Last night my wife and I went to hear a speech by the head of Morgan Stanley's asset allocation group. The talk was interesting, and the speaker didn't appear to be selling anything specific. He made a point I had not thought about before. He said that, while the government's estimate of inflation at 2 or 3 % is probably correct for people making the average salary of $40,000 per year, for the people at the talk the real inflation rate is more like 10% per year. The reason is that this group of people is interested in things like sending children to presigious colleges and health care, and these things are increasing in cost at a high rate.

He also talked about the likely increase in population of the world over the next 40 years, and that water is about to become a more important commodity than gold. I have seen estimates that the population of North Texas will double over the next 30 years, and increase of 6 million people. Most of the increase will be from Mexico, but there will also be some coming from places like California. If that many people actually come to North Texas, I wonder where the water they need will come from. This appears to be a major issue to me.