The Blue Voice

Monday, October 13, 2008

Still Ticking

Today, I am not as poor as I was on Friday. I suppose I should be having a party, but my meager life savings are still woefully inadequate for retirement any time in the next 20 years. And I still don't have enough money to order a pizza, so for dinner, I'm having a ham sandwich, and a banana. I guess it's healthier than a pizza, but at this point, extending my life another year is worrisome. When I get out the calculator, and figure out just how long my retirement savings will last, it makes healthy choices seem not so smart.

Seeing the DOW spike 936 points in one day makes me just as nervous as the bloodbath of last week. Where did all that money come from? In one day, more than a trillion dollars just magically appeared? I don't believe in magic, and I don't believe in money that suddenly appears in your retirement accounts. It could be that the markets have hit bottom, and that they are now on the road to recovery, but I think I would feel better if the recovery were a bit more gradual.

What is certain, is that the capital that the US Treasury department is putting into the banking sector this week is not money that the taxpayers actually have, it is money that is borrowed. And while I may have more money in my 401k today, my part of the national debt is $86,000 dollars. Oh, and so is yours. So if I subtract my liability of $86,000 dollars, from the small gain I have made in my 401k in a couple of days, the future looks pretty bleak.

And the debt clock is still ticking.

posted at 5:34:00 PM by Tankwoman

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