Sep 29 2008
How Is That 401K?
Are you financially better off today than you were yesterday? That is a question only each of us can answer. However, for ‘ordinary citizens’ in the United States, the ultimate outcome of today’s House vote on the “Stop the Bleeding Bill” may be realized with “unintended consequence of doing good”.
No one is happy at the prospect of “bailing out” anyone or anything. We have to consider: are we so unhappy that we allow ourselves to become martyrs for someone else’s cause? Today’s vote was not a huge victory for Capitalism. The vote today has sent the world markets into turmoil; and that will affect all of us. Like it or not, for decades we have trended this direction. This is not going to be changed in one day, one vote, or one national election cycle. This is the price we pay for not paying attention. At some point, we have to play catch up on the facts.
So I ask you, if your car blows up tonight, do you have enough money in the bank to go pay cash for a new one? Does your employer depend on a “line of credit” to make your payroll? The people who voted today do not have to worry about these things—we do. Oh, and how is that 401K today, compared to this time last week? Why don’t we stop, take a breath, and realize we have been at least 30 years getting to this place—it is going to be a long road home.
I was waiting for the additional analogies of: here’s the human body, and this is what happened with IT, and imagine you own a dry cleaners.
I just read an article that more or less says the same thing you did, so either we’re getting our information from the same source, or you’re incredibly tuned in to the world of economics at large.
This thing is incredibly complicated, and after today’s no vote, I had to seriously think about the unintended consequences you mentioned. I think that now is the defining week in Congress, in recent history(Iraq war notwithstanding)because they did say no. They have the unique opportunity to craft a bill that will actually benefit America.
We’ll see.