Are We Having Fun Yet?*
by Kent Manthie
*with apologies to Bill “Zippy the Pinhead” Griffith
Remember back last fall? September, October and the first couple days of November? There was so much excitement in the air. Despite the disastrous turmoil from which our our economy was in the midst of suffering – Hank Paulsen and co. strong-arming Congress to authorize Treasury to control, ostensibly $700 Billion, but with interest it will come to well over a trillion dollars. This was in response to myriad things that converged together to wreak havoc on our economy – scaring investors so much that the Dow lost more than half its value – but then again you have to realize that half of 13,000 is 6500, so it is a lot different than if the Dow was, say, at 2500 and tanked down to 1250. Doesn’t matter, trillions were lost on paper and lots of money was lost, not fat cats and mustachioed speculators who didn’t have much to lose, relatively, but also all the pension funds, retirements accounts: IRAs, 401(k)s and sundry investment “instruments”.