To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] To worry or not to worry . . .
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 08:05:57 -0700
Of the few things we control, our thoughts are ours alone. Focus and find
truth. Let everything in and go nuts. Screen tightly and be uninformed. Go
sit in a cave and meditate. Or read every piece of mostly bad news each day.
It's a good time to be a financial-disaster writer. Disasters abound, and
even when they don't, people are eager for your opinion on when the next
bubble is going to pop. Scarcely a day goes by without a warning of some
dire calamity -- in the dollar, in housing values, in pension funds. The
way people crave financial info, we must be the best-informed, most
economically literate society ever. But we do not sleep any better for it.
Is all the anxiety warranted, or even productive?
A few years ago, the chief claim on the public tranquillity was the fear of
''deflation,'' meaning that the price of just about everything would fall.
Before that, it was fear of ''Y2K.'' Neither transpired. This is not to say
that disaster never strikes. The number of bubbles and consequent meltdowns
over the last quarter-century could fill a proper B-school syllabus. In
order of appearance, oil drillers, precious metals, personal computer
makers, the stock market, commercial real estate, Trump casinos, junk
bonds, biotechs, Russia and Internet stocks each had their moments of glory
and returned to earth.
Not every bubble ends with a crash, but sometimes, because of a linkage or
feedback mechanism, . . . .[more material, but you get the idea].
[Homestead] To worry or not to worry . . .,
Gene GeRue, 06/05/2005