Learn, or be doomed to repeat mistakes.

Somebody told me once that we should focus on the immediate needs of our society... to the actual survival of the race. My response was "Yes, that's important. But, if you don't know what caused the trouble, might you do it again?" Sometimes, you have to stop and smell the history.

And, then there was my professor at ECU who said, "History doesn't repeat itself... people do."

These are not only important lessons, they are vital to our survival. Ask yourself what has caused every depression in history and you just might be able to avoid the next one. Do you know what it was? Greed. Uncontrolled greed put us in the situation we find ourselves in today. Maybe if we learned more about past depressions and LISTENED to those lessons, we might grow and better ourselves, make life easier for our children. If that's important to you, that is.

Try to remember that the historian is your most vital part of any planning strategy.