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MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

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Now worth $200 million, Sarah Jessica Parker credits being ‘one of eight kids that struggled financially’ for her hunger, ambition, and work ethic

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Ikea’s billionaire founder was so frugal that he bought clothes from flea markets and took free salt and pepper from restaurants

1

MacKenzie Scott alone accounted for one-third of America's $19.2 billion in megagifts last year

2

Now worth $200 million, Sarah Jessica Parker credits being ‘one of eight kids that struggled financially’ for her hunger, ambition, and work ethic

3

Ikea’s billionaire founder was so frugal that he bought clothes from flea markets and took free salt and pepper from restaurants

What it feels like now

By
Stanley Bing
Stanley Bing
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By
Stanley Bing
Stanley Bing
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May 14, 2009, 9:50 AM ET
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confusedWe had a run up last week. For the last couple of days, we’re running down. There was good news among the bad and people were talking about sunlight for a while. This week, the credit markets are getting nervous again and we’re not so sure. Plus, it’s drizzling. Doesn’t May seem colder than usual? Does this mean there’s no more global warming? Or is this just a pause before we all quite literally melt down?

Are we recovering? Are we sliding back? Is the upswing over? Are we just taking a breather? Unemployment is still bad but not growing quite so fast as it was a few months ago. But Wal-Mart’s revenue ticked down a little. Does that mean people ran out of money in April? Will it be the same in May? How about June? Worse? Better?

See, now would be the time for those professionals with a totally disinterested position in the markets, if any such there be, to employ their skills to tell us what’s going on. Is this all emotional? Are there some metrics we should be employing to get a little bit of visibility into the future? Forget the future, how about right now? Is there an analyst, an economist, a professor, government regulator, seer, dowser or astrologer out there who can actually tell anybody what’s going on?

In the meantime, who should we be listening to? Paul Krugman? Nostradamus? Susan Boyle?

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