Friday, FY08 week 47
Quote of the Week: The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. – John Kenneth Galbraith
Four thoughts for week 47.
1) If you're like me, you must occasionally wonder how it is that members of the financial media draw a salary with a straight face, versed as most are at stating the total obvious in such an obvious manner.
It would seem to me that if they're going to keep restating the readily apparent, these writers could at least do it with a lighter hand, even a meta sense of humor.
John Bird and John Fortune – The Two Johns – are masters at skewering the obvious. When you're done with this IDE piece, cut and paste this URL into your browser's address window... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g
It's appropriate for work and it is wicked.
2) We're told that humor is supposed to be a refuge in times such as these – times when 10 different people are likely upset or worried about 10 different things.
Were I one of those 10, you'd find me threatening to open a vein if I read yet another story about decimated 401Ks.
Yes, it's a story – a big one – but it's one that's rarely reported with any understanding or depth.
Most sky-is-falling 401K stories breezily ignore the fact that for the past 20 years, along with managing their work and family lives, middle-class Americans have been forced (as in no choice) to manage their retirements as well.
Prior to the late 1980s, professionals at pension funds managed most of the middle class' retirement money. That's all these pros did, as in market immersed five days a week.
But, today, on top of all your professional competence and expertise... your family management skills... you're supposed to be a professional money manger, too – on the wire with no net.
And, if you're not good at it or you admit you're worried, then chances are good that some snotty geezer with a pension, and who's also sucking your social security dry, will look down his nose and cluck at you about the size of your house or TV.
That same geezer has been killing you for years... taking dead aim on the middle class... voting time and time again for people who bastardized the definition of free markets... mistakenly convinced that it meantno regulations... no rules... just unfettered Ivy Leaguers on Wall Street making the world a better place for themselves, which trickles down to you.
