Everyone who has been awake during the last week knows that we have a congressional bailout plan in progress. If you are readings this, you know how I feel about it.
I was talking with a colleague about the status of the economy the other day. He was rather worried about slipping into a depression. I asked him what the unemployment rate was during the great depression (estimated to be around 25%). I told him that if our situation exactly mimicked the great depression, and we followed the basic rule of probability, he would have a 75% chance of not being unemployed.
The real problem is that people have become acclimated to spending more than they make. Even if these people retain their jobs and have a decrease in pay, at the very least they risk a significant shock in their home life. All of those consumer goods (e.g. $1000 fishing rods, guns, boats, and 4-wheelers) that they bought as an investment (read: excuse to live outside of their means) are now devaluing proportionately to the ability of others to purchase them. So unfortunately, their consumerism simply cannot help them lift themselves out of this misery.
In my effort to ready myself for the very unlikely event that I am significantly impacted by the economy*, I bought four 55 gallon water barrels yesterday. At least I will have something to drink until this resolves itself. Maybe I should buy a couple cases of Tang.
*footnote: Although I work at a union school and I have a signed two year agreement with an implicit agreement that I will work for 6 years toward tenure, I am one of about 85 new hires this year. Intuitively this means I am more likely to get axed than all but 84 members of the faculty (AND there are over 4000 faculty members here).
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Investing today for tenure later...
4 comments:
TOTALLY AGREE! I cannot get over the anger that I feel at the very basic principle that is being ignored across our country--DON'T SPEND MORE THAN YOU MAKE. My biggest issue with this is that the problem reaches all the way to CEO's and their companies.
Then, the government thinks it's okay to bail out some huge companies that made huge mistakes, but not help the citizens who have the same problem.
I really hope your job is safe, and I'm pretty sure it will be. Thanks for the forum to be able to scream my annoyances about all this! :P
Um,yeah. Life's scary right now. Where did you buy your water barrels? I've actually been looking for something like that. Dang American consumerism.
I picked them up at an emergency supply place in Fontana. I Googled 55 gallon water barrel and it came up with a place nearby. I'm sure that there are at least a few outlets near D.C.
I hoped the bail out wouldn't go through since it's unnatural to forgo the consequences of action. Society inherently represents the interior lives of its individual citizenry and we have some very "sick" citizens. Right now I'm "stuck" (and happy to be so) in a small yet expensive house with a loan I can afford which means no one's going to bail me out and when I bought it, lenders kept saying, "Why do you want this conservative, fixed rate loan? You need to go big, get an adjustable...I mean, you're thinking along the lines of the grandparents generation..this isn't the 1930's you know?!" Oh yeah?
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