Thursday, October 30, 2008
Nuts
Maybe you watched the markets in New York do their death spiral in the last fifteen minutes of trading yesterday.
Truthfully, I guess I heard on the news the market was down, but - aside from vague annoyance at the once again perversity of the markets going down on the day the Fed dropped interest rates by a full half percent (what does 1% really mean? Can they drop it to 0 and the banks just pass money back and forth every night for free?), I just can't give it the energy I once did.
What I didn't know was that it likely was triggered by a speech the CEO of GE gave to a group at a business school in Madrid.
That's right. A speech to a class of MBAs in Spain. And someone there must have texted someone on the trading floor in NYC.
Don't you wish whoever it was had waited fifteen minutes until the markets had closed?
Or better yet, included in his message that the CEO was giving a hypothetical example when he said that if GE's revenue had dropped significantly, he would expect their profit to remain much the same?
Instead the message was that GE's CEO told a group in Madrid that their revenues were significantly lower but their profit looked to be as expected.
And the Dow lost 300+ points in those last fifteen minutes.
Finally, in financial dealings as well as in politics, we are owning up to the non-rational, emotional, volatile energy that often trumps reason. And even self-interest.
Alan (all-but-God) Greenspan in his gee-whiz testimony before Congress the other day said he was so sad to discover that his theory that people always act in their own rational self-interest had proved too optimistic.
What a species. If you could endure the embarrassment it would be fascinating to read the writings of the archeologists who come to this planet millions of years from now and try to reconstruct what it was we had in mind.
Truthfully, I guess I heard on the news the market was down, but - aside from vague annoyance at the once again perversity of the markets going down on the day the Fed dropped interest rates by a full half percent (what does 1% really mean? Can they drop it to 0 and the banks just pass money back and forth every night for free?), I just can't give it the energy I once did.
What I didn't know was that it likely was triggered by a speech the CEO of GE gave to a group at a business school in Madrid.
That's right. A speech to a class of MBAs in Spain. And someone there must have texted someone on the trading floor in NYC.
Don't you wish whoever it was had waited fifteen minutes until the markets had closed?
Or better yet, included in his message that the CEO was giving a hypothetical example when he said that if GE's revenue had dropped significantly, he would expect their profit to remain much the same?
Instead the message was that GE's CEO told a group in Madrid that their revenues were significantly lower but their profit looked to be as expected.
And the Dow lost 300+ points in those last fifteen minutes.
Finally, in financial dealings as well as in politics, we are owning up to the non-rational, emotional, volatile energy that often trumps reason. And even self-interest.
Alan (all-but-God) Greenspan in his gee-whiz testimony before Congress the other day said he was so sad to discover that his theory that people always act in their own rational self-interest had proved too optimistic.
What a species. If you could endure the embarrassment it would be fascinating to read the writings of the archeologists who come to this planet millions of years from now and try to reconstruct what it was we had in mind.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Winnowing
Am I the only one who finds it ironic (that is the kindest word I can think to put to it), that one of the two major parties is working to add as many people to the voter rolls as they can, while the other is working feverishly to remove as many people as possible?
I no longer subscribe to the starry-eyed notion I learned in grammar school about ours being the democracy run by ordinary people; I understand the obscene amount of corporate money that has a huge impact on elections and on shaping the legislation we all have to live with. (In my more cynical moments I am glad that this year, for the first time in memory, my candidate is burying the other guy in fund raising. I still think this is terrible for even the semblance of popular democracy we may have left.)
But what understanding can we draw from a Party that believes the fewer people who vote the better their chances?
It begins to look as if we are back to the caricature I drew in my adolescence - probably informed as much as anywhere from the New Yorker cartoons of those fat plutocrats in high-backed chairs in the University Club in NYC, looking down on the peons on the street - that the Republicans were the party of the exploitive rich, and the Democrats were the part for the rest of us.
I was a phony, if only because I garnered this idea from the New Yorker, in those days the pinnacle totem of the Republican rich.
Somehow the conviction - prejudice? - has stuck with me all these years. Even though I have spent my entire adult lifetime among what most would regard as rich - an Episcopal parish priest in the nation's tony watering holes coast to coast - I have been the token radical. Anti-war, tax the very rich, I was tolerated because I had gone to their schools, belonged to their clubs, and as a priest, was considered safely outside the boundaries of any serious consequence.
Ever since Ronald Reagan I have been frustrated watching those we now refer to as Reagan Democrats, votes against their own interests in what has been one of the most successful class antagonisms in modern times.
For George Bush (his grandfather sits on the stage in the photo I have of receiving my diploma from boarding school in 1959) or John McCain, son and grandson of Annapolis graduates who became admirals, try to brand Barak Obama as elite, will one day be regarded as the funniest piece of chutzpah in American politics.
The point is that - since there were, by definition, many fewer really rich people than middle class and poor people - it always made sense that smaller turnouts were good for Republicans and larger for Democrats.
Until Reagan - the consummate movie actor - cajoled lower income people to believe the real American dream is not the equality promised to those who worked hard to make it into the middle class, but hitting some form of the lottery. Whether literally beating the huge odds with the ticket they bought, or perhaps falling into some get-rich-quick scheme like Tyco or Enron, and becoming unimaginably rich.
In other words the dream is not about hard work being rewarded with a decent but not lavish life. It is the hope of striking it really rich.
And Republicans warned us that if we elected Democrats, they would - through taxes and new laws - not simply require rich people to carry a larger share of the common burden, but take away my shot at hitting the jackpot.
So, in the most convoluted dynamic, the party of Wall Street insinuated itself into Main Street.
Democrats aided and assisted - nobly and stupidly - by becoming identified with anti-war, free love, fuck the pigs 60s anarchy.
It looks to have taken Barak Obama to break that generation long dynamic.
So we are now back to Democrats - who may have convinced us that McCain, even with Sarah Palin on the string - are not going to bring us prosperity by fattening the prospects of the plutocrats, looking to sign up as many voters as they can find. And the Republicans - whose cynical seduction of edgy Americans struggling to make ends meet has lost its cache - have hired lots of lawyers to keep voters away from the polls.
Is this a great country, or what?
I no longer subscribe to the starry-eyed notion I learned in grammar school about ours being the democracy run by ordinary people; I understand the obscene amount of corporate money that has a huge impact on elections and on shaping the legislation we all have to live with. (In my more cynical moments I am glad that this year, for the first time in memory, my candidate is burying the other guy in fund raising. I still think this is terrible for even the semblance of popular democracy we may have left.)
But what understanding can we draw from a Party that believes the fewer people who vote the better their chances?
It begins to look as if we are back to the caricature I drew in my adolescence - probably informed as much as anywhere from the New Yorker cartoons of those fat plutocrats in high-backed chairs in the University Club in NYC, looking down on the peons on the street - that the Republicans were the party of the exploitive rich, and the Democrats were the part for the rest of us.
I was a phony, if only because I garnered this idea from the New Yorker, in those days the pinnacle totem of the Republican rich.
Somehow the conviction - prejudice? - has stuck with me all these years. Even though I have spent my entire adult lifetime among what most would regard as rich - an Episcopal parish priest in the nation's tony watering holes coast to coast - I have been the token radical. Anti-war, tax the very rich, I was tolerated because I had gone to their schools, belonged to their clubs, and as a priest, was considered safely outside the boundaries of any serious consequence.
Ever since Ronald Reagan I have been frustrated watching those we now refer to as Reagan Democrats, votes against their own interests in what has been one of the most successful class antagonisms in modern times.
For George Bush (his grandfather sits on the stage in the photo I have of receiving my diploma from boarding school in 1959) or John McCain, son and grandson of Annapolis graduates who became admirals, try to brand Barak Obama as elite, will one day be regarded as the funniest piece of chutzpah in American politics.
The point is that - since there were, by definition, many fewer really rich people than middle class and poor people - it always made sense that smaller turnouts were good for Republicans and larger for Democrats.
Until Reagan - the consummate movie actor - cajoled lower income people to believe the real American dream is not the equality promised to those who worked hard to make it into the middle class, but hitting some form of the lottery. Whether literally beating the huge odds with the ticket they bought, or perhaps falling into some get-rich-quick scheme like Tyco or Enron, and becoming unimaginably rich.
In other words the dream is not about hard work being rewarded with a decent but not lavish life. It is the hope of striking it really rich.
And Republicans warned us that if we elected Democrats, they would - through taxes and new laws - not simply require rich people to carry a larger share of the common burden, but take away my shot at hitting the jackpot.
So, in the most convoluted dynamic, the party of Wall Street insinuated itself into Main Street.
Democrats aided and assisted - nobly and stupidly - by becoming identified with anti-war, free love, fuck the pigs 60s anarchy.
It looks to have taken Barak Obama to break that generation long dynamic.
So we are now back to Democrats - who may have convinced us that McCain, even with Sarah Palin on the string - are not going to bring us prosperity by fattening the prospects of the plutocrats, looking to sign up as many voters as they can find. And the Republicans - whose cynical seduction of edgy Americans struggling to make ends meet has lost its cache - have hired lots of lawyers to keep voters away from the polls.
Is this a great country, or what?
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Friendship Park
The bitter ironies.
For more than 20 years I have lived for all or part of the year in San Diego. When the search committee that brough me there first called me in Dedham, Massachusetts where I lived at the time, I got out a map to check it out.
My God, I said to Lacey, it's nearly in Mexico!
San Diego and Tijuana are separated only by a border.
When we arrived in 1987 it was great fun to take the trolley to the border, walk across and shop, eat, gawk.
It was a little disconcerting that two countries, two cities, could touch each other and be so totally different. I had never realized before crossing the border that all the plant material that so beautifully decorates San Diego is introduced, not native. And requires massive irrigation. The region is semi-desert, as becomes obvious as you cross from green San Diego to dusty brown Tijuana.
Having lived in Africa for a spell, I was struck by how much more Tijuana is like the poverty stricken parts of rural Africa I have seen, than like her sister city San Diego.
In those pre 9/11 days there was still plenty of crossing of the border, legal and illegal. Even then it was cumbersome and time consuming. But hundreds of thousands of people did it every day. I believe it was - may still be - the most crossed border in the world. (Though you wonder about the EU countries now.)
In today's news comes word of the fence being built on the border (I have seen a few pieces of it and it reminds me, for all the world, of the Berlin Wall) going through so-called Friendship Park in Imperial Beach. The park received its name many years ago to signal the close relationship between, not only the two countries, but so many of the people on both sides of the border.
Not only friendship, but kinship. Blood relations.
The fence that has been there for a few years is mesh, and although an affront to all the sentiments in America's founding promises to itself and the world, it allows people to see and even touch - a little- through the mesh.
Now Friendship Park will be divided by a high impermeable concrete barrier.
It is a fantasy to think the election of a new president - even a president who shares color and history with more of the world than any president before him - can quickly undo the violence done to our nation's place in the world. But I pray we elect Barak Obama, not only because I think he may make a really good president, but because it could be a signal to the world that we are ready to begin reengaging rather than building bigger barriers.
For more than 20 years I have lived for all or part of the year in San Diego. When the search committee that brough me there first called me in Dedham, Massachusetts where I lived at the time, I got out a map to check it out.
My God, I said to Lacey, it's nearly in Mexico!
San Diego and Tijuana are separated only by a border.
When we arrived in 1987 it was great fun to take the trolley to the border, walk across and shop, eat, gawk.
It was a little disconcerting that two countries, two cities, could touch each other and be so totally different. I had never realized before crossing the border that all the plant material that so beautifully decorates San Diego is introduced, not native. And requires massive irrigation. The region is semi-desert, as becomes obvious as you cross from green San Diego to dusty brown Tijuana.
Having lived in Africa for a spell, I was struck by how much more Tijuana is like the poverty stricken parts of rural Africa I have seen, than like her sister city San Diego.
In those pre 9/11 days there was still plenty of crossing of the border, legal and illegal. Even then it was cumbersome and time consuming. But hundreds of thousands of people did it every day. I believe it was - may still be - the most crossed border in the world. (Though you wonder about the EU countries now.)
In today's news comes word of the fence being built on the border (I have seen a few pieces of it and it reminds me, for all the world, of the Berlin Wall) going through so-called Friendship Park in Imperial Beach. The park received its name many years ago to signal the close relationship between, not only the two countries, but so many of the people on both sides of the border.
Not only friendship, but kinship. Blood relations.
The fence that has been there for a few years is mesh, and although an affront to all the sentiments in America's founding promises to itself and the world, it allows people to see and even touch - a little- through the mesh.
Now Friendship Park will be divided by a high impermeable concrete barrier.
It is a fantasy to think the election of a new president - even a president who shares color and history with more of the world than any president before him - can quickly undo the violence done to our nation's place in the world. But I pray we elect Barak Obama, not only because I think he may make a really good president, but because it could be a signal to the world that we are ready to begin reengaging rather than building bigger barriers.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Vote Obama!
TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN'T REST EASY
1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.
2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.
3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.
4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!
5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.
1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.
2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.
3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.
4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!
5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Freeze Warning
Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, when all other options have been exhausted. - Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
******
What flaw or short-circuit in my memory makes the weather alert on my screen come as a shock?
THE GROWING SEASON HAS COME TO AN END ACROSS WINDHAM COUNTY VERMONT.TEMPERATURES FELL INTO THE UPPER 20S TO LOWER 30S LAST NIGHT RESULTING IN A WIDESPREAD FROST...WHICH ENDED THE GROWING SEASON.
FREEZE WARNINGS AND OR FROST ADVISORIES WILL NOT BE ISSUED AGAIN FOR THESE AREAS UNTIL THE START OF THE GROWING SEASON NEXT YEAR.
We had, after all, had three killing frosts. After a summer of irrational exuberance the dahlias’ blackened blossoms hung down in shamed defeat.
It’s not as if we don’t know – within a narrow window of a few days – to expect this. But every year it comes as a shock.
Come to an end? A whole other crop of tomatoes so near to harvest?
No more advisories until next year’s growing season? Couldn’t she have finished off with, Have a nice winter? Next year? Can she have any idea how next year rings in the ears of a person my age?
That night my throat turned fiery red, signaling my immune system’s taking the week off. Ignoring all wisdom, and my own experience, proving the pitiless joke - treat a cold and cure it in 7 days, or let it run, and it will take a whole week, - I attacked it with the usual potions.
Wellness pills, 10 a day. Foul tasting Chamomile tea. With lemon. Honey. Vick’s cough drops. Echinacea. Incantations. Nasty disposition.
The cold miraculously resolved itself in two days. Head clear. Eyes stopped watering. Cheerful self. Crisis past.
24 hours later it flowered in my chest. Futile remedies and familiar dark mood resumed.
Two nights later I rolled out of bed for my 2am bathroom visit and when, with my second step (I wonder if I always step first with my right foot?), shifting my weight to my left foot, I nearly went down. How can the plantar fascia become inflamed – during sleep - between 10pm and 2am?
These gratuitous insults to the intelligence and diligence with which we humans manage the invisible forces, - nature, our moods, the economy – do serious damage to our conceit as masters of the universe.
Why would I greet the announcement that the growing season in Windham County has come to an end as if it were a shock? Or the finish of one of the biggest booms of my lifetime in the world’s financial markets’?
Puts me in mind of how we speak to our children, or spouses about *&%#:
If anything should happen to me… Happen? Like what? I hit the lottery? Win Wimbledon? Change gender? What are we taking, anything happen?
Oh, die. Perish the thought. (Just the thought, not me.)
We need not beat up on ourselves about this, it seems built in. It could be useful to store our experience of it somewhere so we wouldn’t have to turn on each other – asses blame – resolving instead to surrender to the hard grief that can cleanse us of toxins this amnesia floods us with when reality rudely routs hubris.
I am awed by my body’s truculent wisdom, disrupting its delicate balance – tuned perfectly 99% of nearly seven decades - when I begin, again, to live as if I may have finally slipped the bonds of finitude.
One day after the frost finished off pretty nearly everything Lacey had labored through summer – with a little help from nature – to nurture, the thermometer climbed past that dreaded red mark and kept rising until it registered nearly 70º.
Monday the financial markets did a dance like the dance Tracey’s cows do that first spring morning he lets them out of the barn. Insane but irresistible.
I took a long bike ride. We ate lunch on the bench we moved to the front of the house since the sun fell too low to clear the roof and warm the backyard. Cosmos lay at our feet, stretched out on his side in the sun.
Reprieve. Chest still congested, foot sore, fortune shriven. Sobered. Reminded. In the meantime, still above ground, exchanging gases. Probably no better prepared for the next reminder.
Since Lacey harvested the grapes on the fence, Jasmine’s grave is visible from the kitchen.
******
What flaw or short-circuit in my memory makes the weather alert on my screen come as a shock?
THE GROWING SEASON HAS COME TO AN END ACROSS WINDHAM COUNTY VERMONT.TEMPERATURES FELL INTO THE UPPER 20S TO LOWER 30S LAST NIGHT RESULTING IN A WIDESPREAD FROST...WHICH ENDED THE GROWING SEASON.
FREEZE WARNINGS AND OR FROST ADVISORIES WILL NOT BE ISSUED AGAIN FOR THESE AREAS UNTIL THE START OF THE GROWING SEASON NEXT YEAR.
We had, after all, had three killing frosts. After a summer of irrational exuberance the dahlias’ blackened blossoms hung down in shamed defeat.
It’s not as if we don’t know – within a narrow window of a few days – to expect this. But every year it comes as a shock.
Come to an end? A whole other crop of tomatoes so near to harvest?
No more advisories until next year’s growing season? Couldn’t she have finished off with, Have a nice winter? Next year? Can she have any idea how next year rings in the ears of a person my age?
That night my throat turned fiery red, signaling my immune system’s taking the week off. Ignoring all wisdom, and my own experience, proving the pitiless joke - treat a cold and cure it in 7 days, or let it run, and it will take a whole week, - I attacked it with the usual potions.
Wellness pills, 10 a day. Foul tasting Chamomile tea. With lemon. Honey. Vick’s cough drops. Echinacea. Incantations. Nasty disposition.
The cold miraculously resolved itself in two days. Head clear. Eyes stopped watering. Cheerful self. Crisis past.
24 hours later it flowered in my chest. Futile remedies and familiar dark mood resumed.
Two nights later I rolled out of bed for my 2am bathroom visit and when, with my second step (I wonder if I always step first with my right foot?), shifting my weight to my left foot, I nearly went down. How can the plantar fascia become inflamed – during sleep - between 10pm and 2am?
These gratuitous insults to the intelligence and diligence with which we humans manage the invisible forces, - nature, our moods, the economy – do serious damage to our conceit as masters of the universe.
Why would I greet the announcement that the growing season in Windham County has come to an end as if it were a shock? Or the finish of one of the biggest booms of my lifetime in the world’s financial markets’?
Puts me in mind of how we speak to our children, or spouses about *&%#:
If anything should happen to me… Happen? Like what? I hit the lottery? Win Wimbledon? Change gender? What are we taking, anything happen?
Oh, die. Perish the thought. (Just the thought, not me.)
We need not beat up on ourselves about this, it seems built in. It could be useful to store our experience of it somewhere so we wouldn’t have to turn on each other – asses blame – resolving instead to surrender to the hard grief that can cleanse us of toxins this amnesia floods us with when reality rudely routs hubris.
I am awed by my body’s truculent wisdom, disrupting its delicate balance – tuned perfectly 99% of nearly seven decades - when I begin, again, to live as if I may have finally slipped the bonds of finitude.
One day after the frost finished off pretty nearly everything Lacey had labored through summer – with a little help from nature – to nurture, the thermometer climbed past that dreaded red mark and kept rising until it registered nearly 70º.
Monday the financial markets did a dance like the dance Tracey’s cows do that first spring morning he lets them out of the barn. Insane but irresistible.
I took a long bike ride. We ate lunch on the bench we moved to the front of the house since the sun fell too low to clear the roof and warm the backyard. Cosmos lay at our feet, stretched out on his side in the sun.
Reprieve. Chest still congested, foot sore, fortune shriven. Sobered. Reminded. In the meantime, still above ground, exchanging gases. Probably no better prepared for the next reminder.
Since Lacey harvested the grapes on the fence, Jasmine’s grave is visible from the kitchen.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Down, down we go
If there was any doubt that everything about money - from buying a Big Mac to banks lending each other billions in the overnight market - is built on mutual confidence more than on any of the complex economic theories one learns in places like Harvard Business School, those doubts have evaporated along with trillions of theoretical dollars in the past several days.
There used to be a guy in my writing group - very talented film maker and omni-bright, with knowledge about endless different subjects - who went on a jag of about six months writing in different ways about the fact that money is an illusion to which we all subscribe for the convenience of a seemingly ordered civilization.
It has nothing of intrinsic value except what you and I ascribe to it. This became literally true, I suppose, in 1971, when Nixon, with the support of Congress, removed the dollar from the gold standard. The reasoning was that it constricted trade and the accumulation of wealth, and until recently, the startling affluence of at least our part of the world seemed to have proved that right.
His engaging writing spun what then seemed like a kind of end of the world saga of one day people looking at each other and acknowledging that they had been living in a fairy tale, and suddenly, since no one trusted or believed in the value of their money, their money became valueless.
We loved listening to him read this stuff to us. We laughed, marveled at his vast knowledge of international finance, and feigned terror at the possibility that such a thing could actually happen.
I haven't seen Roger for some time. I suspect he's a combination of smug and terrorized.
I somehow doubt he ever thought he would have to watch his clever plot come alive.
There used to be a guy in my writing group - very talented film maker and omni-bright, with knowledge about endless different subjects - who went on a jag of about six months writing in different ways about the fact that money is an illusion to which we all subscribe for the convenience of a seemingly ordered civilization.
It has nothing of intrinsic value except what you and I ascribe to it. This became literally true, I suppose, in 1971, when Nixon, with the support of Congress, removed the dollar from the gold standard. The reasoning was that it constricted trade and the accumulation of wealth, and until recently, the startling affluence of at least our part of the world seemed to have proved that right.
His engaging writing spun what then seemed like a kind of end of the world saga of one day people looking at each other and acknowledging that they had been living in a fairy tale, and suddenly, since no one trusted or believed in the value of their money, their money became valueless.
We loved listening to him read this stuff to us. We laughed, marveled at his vast knowledge of international finance, and feigned terror at the possibility that such a thing could actually happen.
I haven't seen Roger for some time. I suspect he's a combination of smug and terrorized.
I somehow doubt he ever thought he would have to watch his clever plot come alive.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Deer in the Headlights?
If you're anything like me (who is every anything like anyone else?), you're watching the panic in the financial markets, as it spills over into every part of national life, with a combination of dread and fascination.
I am retired. I live on a pension (invested, of course), social security, dividends from investments (disappearing fast) and, mercifully, some income from my wife's job. Although she is five years younger than I am, she is several years older than I was when I quit. She is an interior designer, and though many of her clients have seemed to be able to call on limitless resources in the past, this is the present. So who knows?
What am I doing about all this?
Watching. Having phone conversations with my financial advisor who is even at greater risk than I.
I feel lucky to be sitting in my 1830 Vermont farmhouse (where today I am burning $4.67 a gallon oil to stay warm) where I think I can hunker down and live pretty simply if need be.
But I've never been through a real worldwide depression.
My father did. And I was powerfully formed by his experience which has left me cautious about money and suspicious of the staying power of boom times. But I have lived through maybe three big drops in markets and economy since i began paying attention at about 40. And that both stands me in good stead and likely puts me at potentially greater risk.
Stands me in good stead because I don't panic easily. I have ridden it down and waited, then watched it repair itself and climb back.
Puts me a potentially greater risk because it may be that I have a wrong-headed sense that this is just another downturn that is going to turn around and recover like the others. Maybe this is different. Maybe, as some have suggested, this is the end of the way we have been doing business in this country for more than 100 years.
And it could turn out that, since I am 68 years old, I will not live long enough to see whatever recovery this disaster may give way to.
Well, at risk of turning out to be the deer in the headlights, frozen in place until the oncoming vehicle smushes me, I'll continue watching one of the most startling illustrations of my lifetime, in the twin truths that nobody - not even the smartest people on earth - really understands all the forces that determine how things go, and that we humans are herd animals, rushing like lemmings over the cliff when all the others are, mostly because, well, because they are.
I am retired. I live on a pension (invested, of course), social security, dividends from investments (disappearing fast) and, mercifully, some income from my wife's job. Although she is five years younger than I am, she is several years older than I was when I quit. She is an interior designer, and though many of her clients have seemed to be able to call on limitless resources in the past, this is the present. So who knows?
What am I doing about all this?
Watching. Having phone conversations with my financial advisor who is even at greater risk than I.
I feel lucky to be sitting in my 1830 Vermont farmhouse (where today I am burning $4.67 a gallon oil to stay warm) where I think I can hunker down and live pretty simply if need be.
But I've never been through a real worldwide depression.
My father did. And I was powerfully formed by his experience which has left me cautious about money and suspicious of the staying power of boom times. But I have lived through maybe three big drops in markets and economy since i began paying attention at about 40. And that both stands me in good stead and likely puts me at potentially greater risk.
Stands me in good stead because I don't panic easily. I have ridden it down and waited, then watched it repair itself and climb back.
Puts me a potentially greater risk because it may be that I have a wrong-headed sense that this is just another downturn that is going to turn around and recover like the others. Maybe this is different. Maybe, as some have suggested, this is the end of the way we have been doing business in this country for more than 100 years.
And it could turn out that, since I am 68 years old, I will not live long enough to see whatever recovery this disaster may give way to.
Well, at risk of turning out to be the deer in the headlights, frozen in place until the oncoming vehicle smushes me, I'll continue watching one of the most startling illustrations of my lifetime, in the twin truths that nobody - not even the smartest people on earth - really understands all the forces that determine how things go, and that we humans are herd animals, rushing like lemmings over the cliff when all the others are, mostly because, well, because they are.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Gone Missing
I haven't gone missing, but I have been away, and am now living on the sidelines while I watch the incredible drama unfold, and mourn the death of our noble Siamese cat.
I just saw a poll that said 56% of the American people say they have been harmed by the meltdown in the country's financials.
The other 44% must either be living in caves, or unconscious.
I just saw a poll that said 56% of the American people say they have been harmed by the meltdown in the country's financials.
The other 44% must either be living in caves, or unconscious.
