More seriously, I'm finding this whole interplay between the government and the financial sector completely fascinating. Terrifying and confusing, and painfully abstract, but fascinating.
I find myself wondering a little bit about things like Roth IRAs, which have statistically always appreciated. It's like I can hear a million financial advisers panicking. It kind of makes me want to invest more, just to see what'll happen.
Aw, what's a measly seven percent to the Dow (down 778 points as I write this)? On Black Monday, 1987, it lost almost 23%. I remember that day well, for I was to bowl in a league that night with a bunch of middle-aged men who stumbled, shell-shocked, into the bowling alley wondering where a fifth of their retirement portfolios just went.
and it's working on 800. Time to "pull in yer horns" as my dad says. The thing I wonder about is, if you've got any kind of investment, typically this is NOT the time to be jumping out of it if you don't have to. Rather, it is the time to be looking at buying.
However...I'm fairly certain we haven't seen the bottom yet, and to compound the problem if ya do jump out, how much is cash going to be worth? We went completely off the gold standard under Nixon, and our currency isn't based on anything concrete anymore. Germany had this problem during the Great Depression where their currency became effectively worthless, and it took great wodges of cash just for a loaf of bread.
And it's to the point that I don't know whether it is better to let things fail without a government bailout, making things presumably easier to fix after the rubble of collapse, or if the bailout will actually help solve any problems rather than band-aid our current situation.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 08:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 08:04 pm (UTC)More seriously, I'm finding this whole interplay between the government and the financial sector completely fascinating. Terrifying and confusing, and painfully abstract, but fascinating.
I find myself wondering a little bit about things like Roth IRAs, which have statistically always appreciated. It's like I can hear a million financial advisers panicking. It kind of makes me want to invest more, just to see what'll happen.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 08:25 pm (UTC):: ducking ::
no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 08:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 09:45 pm (UTC)What this means for our future, I don't know, but America's economic pretend-primacy is clearly over.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-09-29 09:48 pm (UTC)However...I'm fairly certain we haven't seen the bottom yet, and to compound the problem if ya do jump out, how much is cash going to be worth? We went completely off the gold standard under Nixon, and our currency isn't based on anything concrete anymore. Germany had this problem during the Great Depression where their currency became effectively worthless, and it took great wodges of cash just for a loaf of bread.
And it's to the point that I don't know whether it is better to let things fail without a government bailout, making things presumably easier to fix after the rubble of collapse, or if the bailout will actually help solve any problems rather than band-aid our current situation.