Just back from a business trip to America.  There, one is treated to Wall St to Wall St coverage of stock market crash news.  Most news bulletins beam live coverage of the opening of trading every morning at 09.30.  The market indexes are broadcast in a continuous box on the TV screens, and average Americans speculate, often with almost hourly trades, as though they were betting on the horses at Newmarket.

I was attending a convention for senior figures from the US hardwood industry.  If you think we have a recession here in the UK then there needs to be a new word invented for what most of them are going through.  Considering that the output of hardwoods has halved in three years and there is an equity crash one would expect an atmosphere of utter gloom. 

Even though they are all watching a daily massacre of their personal pension plans they all remained remarkably buoyant.  I can only put that down to the old maxim that you should never gamble more than you can afford to lose.  If my American friends are sticking to that then considering some of the sums people admitted to me that were down they must be remarkably rich to start with.

With similar economic gloom almost bound to follow here in the UK what should one do to remain happy?  Count our blessings is my recommendation.  One needs to look at what one has, not at what one has lost.  On that score I am a lucky man and I hope I never fail to remember that fact when I am tempted to have a moan about the state of my company/ finances/pension plan or expenses. 

There are so many people in the world that have little or nothing to begin with.  Remarkably, many individuals I have met in the developing world have given me inspiration by maintaining their health and happiness regardless of continuous economic woes.