Freaky day on the Dow

So here's a look at what's happened today. This graph from the NYTimes.com is just freaky. I spent the whole day waiting for it drop below 8,000 again and it never quite made it there... then out of the blue comes this huge rally at the end. Man, watching this stuff happen is like watching a horse race - you never know what's going to happen. Of course, the livlihoods of millions aren't tied to a horse race so it's not entirely accurate.











And here's a peek at how the market has fared this week. That's just a hell of a dip.

It's almost disturbing to think that a nearly 2,000-point drop can be shown in just an inch of a graph... it doesn't do it justice at all. I'd love to see this graph up on an Imax screen just to really get a visual sensation of what has happened.















And finally, here's a look at the last year of crushing defeat to the Dow.

A heartfelt Thank You to the NYTimes Web site for providing the data and graphs for all of this. They've been my main source of morbid fascination to watch this all unfold.

How glad I am to be young

Reading this blog post made me happy about my relative youth:

Some may also wonder how long it will take the market to “recover.” It depends exactly what is meant by “recover,” of course, but one measure might be when the market returns to its pre-crash peak. The historical data is somewhat more distressing in this context.

After the Great Depression, it took 29 years — until 1958 — for the market to reach its pre-Depression, inflation-adjusted peak. After the 1970s recession, it took 24 years — until 1992 — for the market to make a full “recovery” by the same measure. So no matter whether you start from the recent 2007 peak, or from the market’s absolute inflation-adjusted peak during the tech bubble in 2000, we may still have at least a decade to go before full “recovery.”

So just to be optimistic, that means it will take at least 20 years for investments made in the last 10 years to return to the equivalent of their dollar value at time of investment. I've got plenty of time for my portfolio to recover, but what about all those folks in their 50s and 60s looking to retire soon? They'd been depending on their 401k and Roth IRAs and now in a year, the value of that has dropped by 40%. What the hell are they supposed to do, other than keep working longer?

This just underscores the need for Social Security reform being done in the right way. Could you imagine the outrage throughout the country if we had gone ahead and privatized Social Security into the markets 4-5 years ago? That would have just added a whole other layer of tragedy and human cost into the whole mess we're seeing now. I truly hope this puts an end to that whole proposal - it's never really made sense, and it makes even less sense now. Let folks do what they want with their personal approaches to retirement with 401(k)s, IRAs, savings accounts, CDs, and coffee cans full of money, but don't put the heart of the government safety net at risk of suffering the whims of the market.

The one thing that does make me a little bit happy about this is that any investments I make now are going to see a huge increase in value as the market recovers. That 40% drop in value means the investment power of my dollar is now buying 40% more. When things get better, that's going to be a huge payoff. Whee - I found a silver lining!!

Keeping up with political races

A self-described "poll nerd" has put together this site to take poll results and turn them into an estimate of the electoral college outcome in the presidential race. He's also been looking at the polls to see how the Congressional races are going to impact the balance of power in the House and Senate. A very interesting site, so I thought I'd share it.

Stock market, trading and bears - OH MY!

Ummm, what the hell happened?? I'd been keeping an eye on the market today, seeing it was down a bit as expected. Then I take a break and all hell breaks loose in the last hour of trading... Insane!

Today's numbers:

Oct. 9, 2008 - 8579.195, down 5618.91 from the high mark on Oct. 11, 2007, for a 39.58% loss since then.

That's also a 1015.74 pt loss since MONDAY, when I last posted numbers, for a 10.59% loss in the last 3 days...

I found an interesting NYTimes blog taking a historical look at the numbers - I guess I'm not the only historically-minded number junky out there. We should take pride! Americans always want to be the best, and now we're closing in on taking the biggest drop in the history of the market. Take THAT, 1932!!

Month without plastic

I had been reading this blog and completely forgot about it until today. I had stumbled across another one of the BBC's topic blogs and it reminded me that I hadn't caught the conclusion of the plastics blog.

It's a really interesting look at what changes life requires to minimize the use of plastic in every day life. I was impressed at her achievement - without going to extraordinary measures, she was able to reduce plastic use by 80%! That's a huge difference, but I also don't see it as being quite as easy for everyone as it was for her.

One big problem would be meat. She was able to stop by her local butcher for non-plasticized meat; I'm not sure many towns in America even have that option any more, so what other avenues would there be there? It would also require a big change in overall eating habits. Just about everything we buy, whether it's components to cook a meal or ready-made stuff to eat or snack on, is encased in some form of plastic. I'm sure I could find a fair amount at more eco-conscious stores (though I have to give credit to Wal-Mart for the push they've lead to reduce packaging over the last few years), but can I afford the cost? It's tough enough making ends meet when we're buying groceries at the cheapest place in town; seeing a 10-30% increase in that cost would be a big hit to take.

Some of her revelations and recommendations are definitely in my mind. The biggest one was to get a stainless steel cup to use for drinking, be it water or soda. I need to cut back on soda anyway (drinking 126 ounces of sugar water a day is probably a wee bit too much...), so it's a good plan. We've been trying to use our cloth bags at the store when we go shopping for a while now, but it seems I never remember that they're sitting in the car. And I'm definitely going to try to remember to take our own containers to restaurants to use as a doggie bag instead of relying on the styrofoam containers they usually supply.

All in all, I definitely recommend giving her experience a read. It may not change your life, but it will certainly make you think about things a little more.

That brings me to what I think was the most interesting part of reading this. What the BBC has done with its blogs is really interesting to me. They've taken these stories that would have been features or series in a newspaper and turned them into the personalized topic blogs. Just based on the comments, these have been a huge hit. I've been trying to wrap my head around ways to make blogs more useful to the media, and this approach really caught my attention.

The traditional way the big media sites have done blogging - having an expert writing stories on their blog and posting them immediately rather than on deadline - certainly has its place and can be hugely effective. But I think this more personal touch is a great addition to the methodology of news blogging. It certainly can be tricky; you have to find the right person/people to right it, people that can effectively communicate through a blog and are willing to invest the time and effort necessary; you have to find a topic that is going to be appealing and figure out a way to tackle it through a blog setting that is going to be interesting and worth coming back for. So there's going to be a lot of planning and forethought to make it work, but it seems to me like there is a big payoff whenever you do it successfully.

More numbers

Hmmm, can you tell I've been a little preoccupied with the slide of the economy into the gutter?

Just an update to some numbers from last week:

Since Oct. 11, 2007, the Dow has now dropped 4603.17 points to 9,594.93 as of 1:42 p.m. CDT today. That brings the drop in value of the market since it's peak to 32.42% in just 360 days.

Almost as disheartening? In the week since I last posted numbers on this, it's dropped 1,019 points for a 9.6% loss in 7 days.


Gaming
In lighter news, I have hardly been gaming at all lately. Now starting my fourth week on my new work schedule, it's just hard to find time to play. I'm still cruising along on Worldwinner, since that's basically my second job, but "fun" gaming just doesn't happen. I get home from work, and then it's dinner time and time to get the kiddos ready for bed. By the time that nightly fight is over and they've quieted down and fallen asleep, it's usually 9:30, 10. Then I end up finally relaxing a little and spending some time with Kim, which is about the only quiet time we get together. And all of a sudden, it's 11:30 and I'm tired and ready for bed. So where does gaming even fit in with all of that?

I can't say I'm upset or even unhappy about it; that's just the way life is some times. I'm hoping that as time goes on and we all get more used to the realities of the new schedule, things will get a little easier and my free time becomes a little more free. That remains to be seen, though.

Horror in slow motion

I have to say, this whole economic collapse is one of the weirdest experiences in my life. I've been around and aware enough for many world-changing events, but they all seemed to share a quality of *SMACK* it happened, then watch the aftermath. The Challenger and Columbia, 9/11, Iraq I and II, previous collapses on Wall Street, the Berlin Wall...

Maybe I've just remembered them all as big single events moreso than the reality of the situations actually warrant, but certainly none of them seemed to me to have the kind of prolonged agony the last year has subjected us to. I first started hearing rumblings about the housing market and mortgage industry last summer. I started seeing it have a real impact on the economy around January. And now, the last 3 months I've seen it start wreaking real havoc around the world. I sat there this morning watching the Dow Jones average drop below 10,000 - the first time it's been down to four digits since 2004 - and just wondering when the bleeding is going to stop.

It really makes me wonder how people managed throughout the Cold War. At least with the economic stuff, we can be fairly certain that we'll come out on the other side. We may not know exactly when or how bad it may get, but eventually we'll get things revved up again and back on the right track. With the Cold War, there was just no such certainty, no light at the end of the tunnel, no guarantee that we were going to come out on top or that you wouldn't wake up to the roar of nuclear apocalypse rushing at you in the night. Just with the little tastes I've had in the last decade, I'm glad I didn't have to live with that kind of unresolved fear hanging over my head all the time.

King John?

When I found this here, I could not believe what I was seeing.





His quote about 35 seconds in:

I’m not saying this is the perfect answer. If I were dictator, which I always aspire to be, I would write it a little bit differently. I would increase the FDIC insured deposits and done some other things.

Ummmmm.... WTF???? Seriously??? He's not joking. He's not kidding. He's saying that with a straight face. This is what you get when you see the real John McCain.

Never fails to deliver a laugh

If you have the time to spare and don't mind laughing out loud (meaning - this might not be the best thing to read at work), check out the Fail Blog to see the idiocy and miscues of humanity at their funniest.


Kid stuff
Apparently, Jasmine counted to ELEVEN by herself this morning. How did this happen? She hasn't even counted to two, and now she's up to 11? Heck, Anisa's got a year and a half on her and is only counting to 8 consistently.

Anisa has finally grasped the concept of "Why?" recently. I've been waiting for this to happen, and it's such a huge leap in logic. It means she's finally connected the dots on cause and effect; she knows there's a reason things happen now, which is just awesome. Of course, it also means that most requests and statements are now followed by her asking, "Why? But why, daddy?", which adds a whole new level of discussion. At least I already know the 2 ways to answer that and end a conversation: "Because" and "Why not?"

We picked up some of the Wizard of Oz dolls the McDonalds has been selling recently, and they're a huge hit. Both girls have been playing with them all the time and insisting on taking them to bed with them.

Quick question: Is there a remedy out there for the post-waking-up grumpiness? Both girls are relentlessly grumpy for about an hour or so after they wake up in the mornings or after a nap. It's not fun.

One thing I love about the girls is that they're so into reading. They absolutely love sitting down with their books and reading stories. One thing I worried about going into this whole parenting thing was that having all the TV and video and computer stuff would make them not appreciated books at all. That worry has been completely unwarranted. It's something we'll have to keep encouraging as they get older, but there's definitely a solid foundation there for them to build on.

Pushed off the cliff

Serendipity is funny - I was talking to my mom last night a bit about the causes of our current economic troubles, and then opened NYTimes.com this morning to find a rather striking article discussing just that.

Very brief summary: A 2004 SEC ruling dramatically increased the amount of debt the Big Boys on Wall Street were allowed to carry. The house of cards that led up this certainly had some foundations built in the Clinton, Bush I and Reagan eras, but this decision basically tried to see if pyramid of pachyderms (to steal a line from Dumbo) could balance on top of that house. How bad was it?

"Over the following months and years, each of the firms would take advantage of the looser rules. At Bear Stearns, the leverage ratio — a measurement of how much the firm was borrowing compared to its total assets — rose sharply, to 33 to 1. In other words, for every dollar in equity, it had $33 of debt. The ratios at the other firms also rose significantly."

Man, if that same standard was applied to me, I could carry nearly $1.5 million in debt.... that sure would be fun for a couple of years, but wow is the hangover is going to suck when the bill collectors show up.

And it makes me all the more confident that we're on the right path now to know that Henry Paulson, the Treasury Secretary leading us down the bailout path, sat there in this SEC meeting and thought this was going to be a great idea and had no qualms about approving it. What, are we now trying to get the U.S. government to a 33-to-1 debt ratio?

Ugh. I'm not looking forward to the next 10 years at all, regardless of who's at the reins.