Has anyone in the family been affected by the current "serious economic crisis"? Or fear being aversely affected soon? Being outside the States, I often have difficulty taking the actual temperature of situations.
Along these lines, did you listen to Bush's speech last night? Why did he need to make it? Because people are beginning to question the wisdom behind his administration's bailout plan and he needed to convince the American people that it is the only solution, of course. If you did listen, any sense of déjà vu? Particularly right around minute 6? The same sort of alarmist discourse used several years ago to prod the country into war in Irak. I'm not an economist, so I can't in any way really objectively judge the validity of the plan. What bothers me, however, is the assumption behind the explanation of the bailout's necessity that our American ultra credit based consumer society is to be upheld at all cost. Perhaps this crisis could be an opportunity (there's always an element of pain to change) to get our financial aspirations back in tune with our economic and social realities.
For a humoristic view of the situation, click here. Just a note, despite the differences, France's economy hasn't been doing any better lately. And in spite of Sarkozy's recent call for CEOs of companies responsible for the crisis in the US to be held personally responsible, you should know that the French have never neglected the coddling of theirs!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Serious Economic Crisis
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To the best of my knowledge, we have not been affected. Well, that's not entirely true ... Jenn comes home periodically bemoaning the fact that the stock market is down (which adversely affects her retirement accounts). Due to the fact that we aren't retiring anytime soon, I tell her not to worry about it and then we go back to life as usual.
Anwyl and I have been avoiding opening our most recent retirement account statements. I'm sure it would be depressing. But we're not in the bracket or the business where we would be directly affected yet except by extreme annoyance at the Shrub's "bailout" -- can you believe they want to keep paying the folks who got their banks in this huge mess their giant salaries? I for one am in an "off with their heads" kind of mood (figuratively speaking, I think.) We were in London when the news broke, it was interesting seeing how intense the news was there -- there were layoffs right away -- which there may be here I suppose but they're not being reported with the same vigor.
I'm sure my little stock portfolio has taken a beating as well. But as I'm not planning on needing that money any time soon, I have the same attitude toward it that Evan does. In a few years or so, things'll be back to normal again ...
So far the direct impact was not selling my house. The buyer freaked out about the daily barrage of bad news at the national level and his bank kept upping the $ amount he needed to come up with. I too am concerned about losing money in my retirement and deferred comp accounts, particularly if markets take a generation to recover.
I'm all for borrowing less, at individual and national levels, but if the credit market seizes to where no one can borrow at all that will be bad for everyone. Unfortunately most of those that made lots of money will be OK with or without a bailout (or, if they aren't it's their own fault). The rest of us will pay for the mess one way or the other.
Not to mention our poor aunt is unemployed ... stupid economy. :- )
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