BLOBBY'S BLOG

Ain't No Money

AIG, Lehmen and Bears. Oh my.

Opening my hotel room door each morning this last week to pick up the Washington Post - each day's headline worse than the day's before. I just couldn't stand to read it all. The pall over the city was amazing. I'm sure it was all cities, but man, I could not imagine being anywhere near Wall Street.

I'm scared to death to log on to the Fidelity website to see how demolished my 401k is after this last week. If there is a dime left in it, I'd be slightly surprised.

But what do you do? I mean really?

If I take it out, I incur a huge penalty. If I let it stay in 'because it can only get better' and it doesn't - well, I'm fucked too. The irony is, of course, that I was never going to be able to retire. There ain't no money enough that I could ever put into it or invest into something else that I could have to live without working.

And if I could have - I think this week's tanking economy might have made the 'work till you die' thing a reality.

Really, how much worse can it get? After Freddie/Fannie, I would have said it had to take an upswing, but oh, how wrong I was. Now, I'm wondering if history will be repeating itself, ala 1929.

I am really quite surprised that no media has mentioned that - Black Friday. But really, why couldn't it all just implode? It's not unprecedented. I think the media and administration knows if they did even hint at it that, the panic would be colossal.

And I have no faith in the FDIC, that my money is insured and protected. Even if it is, the process of getting any (not all) of it back, I would have to live years on a bread-line before I saw a penny of that.

Clearly I have no actual basis in this. I'm not an economist, but I do listen to Marketplace daily!

The Bush administration has been so out touch on the economy, since day one, that no one months ago could agree that we were (or were not) in a recession. They didn't dare utter its name. It's beyond recession time folks.

...and now another bail-out????? They say it's government, but what it is is you and I paying for the fuck-ups that "didn't see this coming". You know that check some of us got to stimulate the economy a few months back? Do you? Guess what - now you get to pay that back like 5-fold.

Yes, this bail-out will cost each household $7,044. Weren't the stimulus checks only $1,600 per family? At least W still things the fundamentals of our economy are strong! It's a sad day when our stockmarkets rise when the Bush administration steps in. Not sad - SCARY!

A recent on-line CNN poll says that most americans don't believe that W & Co. can even stabilize (not get it moving in the right direction) the economy.

Yes, it's 'not a scientific poll', but seriously, who are these 19%? They must all be Bush staffers who voted 2,000 times each. I can see Laura on her Commodore 64, hitting refresh over and over again.

I have three clients already who are looking at the possibility of terminating our services just so they can cross a line-item off their budget. Mind you, it is service they will have to pay for somewhere else, but it looks good to the bean counters. Just the other day one laid off 100 HR reps. (First off, who has 100 HR reps? It seems a bit of a redundancy.)

Yes, I believe it will get worse before better. Mind you, I think this will hurt McCain more than help him, but g-d help us if he wins. He and Palin will start WWIII to jump-start the economy. I just know it.



Song by: Rosanne Cash