I sent this to a friend yesterday in order to vent. I felt a tiny bit better afterward, but only a tiny bit:
Well, Monday was one hell of an expensive day for me. In the time between putting in the order on Friday night to move all of my retirement funds to the G fund, and the time it became effective Monday, my funds dropped another $3,000, pushing my losses to around 30% of what I had in January 2008. Needless to say, I'm not happy at all. I'm kicking myself for not doing this back in November. I'd still have a lot more of my hard-earned money than I do now.
Right now, I see the economy (and the stock market, which is shorthand for the economy as a whole) looking a lot like one of those rollercoasters that went from the ground all the way to the top, way up high, and now it's plunging down, down, down. We've got our hands up, the air's rushing past us, we're all screaming, and now we can see that the rollercoaster isn't going to stop at ground level, but it's plunging into a dark hole in the ground. How far down does it go? Hell if I know, I just want to get off this goddamn thing. But we're strapped in tight, and now we're screaming in the darkness...
My mistake was being much too optimistic about the economy being able to come back any time soon. I should have realized how the market was going to react to someone who it perceives (correctly) as being anti-business. Obama and crew talk about soaking the rich, but it's middle-class people like me whose retirement funds are melting away like snow in July. In Obama's America, everyone will be equal: Those who have retirement accounts will be no better off than those who don't.
And frankly, I'm not sure it's worth it to save money any more, because with the coming inflation, money saved will be worth less than it was. Might as well live like a grasshopper and spend every dime, then ask the government to bail us out when we run out of money. That seems to be the way things work in America these days. If you're an ant, saving for tomorrow and paying your bills responsibly, you're a sucker. I've got to figure out something to invest in as a hedge against inflation. Maybe guns and ammo. I'm not a firearms enthusiast like some of the guys at work, but maybe it's time to become one... :-(
