The $60 million donation by Ernest Rady creates a new reality for San Diego County as far charitable support is concerned.  “We have jumped into the big leagues of charitable giving,” said Kelly.

According to Donald Fellows of Marts and Lundy, a New Jersey-headquartered fundraising consulting firm to nonprofits, San Diego is finally showing signs of growing up as far as the city’s philanthropic community is concerned.

“It was sort of like San Diego hadn’t grown up yet from a philanthropic standpoint,” said Fellows. “That has clearly changed.”

For many years San Diego County has lagged behind other regions as recipients of philanthropic generosity.  Since the late 1990s San Diego has experienced a large increase in the number of donations exceeding $10 million. At the end of the ‘90s San Diego began to benefit from the stock market boom plus many more wealthy people began moving into the area. In addition, the widow of the founder of McDonald’s, Joan Kroc, made an $80 million donation to the San Diego branch of the Salvation Army, which many believe helped turn the tide for philanthropic giving in San Diego.

San Diego is hopeful that this donation will be the spark to light a new wave of large donations into the San Diego region.

Rady has given generously in the past. The University of California in San Diego was the recipient of Rady’s largesse in 2004 in the amount of 30 million dollars, and created the Rady School of Management.

The news in mid-August seemed to signal that health care reform in the United States was going to be more of an “evolution” rather than the originally hoped for (by President Obama) “revolution.” In response to this apparent change the health care sector of the stock market experienced a broad rally.

Harry Rady commented that he, along with Rady Asset Management tries to asses an economic climate outside the influence of government forces, which are unpredictable and unreliable. Rady therefore looks to investments which are dependable no matter what the government decides to do.

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As the blitzkrieg rise began to slow investors and traders continued to (unsuccessfully) look for new signs of other economic strengthening.

After several comments made by the Russian finance minister, the dollar began to rise in comparison with other currencies. The stronger dollar forced prices for oil and other materials down, bringing to a halt the increase in prices recently of these energy and materials stocks.

Harry Rady is not surprised.

“The market just seems to keep driving the car into the wall and then wonders why it can’t keep driving,” Rady said.

“The market just seems to keep driving the car into the wall and then wonders why it can’t keep driving,” Rady said.

After deep drops in prices of stocks in Europe and Asia in response to the strengthening dollar, prices of commodities and other materials declined.

An additional blow came when the index of manufacturing in New York showed that demand was also faltered in the months of May and June.

Harry Rady continued to explain that as these second and third tier companies (junk companies) continue to rally he sees excellent chances to short and build cash, perhaps as never before.

Harry Rady believes that there is still trouble brewing in the equities markets and it is still vulnerable. He also believes that there are still many opportunities to build cash and to short.

Admitting that “It’s been an extraordinary rally,” Rady continued to explain that “even if we’re a little early, we’ve decided to take some chips off the table, raise cash and build some short positions.”

Rady’s feeling is that the recent market rally is a “head-fake” and that we should not expect consumers to suddenly go back to the “buying-spree” that they were participating in in the past.

“We’re approximately 70 percent in cash,” Rady said, describing his portfolio. “The cash position has been built mainly over the last week. As the rally continued, we’ve sold into the rally and put on more shorts.”

Two industries Rady does feel bullish about are the drug and biotechnology sectors.