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bjbj Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Erickson TV. Curtis here with Lauren.
How long do you think we ve been doing these videos? It s been quite a while now. I think
it s going to be 3 years this summer. So 3 years ago this summer was right at the depths;
pretty close to rock bottom. We were starting to see some recovery but there was a lot of
pessimism in the air. In fact, as we ve been discussing in the last few videos, even though
we ve seen a huge rally in the stock markets across the globe, many people have still continued
to leave equities and have gone to fixed income. That tells me that there is a lack of faith
in the future. You and I were coming up with ideas for an episode and this just caught
my eye when I was looking at the headlines of yesterday s Seattle Times. So this was
dated March 22, 2010. A guy named Paul Allen, many people have heard of him, cofounder of
Microsoft, is giving $300 million to the study of brains at this institute. With this contribution
he will now have contributed half a million dollars to this institute for brain research.
What are they hoping to discover? When you start reading into it, he says he s always
had an interest in the brain from his background in high school [how the human brain works
in comparison to computers] but then you get down to the last paragraph and he says the
main reason is his mother has Alzheimer s. He wants to find a cure for Alzheimer So why
would a guy like Paul Allen give a chunk of his nest egg to something like this? Number
one, he has an interest. But he also knows there is a big problem out there and he s
trying to find a solution. I read a statistic that said that for people over 85 years of
age, it was something like 60% of them had some type of form of dementia. Paul Allen,
instead of just hoarding his money has shown faith that we can make progress in the future
and solve one of the big society ills. The next article right below it is where somebody
s previous investment has actually provided something that is useful. An artificial heart
patient is waiting for a new heart; he s on the donor list. Previously, somebody like
him would have had to stay in the hospital waiting for a heart transplant. He s actually
able to go home to Bothell with this machine and live while he s waiting for a real heart.
He has no heart in his body; it s all artificial heart. This will actually help economically
with our health care costs because it s much less expensive for him to be home than it
is for him to be at the hospital waiting for a heart transplant. He literally has no heart
in his body and he is able to walk out of the hospital. That is awesome. One of our
big issues is health care but this shows that you can have a benefit of research and investment.
As the market has been finishing the quarter really strongly in its first quarter of 2012,
it is important to continue to reinforce taking the long vision. The people that invested
in this technology had a long vision. Paul Allen has a long vision. I think that it is
a good lesson to take. With all the problems that we have had and all of the pessimism
that there is, there is progress being made in the world. And that artificial heart, that
is a powerful example because it is not something that I would have even imagined. When progress
happens, when new things happen, really the reason we invest at all is because we think
things will grow and get better. It s not like you just get more of what you already
had. It s not status quo. You get things that you never would have thought were possible.
I never thought it would be possible to be walking around without a heart in your body.
It s kind of awe inspiring. Well thank you for watching this episode. The moral is keep
the faith and look forward. Have a forward looking view and invest for the long term.
Have a great day and we ll talk to you soon on the next episode of Erickson TV. xpapY
hPf, hPf, hPf, l]lUlUl]l]lM urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags date 2010 Month Year Hello everybody and welcome
to another episode of Erickson TV Curtis Erickson Normal Curtis Erickson Microsoft Word 10.0
Erickson Wealth & Tax Management Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Erickson
TV Title Microsoft Word Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8