Spreading assets over a number of different areas helps to minimise the impact of poor performance by a single investment, but you should remember that, if you cash in any medium to long term investments early, the returns are likely to be poor.

BBC: Cashing In guide: investment

Remember that in August Standard and Poor's downgraded the US, not because of its economic prospects but because of how near it came to not agreeing a budget and the danger that revealed of "governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable".

BBC: Shame, embarrassment and Congress

Their son, Henry, who ran a camera-supply business in Colorado, was returning, for the first time, to a country that he had been raised to remember as poor.

NEWYORKER: Boss Rail

But even states that appear to be gaining jobs on balance need to remember that these benefits are gained at the expense of poorer health among the near-poor who will be forced away from private coverage through exchanges onto the rolls of Medicaid.

FORBES: Will Medicaid Expansion Create Jobs?

Mr Johnson hopes the voters will remember their liking for pork-barrel spending (a universal preference, but understandable in a poor state).

ECONOMIST: The South Dakota Senate race