loyalty.

When we put human life below our beliefs we always violate principles that transcend any belief.

When we happily murder our own flesh and blood because they don’t believe what we do something has gone seriously wrong hasn’t it.

The Bible teaches that there will be a treaty between Israel and Palestine, brokered by the AntiChrist. He will break that treaty and violate the temple and this will be the key to the beginning of the Tribulation. (Daniel 9:27).

Until then however God will not allow Israel to fall and will protect her as he has done so many times already.

In fact a quick study on Israel as a nation is incredible reading. They have been attacked relentlessly for generations and have overpowered larger nations time and time again.

So in our own lives lets ensure we aren’t inadvertently “fighting God” .

God promised Abraham that He would protect His people and give them the Promised Land.

In the same way he has promised you that if you live your life with a clean conscience and treat others as you wish to be treated, then blessing and goodness can flow into your life. Maybe this holiday is a good time to contact that relative you can’t stand, to ring that guy you ignored at work or to build bridges with that neighbour you always gossip about. You have time, do you have the will??

Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.co.nz

For those of you who don’t get the Sunday Herald the business editorial below was too relevant to not produce here for you.

“By now, the stresses of Christmas should be easing up. We will have disposed of the wrapping paper – thoughtfully, please, in the recycle bin – and those of us who hadn’t already headed to the beach or bush, may have checked out the Boxing Day sales, in search of a bargain or two.

If you bought stuff you really need with money you actually have, you will have played your part in a virtuous circle of demand and supply and contributed to the collective duty we all share: spending our way out of the mess we find ourselves in.

The fact that “meltdown” – a technical term that became chillingly familiar in the age of nuclear-reactor accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl – re-entered the everyday vocabulary this year makes us all pause for thought. The arguments between the two main parties about the relative sizes of their promised tax cuts now seem rather trivial, in the face of forecasts of job losses in the hundreds of thousands and a tanking domestic and international economy.

In times like these – in all times, actually – prudence is a proper course of action, not least because financial imprudence on the individual and corporate levels is a good part of the reason that we are in the fix we are in.

During the past decade, we spent too much, and we were spending money we didn’t have. Mesmerised by the spiralling values of the houses we lived in, we felt – and acted – much richer than we were. Too many of us sank too much of our investment capital into residential property, further boosting house prices and, not incidentally, slamming the door on the dream of home ownership for the members of the next generation or two. The finance-company sector which now lies largely in ruins with billions in retirement savings buried beneath the rubble, also lived beyond its means.

But if caution is called for, anxiety is not. Like the greed that drove too many of us in the last decade, anxiety feeds on itself and creates exaggerated expectations. Like it or not, we live in economies – local, national and international – and not in subsistence settlements. Much though we would like to shut the door and hide under the bed until the storm blows over, we cannot.

We also should not. It remains the case that the smartest course of action is to clear personal debt and not sign up for more. Beyond that, the wisest course was, and remains, to clear debt. But it is also true that spending has become something of a social duty.

It’s hard for people to spend when they are anxious about whether their job will disappear next week. But there is a fine balance to be struck here: if we do not spend, we risk sowing the seeds of even greater economic misfortune. When business activity slows, employers have to cut staff; employees, seeing job cuts all around, spend less, and the whole vicious circle continues. A recession, remember, is the contraction of an economy, and an economy is made up of production and consumption. We have learned to be suspicious of consumption, but it is only bad when it is driven by credit. A recession is a time to spend money: if nothing else, those tradespeople who never returned your phone calls in the good times will be calling straight back now.

The bright side of this whole sorry mess is that, here at the end of the world, we may hope to be insulated from some of the worst of the economic storm that is gathering force.

Our exporters are likely to take a substantial hit, but less than those in economies that produce poor-quality goods. And we can be thankful that we live in a country where the quality of what is produced is high. Buying New Zealand-made always made sense, but because it will be putting food on the table of people next door, it makes more sense now.

The same logic applies to the holiday season in which you are reading this. In more buoyant times we might have tended to reach for the credit card and the passport when planning a summer holiday.

If staying close to home is now a necessity, we can make a virtue of it. The old maxim “don’t leave home until you’ve seen the country” is now a statement of patriotic duty. We live in the best place in the world to have a holiday. Get into it. And drive safely. Have a happy new year.”

Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.co.nz

So by now you would have already been amazed at how quickly kids either break or discard the things they said they wanted and you probably spent hours on boxing day fighting to buy stuff you didn’t need at a discount, or return stuff you didn’t want to exchange it for other stuff you neither need nor really want.

I lost count of how many times I heard or read people saying: “Christmas is really all about xxxx”

From a statistical point of view Christmas is about

People getting into debt they can’t afford.
People trying to buy love and affection with things rather than time.
More suicides than any other time of the year.
More domestic violence than any other time of the year.
More clinical mental illness than any other time of the year.
More divorce and separation than any other time of the year.
More unwanted pregnancies than any other time of the year.

In other words what we do at Christmas is 100% diametrically opposed to the genuine reason for Christmas, the birth of a saviour, the embodiment of love, peace and all that is good.

So it’s not too late for you to decide whether you will add yourself and your family to the stats above or whether you will take the time, make the sacrifices and chose to say and act in ways this Christmas that will bring good things around you. Things that fill you and those around you up, instead of emptying your tank.

I pray that you find peace, hope and genuine love in these holidays.

Stay safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.co.nz

I can’t believe what I am watching unfold in Zimbabwe currently. Mugabe is obviously mentally unstable with is nonsense comments about Cholera being dealt with, while the epidemic spreads. Prior to that he blamed Britain for causing the outbreak.

Meanwhile the nation continues to die, spiritually, economically and literally.

For some reason I feel both angry and helpless. How can the world stand by and let this happen when so many innocent people are being harmed.

In the West we have monetary issues which affect us but at the end of the day their impact is minimal compared with the life and death issues faced daily in Zim.

I heard this week they just starting printing 100 billion dollar notes to keep up with the 100% per day inflation.

So as we enjoy Christmas, with whatever issues we may face, spare a thought/prayer/action for a part of the world that is in real trouble.

Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.co.nz

And Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ…

In an extraordinarily staggering statement about Jesus Christ, Napoleon said something that is almost unexcelled by any political leader.

I quote it at length because of its incredible insight. Napoleon expressed these thoughts while he was exiled on the rock of St. Helena.

There, the conqueror of civilized Europe had time to reflect on the measure of his accomplishments.

He called Count Montholon to his side and asked him, “Can you tell me who Jesus Christ was?” The count declined to respond.
Napoleon countered:

Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force.

Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him…. I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man: none else is like Him; Jesus Christ was more than man…. I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me…. but to do this it was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice.

When I saw men and spoke to them, I lighted up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts…. Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother.

He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted.

Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ.

All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is accountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man’s creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range.

This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

QUOTE
Quoted in Henry Parry Liddon, Liddon’s Bampton Lectures 1866
(London: Rivingtons, 1869), 148.”

I visited a mall this morning and a large sale at the Auckland Showgrounds and couldn’t believe how few people were about.

I mean the shops were deserted and the sale, which had CD’s and books for $5, I expected to be heaving with people seeking cheap Xmas gifts.

Now as you know I am an eternal optimist, however I also try and make intelligent decisions based on good quality information.

So I have been doing a lot of research recently and trying to become familiar with macro economics and global trends etc. to try and make sense of what is going on currently. The bad news just keeps on coming so I have really focused on getting schooled up.

As a Christian I am also very interested in the USA because according to the Bible they are not a major power in the last days. Their demise must come, is it starting now kind of thing.

There are a lot of extreme views regarding the US economy and the current crisis so finding the “reality zone” is quite a challenge.

However there are some things I am beginning to see that have a ring of truth about them.

1. Our current “global economy” is a very recent event. 50 years ago governments worried about their own country and that was about it. So our management of global economics is in its infancy and many would say is a big “experiment”.

2. We have built this global economy on a premise of continuing expansion. NOW this is a critical point and as I researched it the implications of it really blow ones mind.

We base all of our measuring systems and results on a percentage increase in growth. Whether it’s GDP, population, profitability, the rich list, everything is measured by how much it is expanding.

So one could reach a very reasonable conclusion that our entire economic system has been built upon, and therefore critically relies upon, continued expansion.

Now if that is true, and I’m not saying it is necessarily, then what happens to that system when the expansion ceases, like right now??

Well a very reasonable answer is that it will implode completely. A bit like Mr Madoff’s pyramid scheme our sharemarket, our financial structures, in fact just about everything related to economics, is all worked out on acceptable levels of growth or expansion.

Recently the international news has been full of the fact that if China’s growth gets below 6% that will be a disaster for NZ and the USA.

Why?? Well simply because we have all planned on their growth to create adequate demand for our products. We have no scenario at all for a zero growth world.

The US car bail out announced today will save a lot of jobs and make the world relax for 2 minutes but it ignores an undeniable fact. The US car industry is no longer competitive and needs to collapse and then reinvent itself to be sustainable in a zero growth environment with competition form Asia.

Some very sound, sophisticated, intelligent researchers have been predicting the current situation for 5 years or more, some of them even ten years ago said we would get to where we are now because it was 100% inevitable, and the long term prognosis catastrophic.

So, like me, do some homework, decide for yourself what you think might really be going on and let’s together make sure we stay safe as investors, kiwi’s and families.

By far the best place to start I have found is HERE

Take some time and watch the whole thing. IF that’s too hard chapter 3 on exponential growth is compulsory, then you’ll want to watch the rest

Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus @ www.MassiveAction.co.nz