On maintaining your attitude in bad times
OK, it's the end of the world as we know it. The much promised financial apocalypse is now. Reasonable financial analysts on the news are telling us not to panic and then throwing around mental images of formerly wealthy retirees living in the parks like Katrina refugees or Calcutta beggars. And catch phrases like 'double digit unemployment' spring to mind. That's especially scary when I review unemployment rates for, say the late 70's (not a good time), the mid 80's (even worse)....and realize that the current unemployment stats are not calculated as honestly as those were and so show an unrealistically rosy picture.
Given that I think there is a race war being reignited, it also worries me that the true unemployment rate is already darned near double digits for blacks and latinos, it's easy to envision an angry mob of inner city residents storming my elite little suburb, hoping to get anything of value. An angry mob will not notice that my next door neighbor is Puerto Rican and won't care if I vote for Obama. But I console myself with thinking that maybe they can't afford the gas to drive out here.
And, on a personal level, I am feeling a bit too much like I might be one of those formerly wealthy retirees, since on paper, I've lost a little less than 5% from my portfolio in three days. Good times.
But then, when I search my heart instead of my head, I don't really feel afraid. Why?
Well, I've lived through a lot. I felt the problems of the 70's because I was young and unskilled. No body wanted to hire me then. My working construction was not really a fluke, it was a determination to get a living wage. I had been trained by parents who lived through the Great Depression, and I learned that their wisdom was quite useful. When the Carter/Reagan recession hit, I was clinging desperately to the bottom of the middle class, and partly due to my own screwed up choices and partly because of circumstance, I fell off. I lost my home and most of my possessions. When that happened, I retrained. I got new skills. By the crash of '87, I had already doubled my income from 1984 (well, honestly, that was not hard to do) and was climbing my way up. I owned a home with help from my dad. By the mess of the early 90's I was fairly uneffected, since I had no investments and the only impact to me was I worked longer hours and got no raises and worried a lot about getting laid off. By the mess of the early 00's, I was making the most money of my life so far and cashing in stock options cackling madly. My truck is affectionately named "General Grant" for a reason, and it's not the Civil War.
I watched my family go through Katrina, lose everything, and still throw a world class party.
I'm not going to get into some crap about how if you have love you have everything. I know all too well that being unable to eat or save your house from foreclosure does more to destroy love than love does to fill the belly or pacify a banker. But the total wealth that I have is not all in Edward Jones, or my house. It is in skills, attitudes and networks of people. If God wants us, I believe that He can and will strikes us down. But otherwise, I really think The Quiet One and I will do alright. I may be an old cat, but I think I have not used up all of my 9 lives.
Given that I think there is a race war being reignited, it also worries me that the true unemployment rate is already darned near double digits for blacks and latinos, it's easy to envision an angry mob of inner city residents storming my elite little suburb, hoping to get anything of value. An angry mob will not notice that my next door neighbor is Puerto Rican and won't care if I vote for Obama. But I console myself with thinking that maybe they can't afford the gas to drive out here.
And, on a personal level, I am feeling a bit too much like I might be one of those formerly wealthy retirees, since on paper, I've lost a little less than 5% from my portfolio in three days. Good times.
But then, when I search my heart instead of my head, I don't really feel afraid. Why?
Well, I've lived through a lot. I felt the problems of the 70's because I was young and unskilled. No body wanted to hire me then. My working construction was not really a fluke, it was a determination to get a living wage. I had been trained by parents who lived through the Great Depression, and I learned that their wisdom was quite useful. When the Carter/Reagan recession hit, I was clinging desperately to the bottom of the middle class, and partly due to my own screwed up choices and partly because of circumstance, I fell off. I lost my home and most of my possessions. When that happened, I retrained. I got new skills. By the crash of '87, I had already doubled my income from 1984 (well, honestly, that was not hard to do) and was climbing my way up. I owned a home with help from my dad. By the mess of the early 90's I was fairly uneffected, since I had no investments and the only impact to me was I worked longer hours and got no raises and worried a lot about getting laid off. By the mess of the early 00's, I was making the most money of my life so far and cashing in stock options cackling madly. My truck is affectionately named "General Grant" for a reason, and it's not the Civil War.
I watched my family go through Katrina, lose everything, and still throw a world class party.
I'm not going to get into some crap about how if you have love you have everything. I know all too well that being unable to eat or save your house from foreclosure does more to destroy love than love does to fill the belly or pacify a banker. But the total wealth that I have is not all in Edward Jones, or my house. It is in skills, attitudes and networks of people. If God wants us, I believe that He can and will strikes us down. But otherwise, I really think The Quiet One and I will do alright. I may be an old cat, but I think I have not used up all of my 9 lives.