Can I Get Some Fries With That?

My 401K account was battered again today, but at least now it is extra crispy. Hopefully, there will be a spicy aftertaste.

When the Wall St. news folks say over and over again that "stocks have been battered in another day of trading", I can't help but picture a bunch of fat country guys sitting around a deep fryer, taking my savings, dipping them in egg and rolling them in some flour before chucking them in. But then, I go to my account online every day, as now I am almost obsessed with it, and notice more of it is just gone. "It was there just yesterday.", I think. Then, when I am not looking, an evil computer somewhere accesses my account and changes the balance number yet again, in the negative direction.


I was out the other night and a person I had met was telling me that her dad, who just recently retired, now has to un-retire and get a job. I have also heard of people who were ready to finally stop working after all their years of labor, and are unable to because of the economic times we are in. That to me is a tragedy.

But who are we to be angry with? The government? They waste untold millions of our money already, have been for decades, and then bail out businesses who made bad decisions and are continuing to make even more bad decisions. In the news this morning, I learned AIG, the insurance giant who the American taxpayers now own a huge chunk of, just sent all of their top folks on a half-million dollar business retreat. I would almost rather they let me keep all that money, cut my taxes substantially, and tell big business to get their own act together. But on the other hand, they are (with our tax money) trying to prop up the big business that helps provide the investment income my retirement is supposed to grow on.

Should we be angry with the corporations and banks? They run off greed and profit. Ahhh, good old capitalism. I do love it so. I fault these guys for running themselves out so thin and risking my investment money. However, by doing so they create higher dividends and returns for me and other stockholders which I do like. You really can't blame them. When in trouble, they ran to Uncle Sam with an open hand and he almost automatically pulled out the piggybank. It's so much easier to take big risks with a giant safety net under you.

In the end though, I blame myself. I live in a country where I am ultimately the decider of where I want to work, live, go to church, and where I keep my retirement money. I pay money to the businesses I choose to buy from. I decide on the causes I want to donate my money to. Also, I choose to bank with a big business and have another big business handle my insurance needs, and yet another to handle my mortgage. No one comes to me and tells me where to put my retirement money. On top of this, I decide who I get to vote on for the government. I just wish I could vote for someone who would let me keep a lot more of what I make and agree to cut government spending back to a reasonable level, but that probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. One of my friends did suggest a write-in campaign for the upcoming presidential election, which in light of the current campaign rhetoric, is starting to sound like a good idea.

Through all of this, I have decided to remain optimistic. I really don't think the sky is falling and hope I'm right. I have always put my retirement in fairly high risk vehicles because I am still fairly young (I think), and time is on my side. Later on, I will decide to begin decreasing my risk and move my money to safer and safer havens. I have a friend who moved all of his retirement out of the stock market and is not even in the negative right now. While a lot of people out there are depressed and feel they are getting clobbered, I feel like although my retirement balance is dropping, right now I am buying extra shares and building my retirement on the cheap. I just hope it works out. My only real fear is that those shares will continue getting battered and fried and there won't be any ketchup to go with it.