I just finished a very hectic week in the U.S. equity options market. December stock options all expired Friday, and anyone holding December08 options had to decide whether to let them expire worthless, or to deliberately close them out. The idea is, of course, make a profit, or at least to avoid loss. The trading can get frantic. One must be knowledgeable, alert, nimble, and take the right action without slip-up. So as of close of business Friday 2008 in New York options were all over with, as is the year 2008, almost. Everyone heaves a sigh of relief, and starts relaxing during Christmas week.

Of course here in the remoteness of southern Mindanao, I am in this “options bubble” all by myself. Everyone else has other things on their minds, not the least of which is how are they going to give their families a nice Christmas - hard to do on a non-existent income. Low income of course is nothing new to these people. My wife and I hire as many of them as we can, and treat them well, especially at Christmas when we hand out food to as many as we feel we can. We concentrate on the elderly, and the indigenous hill tribe people.

It is a constant struggle for me to avoid getting depressed over the plight of my neighbors. Visitors to the Philippines (the Fiesta Islands) don’t see this side of the culture, the reality of it. Heck, even the Filipino government big shots in Manila don’t see it (or care about it). They just ride around in their chauffeured cars from their walled and gated communities to their air conditioned offices and back in time to change into a fresh 'barong Tagalog' for the cocktail parties in posh homes and fancy restaurants.

I lived that life the first year I was in Manila, 20 years ago. Then I left the Manila cocoon of affluence and plunged into the real Philippines. It was then that I realized that since I left the swampy Mekong delta for Saigon in 1967 and the wilds of NE Thailand in 1969, I had over the 20 years that followed, lived mainly in the capital cities of all the developing countries I worked in, with little exposure to the realities of life in those countries. I was kept busy doing grand and glorious projects and writing cables to Washington – not unimportant work, but it offered little insight into what the masses were faced with. Short term trips to the up country hinterlands are not the same as permanently living there.

When, after retirement from the Foreign Service I started building projects (as opposed to conceiving and designing them) I got into the country side, and it was one wonderful experience after another, for which I am always grateful.

I hope that 2009 is a better year for everyone. We would certainly appreciate better times!

-=<()>=-