These are troubling times, as I don’t have to tell you. And it’s hard not to worry. Fortunately, we have distractions. Unfortunately, even in these thoroughly distractible times, there never seem to be enough of them.
Still, as I’m writing this, Mitt Romney has just said that “corporations are people,” which is, I’m guessing, a winning campaign slogan only inside the Supreme Court. And even there, you’re barely ahead. I’ve e-mailed the clip to everyone I know who needs a laugh, which means everyone I know.
Meanwhile, I had the DVR set to tape both Romney on the debate floor and Orton-Tebow competing for the can’t-get-off-the-floor Broncos. It’s a wonderful weekend when you can spend your days simultaneously breaking down on tape the work of Ron Paul and Brady Quinn.
But, if I’m honest, the great thing about the weekend is that the stock market takes a few days off and I don’t have to think about it, except in those times I find myself softly weeping. Or when I’m checking to see when the Asian markets open.
I know what the professionals say — that, whatever happens, the market always comes back. It’s true, if you trust your history. But why, I wonder, is history more trustworthy than anything else these days?
Since everything has happened sometime before, I assume our acid-reflux market — the taste, it turns out, is far worse when it goes down — has happened before, too. But seriously? One day, 600 down, the next 400 up, the next 500 down, the next 400 up. I remember the days of irrational exuberance. What have we got now? I know irrational has to fit in there somewhere.
The hardest job at the newspaper belongs to the poor schlub who has to explain the daily gyrations. One day, it’s the Italian debt. The next day, the Italian debt disappears? Or did we just forgot about it hoping for the next Berlusconi scandal, which is always more fun?
I can’t remember the first day I ever thought in terms of having a portfolio. I can remember, though, that my earliest portfolio consisted basically of three ripped jeans and a stack of 45s. It moved up to four pairs of ripped jeans and a stack of albums (Rubber Soul always on top). Then it was five ripped jeans and a stack of 8-tracks. You get idea.
Somewhere around the time of cassettes, everything changed. And now my wife and I have the usual lineup of 401(k), 403(b), TIAA-CREF, IRA, IRA-SEP and the rest of the alphabet gang.
A few years ago, I made the terrible mistake of consolidating everything, so I can now call up my balance in the time it takes to fire up the old iPhone.
As a sports statistics geek, I recognize that this is the real moneyball. Go to any stock market website. You get charts, graphs, red numbers, green numbers. And, yes, the photo of that guy with his head buried in his hands any day the market tanks.
I don’t overreact, unless you count the weeping. I don’t panic. I ride through the good times and the bad. This is, I’m told, the right strategy, but it has little to do with strategy. It’s more like paralysis.
It was only a few weeks ago that I loudly announced in the office I was getting out of everything before we bumbled our way into default. If anyone looked up, it was only to smirk.
My money stayed in. And, like my stomach, it keeps bouncing.
Four European countries are so concerned about the market they’ve temporarily banned the ability to sell short. Buying short is betting that a stock will go down before you buy it. It’s sort of like betting with your insurance company that your house will burn down.
Of course, they have real issues over there with cities burning. In London, it’s not just the bridge. No one is sure what to make of it, but it makes everyone uneasy, which is the order of the day.
If you saw the recent Washington Post poll, it showed Americans losing faith everywhere — in Democrats, in Republicans, in the direction of the country, in the ability to fix the nation’s economy.
The Gang o’ 12 is now set, but who really thinks the super committee will make any difference? First you have to believe that cutting the debt is the fastest way back to economic health.
I just read a scary article in the Atlantic called “Can the Middle Class Be Saved?” I told you there weren’t enough distractions. It’s a great piece, and this one statistic really struck me: In 1967, 97 percent of 30- to 50-year-old men with high school diplomas were working. In 2010, the number had dropped to 76 percent. This has nothing to do with debt. It has everything to do with life at the end of the industrial age. The same trend is apparently occurring in all the rich countries.
I doubt if those men not working have much money invested in the stock market. But here’s the thing: I’m sure it doesn’t make them feel one bit better.
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@.
