Don Reynolds' Annual Financial "Seance"

Don Reynolds, of Smith- Barney in Fort Worth, gave his annual predictions on Wednesday. Here are some of the things he had to say:

• The US economy in 2005 was quite resilient (considering all the big events), and exhibited the lowest marker volatility in 80 years.
• In the coming year we'll need to pay attention to the (troublesome) actions of foreign leaders like Ahmadinejad of Iran & Chavez of Venezuela.
• Watch for an extension of tax cuts - or the negative stock market reaction to a non-extension.
• Watch to see how new Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke (info here and here) takes over from Greenspan (who is leaving at the peak of Baby Boomer productivity).
• Handling the "housing bubble" without destroying the economy will be his major short term challenge.
• He expects consumers to slow spending, but for corporations to increase.
• He observes that an inverted yield curve (our current situation) usually - though not always - signals a downturn within a year and a half.

Rotary Supports Girl Scouts

Last Fall our Rotary Club donated money to help the Girl Scouts of troop 148 here in Pittsburg to buy their vests. Here's a picture of the girls in their vests (except for the few who forgot to bring them to school to wear at the meeting). The Girl Scouts say, "Thank you Rotary!"

Pittsburg's Water Supply

Ned Muse's program today featured Walt Sears of the Northeast Texas Municipal Water District.

Rain in our area has been pretty sparse in the past year - Walt told us how sparse. In 2005 Lake Bob Sandlin only received 25.45 inches of rain - the lowest amount since the lake was built. Normally the lake passes on about 100,000 acre feet of water downstream to Lake Of the Pines. How much in 2005? Zero.

So we're in pretty serious trouble, right?

Well, not exactly.

Lake Bob Sandlin still has 150,000 acre feet of water. Pittsburg uses less than 2,000 acre feet per year. Of course, this isn't the whole picture for Camp County. Walt says that most of the water use in Camp County comes from ground water, and the aquifer is definitely affected by our drought.

Walt emphasized that although our drought shows up worse on the official drought monitor, we're actually better off than the folks to the west for at least three reasons:

1. They have a greater draw on their lakes, due to greater population and industrial demands.
2. Their normal climate is dryer than ours.
3. They tend to have a greater rate of evaporation.

Walt pointed out two important things we have going for us.

1. Our municipal leaders were wise years ago when they invested in providing adequate water supply (in the form of lakes)
2. As far back as the records go, our area has never had one low following another. If this trend continues, we will have more than 25.45 inches of rain this year.

[As far as I'm concerned this is a great time to start!]