2017 A Good Year

In the year 2017 my savings increased 24% in US$ terms, which is average in NASDAQ but good on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, that increased only 3%. The problem with TASE was/is TEVA, an important component of the index, that lost half of its worth during the year. The best performing stock was Frutarom (3-400%) and Ashtrom, a building company. Ashtrom is something of a mystery, its founders and owners are dead and it is managed by unknown insiders. This is not an unknown configuration in Israel, with most of its institutions established by communes fifty-hundred years ago, that continue to operate and grow with its original members long dead and forgotten. The Kever Benjamin water company is like that: it was founded by a handful of farmers to finance a borehole to provide water for irrigation. That was when it was a small settlement in the Dameseq province of Turkey, and it developed into a large water and sewage corporation.  It is owned by the original families and managed in total secrecy. The water is drinkable.

2017 was a year when all the family was healthy and we increased by two newborn boys. Peace reigned in Israel.

I continued teaching in the university, lectured in a Water Congress and completed about forty - fifty projects. I have about then signed contracts to start working on. Although I am very old and obese, I managed to have an active sex life; specifically, I ogled lots of female bottoms in the street. The neighborhood was gentrified and the Cofix store nearby is selling cheap red wine (20 sheqel = 6$ a bottle). Most drinkable.