After working the graveyard shift today, I had to stay up for a few hours so I could run some errands before hitting the sack. I spent the time between getting home and the opening of the businesses I had to visit checking out the financial news... big mistake! When I was young and immortal, I used to joke that my retirement plan was an early grave, and everytime I went out on a weekend bender, I was 'paying in'. Now that I am older, wiser, and conscious of my eventual mortality, I max out my 401(k) because, when I began paying into a 401(k) it seemed like a good idea. Even though the Dow dropped more than two thousand points, I'm not freaking out- I'm not planning on retiring for a while, so there's time for the market to recover enough so that, while I will still be eating nettles, they won't be my sole source of nutrition in my latter years.
I have to observe, though, that, despite being known as the 'Party of Business', the Republicans are terrible at running functioning economies. The last stock market crash before this current one took place on Dubya's watch, now this crash is taking place under Trump's watch. You want recessions? Vote Republican! Meanwhile, I think I'll stop looking at the financial reports... on paper, I've lost thousands of dollars. I'd be tempted to make some stock purchases to take advantage of the current low prices, but the money I'd use has been earmarked for, you got it, my 401(k). At least the stinging nettles are coming back into season, so I'll be getting my hands on SOME green.
Economics is supposed to be a science, even if people talk about it more in theory than in effect, engineering entire economies to create experiments for human beings to live in like so many lab rats....(or do they?) to study money shit as it behaves with different stressors, etc. Conservatives seem to approach the economy with superstition, invoke dark magic to create profits, and then seem shocked that the illusion of money isn't actual value. (I have a pension courtesy of my union but wonder if my employer will be sucked undersea before I retire. My employer is an entire peninsular US state that floods. Money can be, in fact, illusory.) I trust Democratic governments--they believe in cash.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I have several can openers as part of my retirement plan. You never can lay your hand on one, unless you own at least three, same with corkscrews. And I reckon, it's always a safe bet to assume one might be eating out of cans at some point. I did it in my twenties. I can do it again. Sadly, the people who wreak the most havoc on the economy eat delicacies off anyone else's back and never think they will scrounge for water to make ramen happen. If shit really hit the fan, I guess I would take nourishment from knowing sheltered folks wouldn't make it except from the mercy of the knowing.
I don't really consider economics a science, it's just that economists like to take on the mantle of science to boost their egos.
ReplyDeleteEating out of cans... knowing how to do so kept me functional post-Sandy. Four days of sardines and saltines, for the most part. There's a very good reason I make foraging a part of my routine during the growing season.