Hi Jay, I am gradually falling under the sway of the "not alarmist" crowd.
Last I looked the world is still turning in the same direction at roughly the same rate of rotation.
OK, so maybe DJ's right and some German folks are trying to fling us all off into space by making it rotate faster or slower or stop all together... but it's so unlikely that it's also besides the point.
I mean, here we've just come through what by any measure has to be called a "collapse". NASD has undergone negative expansion of about 60%. They called the blip in '87 a crash, and that was only a few tens of percent by comparison. And yet there is no discernable rubble except a lot of moaning from a bunch of the clueless who shouldn't have been out with keys on their kites in the first place.
Prudent folks like my parents have been shaken but not stirred.
We've had two of the largest financial crumblings take place back-to-back (Argentina and Enron) and there are no panics. My ATM card still generates fiat money as fast as I can spend it. Which is admittedly slower than most of my neighbors, but the point of this race is to die before crossing the finish line and it seems they haven't figured that out yet.
Not surprising since most of us are awash in cash flow.
And it shows a bit in my waistline, as it always the case this time of year.
Sure, folks are getting laid off right, left and center. At least that somewhat accurately describes the situation on my street. And yet I find myself in the midst of what has to be called an unprecedented boom in startup enterprise. Indeed, I am leaving the drudgery of daytime soap operas and returning to the work force by invitation. Kind of a negative layoff. And meanwhile actively facilitating two other startup business opportunities. Doesn't look like there's a shortage of work. Just a shortage of work like folks used to enjoy.
Gas prices? Cheap. At least in comparison. Like stocks are cheap in comparison. My SUV is getting old. On the second engine, second set of rotors, almost into the second sixth digit on the odometer... Time to replace it. But that's the extent of my decisions so far. Thus my table is littered with brochures of even bigger gas guzzlers which feature gadgets such as hand stitched suede accented leather comfort recliners, electric seat warmers and TV for the kiddies in the back and safety devices that are unsafe for children and so on. Not so much a utility vehicle as happy people transporters.
Oh, and the thread will note that they are now all coming standard equipped with satellite gizmo gadgetry that would make Maurice jump up and down shouting "See, I told you so!!!" Except when I demanded the Qualcomm version instead of the one that comes ready-built, the dealer gave me a blank stare. Which might cause Maurice to pause for a moment in his agitation... but perhaps that's asking too much <g>
...but I digress...
Then there's real-estate. Four of the last five houses that sold on my street this year met an untimely end at the hands of a bulldozer driver. Pulverized into splinters and carted away in big dumpster bins. Only to have been replaced by huge stone mansions. Seven years ago my house was one of the largest on the block. Not any more. The garage of the house that just completed last month is larger than my neighbor's house.
Of course, the 8,200 square foot house across the street from me is still for sale. My neighbor doesn't chock it up to a slump in the market, but more to pure common sense. There are too many small houses available. Why buy a large old house when it's much more fun to drive a bulldozer around like mad max, crunching over what used to be a small old house, and then get to experience the new-paint smell of a freshly built new large house, made to measure. For roughly the same price. My new neighbor informs me that the fifteen minutes he spent driving a roaring steel-tracked monster through crunching wreckage took 25 years off his life! At least for those fifteen minutes and some days thereafter. I remarked that it might have been wiser to purchase the yellow machine rather than the house, and we both laughed. And I thought of that hummer again...
OK. So it's true that my last minute Christmas shopping was easy. On Saturday afternoon I managed to find one of several vacant parking spot close to the mall in about five seconds, and purchased gifts in seven different top-end stores in just under 27 minutes. Which might have been faster except that in two instances the sales clerks seemed to understand, appreciate and even enjoy the fine art of haggling. Or perhaps they were just bored and enjoyed my company. And while this may appear on the surface to be proof of bad news for the doomers and gloomers, I can assure you that it was very good news for me. I then savored several hours of unexpected vacancy in my agenda sipping outrageously overpriced coffee. One of those that I put on my visa card, and where the $0.27 in transaction fees thus generated still didn't dent the obscene margins.
And thought to myself, this is a pretty good life!
So the point of this rather directionless post is that despite all of what has to be called calamity that is happening around me, it's not freakin' obvious.
If I cast aside an objective view of pain and suffering in the world, and look purely at my own selfish situation, then I come to a very Pezz-like perspective: what's the big deal? Everything's on sale!!!
If I was just looking at it from the perspective of my own problems, well, there's absolutely nothing remotely resembling a boom or a bust or a recovery around me. Indeed, everything is suddenly getting a lot cheaper.
So if it's not obvious to folks like me who are looking for it (trembling in flak-jacket, peeking out from under kevlar lined steel helmet into the tripple vision periscopic sight that protudes only barely through the vent-hole in my bunker)... Then maybe I am guilty of inventing the bad news.
It looks like it might be a lot more fun to frolic with Pezz and Maurice and MeDroogies for a while.
Just an observation and food for thought.
John |
