August 2, 2008 In the effort to bring weight down for the light air regatta in a week, we’ve turned our attention to the boat. We weighed her a day ago and found her to be a bit heavy. 1.6kgs actually. So we’ve turned our attention to weight saving principles. Our 49er crew and my roommate Chris, was generous enough to loan me a beautiful pair of titanium trapeze rings, which probably saved close to 100 grams from the other ones. First on the list was to find out where we getting all of our water in the bow from! This was an easy find, the fitting on the bow seemed to be the culprit with some of the silicone rubbing off. Our repair man Donny came thru mixing up something and laying it up perfect. I dont think we’ll be getting any more water in the hull now. Next on the list was to check all shackles and see if they could be replaced with line or a lighter shackle. Last on the list for the day ended up being the jib tracks… Not just the track itself, but the lead as well. Im not sure how much weight i took off the boat today but i was able to cut off a good half inch of the jib lead, and a good foot in total of jib tracks, which was a bit of a pain. It took close to two hours in total and my day ended at...

Yes, you have gotten poorer. And at an accelerated pace.

The net worth of U.S. households fell in the first quarter, the second straight decline, thanks to the double-whammy of sliding home values and the plunge in stock prices, the Federal Reserve said in a report today.

The central bank's so-called flow of funds report estimated the net worth of American households at $55.97 trillion as of March 31, down $1.7 trillion, or 2.9%, from year-end. That was more than three times the $530-billion drop in the fourth quarter.

Home values fell by $329 billion in the first quarter after a $196-billion drop in the fourth quarter.

But it was the slump in stocks that really hammered Americans' net worth: The value of their stock accounts and mutual funds sank by $956 billion in the first quarter, after a $598-billion decline in the previous quarter. (The market has recovered quite a bit since, of course.)

Still, at least by the Fed's estimation, Americans' overall balance sheet remains quite healthy. Net worth, remember, is assets minus liabilities. Households' assets, at $70.46 trillion, dwarf their liabilities of $14.49 trillion, which mainly consist of mortgage and consumer debt.

What the totals don't show, however, is how net worth is distributed. A huge chunk of it is in the hands of the wealthiest people. Down the income chain there have to be plenty of people with negative net worth, especially in light of the housing bust.

Some minor encouraging news in the Fed's report:...

It has been a long march since Thomas Friedman declared the world to be flat. This thinking may have its boundary conditions, which are now being tested as the global fuel, food and finance crises loom ever larger. The idea that people are suddenly competing on an equal playing field internationally and within nations is incongruous with the harsh realities appearing in a number of countries and across a number of communities within the same country. The world does not appear to be flat to those without sufficient food in their stomach, much less fuel in their car than what they used to fill-up about a year ago, or the possibility of losing their home because they cannot keep up with their interest payments. Click for the rest of the blog.