Relax! Damm it!
I’ve noticed a lot of people panicking over the stock market lately. The whole reason for this is that people are paying way too much attention to the 24/7 news coverage. The Fox News, CNN and MSNBC’s of the world seem to be in the business of scaring the crap out of everyone. The more scary the headline the more happy they are with the story. But when things turn good or there is some good news, they are off talking about whatever it is that is bad and not reporting the good news. Or at least they don’t scream the good news like they do the bad.
Case in point, Last week, we heard about all the drops that the market had. We didn’t, however, hear them crying from the mountain tops that over the entire week, the market only lost about 40 points (the Dow Jones industrial average). 40 points is not the end of the world as we know it. Listening to these guys, you would think that the sky was falling.
Just tonight, Leo Laporte twittered (www.twitter.com/leolaporte) that he took all his investments out of the market and was going to sit on cash “until this blows over”. Well, I like Leo, but that is about the stupidest thing you could do right now. Why would you sell when the market is low just to buy back in when it’s high? Make no sense to me! The stock market is on sale when it’s down. If you are thinking long-term, you would be buying. Better yet, don’t worry about watching it day-to-day and just buy in as you get money to invest. Over the 70 plus years the stock market has been in existence, 100% of the 10 year periods have made money and 98% of the 5 year periods have made money. The best bet is to just stay in and ride it out with some good index funds. I agree that buying single stocks right now (or ever) is risky just like playing the craps table in Vegas but a good mutual fund with a long track record is always going to make you money in the long term. (5 years or more)
Even dumber was Adam Curry (yes I like Adam too) who took all his money (or a lot of it) and started buying gold bars. GOLD BARS? He’s nuts! Gold is at near record prices right now. Do you know what is going to happen to the price of gold when (not if) the stock market recovers? It’s going to shoot right down the tubes.
The whole reason the stock market is going up and down like it is right now is because of the greedy MBA’s that run banking in the US. They were loaning money to people that shouldn’t have bought houses and they gave them STUPID mortgages that were adjustable rate, interest only and required a early pay off fees.
So they loaned money to people that could barley make it an then they jacked the rates up and are now surprised that they are having to foreclose on the homes. DUH! Even I wouldn’t be that stupid and I’m not an MBA!
Yes, it’s messy out there in the money world. As it should be with idiots running things the way they were for so long. It’s going to be a rough period until this stuff gets worked out, but it will adjust and it will be just fine. SO RELAX, The world is not coming to an end as we know it. (at least not because of this crap)
Oh yeah, one more thing… George Bush did not cause the economy to go bad and Bill Clinton didn’t cause it to be good. If the President had control of the economy, we would never have a downturn. But he doesn’t have control! Whoever gets elected is not going to fix your life. YOU are in charge of fixing your life.
Ok, I will step down from my soapbox and go back to life as I know it.
-Mike
