Consumer anxiety
November 17, 2007
Late last night after I was too tired to do anything I started reading some political weblogs. And one pointed to an economist giving a rather bleak prediction of economic armageddon here. I’ve been fighting off almost crushing anxiety ever since. I think it probably has something to do with having a kid who is four-point-five months old. Not that we’d be in much better shape financially if we didn’t have a child, but I would have been less worried about it if I didn’t have to worry about providing for Cory as well.
Part of me feels like I should have prepared better for this kind of eventuality, but another part of me feels like if we have an economic disaster, any plans I made would have been so much spit in the wind. After all, it’s the big investment firms — the places I would have put in charge of my money if I had not been spending it all on these CDs I’m preparing to get rid of — that have been hiding the risks their funds have been taking on and playing silly games with people’s homeowning dreams.
I guess we will just have to wait and see. And try not to spend too much time worrying until there’s a clear problem.
Posted in Commerce
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November 17th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
When the people in charge of money — government, large corporations, investment and insurance companies, and banks — are irresponsible and even predatory, individuals cannot do anything to prepare. In a democracy we can vote for real fiscal responsibility that places some curbs on corporate greed in favor of permitting citizens to live in relative security. Other civilized nations have figured this out, along with those little necessities like universal health care, building roads and bridges, funding schools and education, public safety, etc. The American cult of individual responsibility that defines every protection as a government handout has left people with too much anxiety and not much to depend upon.
November 18th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
A number of years ago, when we were having those really bad drops in the stock market, I stopped opening my statements for my retirement funds, IRAs, and the like. I was stressing out over the fact that every month I was losing more than I was putting in. My CPA father keeps asking me what they’ve gotten to and I tell him, I don’t know and I don’t want to know. It’s the only way I can stay sane. Everything involved with them is automatic — money going in and all. I have money put automatically into high interest savings that isn’t easy to get to every month. Then I just try to worry about the next six months or so at a time. It’s the only way I can deal with it. I try not to worry about those predictions because every book on the market I’ve ever read says that given time, the economy always rights itself; you just have to not panic.
November 18th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Deep breaths, Thud. Deep breaths. Repeat after me: Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. Go to Spotsylvania and drink bourbon and relax on December 8. Everything will be okay.
Anxiety is bad for you. It’s better that you calm down and still be around for Cory, rather than worrying yourself into a stroke or heart attack and leaving him and the wife behind. Sorry, that part probably didn’t help.
Breathe…
November 18th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
To quote the great philosopher Rosanne Rosannadanna…it’s always something.
Keep in mind what your parents and their parents before had at hand to worry about. It’s all relative and in the grand scheme, there really isn’t that much we can do to protect our kids from most of what befalls us so keep doing that which you do have control over, love your son, love your wife and get on with that as your major focus.
November 25th, 2007 at 7:11 am
Good thing the war in Iraq has given you access to more affordable fuel.
I don’t know what’s more scary, that the election has been rigged to get capitalism’s special needs poster boy into the big chair, or that he was chosen by the people. Twice.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Pstonie, I think the really scary thing is that both alternatives are true. Although in the first case he wasn’t really “chosen by the people,” since Gore won the national popular vote.
November 26th, 2007 at 11:07 am
See, if you just give him a chance he will win your heart.