14 comments

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  escuccim

  1 year ago

  I am not sleeping at night, and the sinking stock market does make me feel nauseous, but personally for me that is all eclipsed by another situation in which I lost a lot of money on paper. That amount was far more than I ever had invested in the stock market.
  
  However if the market was doing well that would still give me some possible upside, which would make me feel better as opposed to the current situation which doesn't help at all. The economy does scare me and if I weren't occupied with this other situation it probably would keep me up at night.
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  rahul

  1 year ago

  The 401k and existing investments are definitely hurting, but perhaps its an opportunity to get in at good levels on some stocks. Especially for a person like me who missed out every boom so far.
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  Edwin Khodabakchian

  1 year ago

  The stock market is bad in that it gives you the illusion that you are in control, when, at least in the short term you are not. But money is just money. Try to focus on FlickrFan and forget about Apple TV, stock market and others. Getting the creating flow going and having the feeling of building something and making progress is the best way to fight against all these ups and downs.
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  josh20

  1 year ago

  Every morning I get the WSJ delivered to my door. For the last couple of weeks I haven't had a chance to read it but yesterday morning I was up early and decided it would be nice to browse through it while having breakfast. Let me tell you...it was a very depressing breakfast.
  
  14 out of the 18 blurbs in the Business and Finance column in the "What's News" section on the first page where negative. The other 4 were not even positive, they were neutral. I think I am going to move back to Aruba and sit on the beach while all this goes down. At the very least I will get a good tan.
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  neuerik

  1 year ago

  It really doesn't bother me. As my father advised me 20 years ago, I take a long-term view, and that means that dips in the market are a buying opportunity. Actually, I don't even look at it that way. I just invest steadily, and don't try to time the market at all. It's best if you don't check your balances too often.
  
  I am a little surprised to see such short-term angst from the man who wrote the post "Transcendental Money", which I found to be a very inspiring essay.
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  hardaway

  1 year ago

  I have been through many of these cycles, losing all my real estate investments in the 80s, nearly losing my business in the 90s, and never trusting the stock market. Now I am buried in my house, which is probably not worth what I paid for it in 2005, but is in Half Moon Bay, where I want to live. Yes, Dave, financially I feel like shit again. I will probably die a pauper if I die at the wrong time of the cycle. But so what? I am having fun every day, love many people and feel loved by many. I don't let myself lose sleep at night because I know my biggest asset is my health, which will allow me to make it all back again.
  
  Take two glasses of wine and a golden retriever before bed and call me in the morning. :-)
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  timotheus

  1 year ago

  I've felt the same way recently. I think we're entering a period of recession, and it will last several years. I pulled my money out of the market. I was investing in good companies in diverse industries, but good companies are going to get pulled down with the bad.
  
  It's ok, I can wait a couple of years and hop back in. For now, its bonds and an ING Direct savings account for me.
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  PJ

  1 year ago

  After I eventually pulled myself out of the financial hole that the 1987 crash created (which took me several years), I vowed that when the next one came I would have a big monetary buffer, and not allow myself to get into the same depressed fetal-position mental state, which caused me to put Life on hold. Thanks to the poster who reminded us that good health is the real wealth.
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  cgerrish

  1 year ago

  I work in the financial services industry (the web side), and we've been preparing for slow economy, volatile market, and possible recession for about a year. Our new set of products all address stock market volatility. For those who follow such things, it's not at all unexpected. And, of course, it's predicted that a Democrat will win the White House, and that will have a further negative impact on the economy. (Even though history has shown the reverse to be true). Expect a stimulus package from Bush, and 50 basis point cut from the Fed. Appetite for risk will be reduced, and that affects the creation of new Web businesses. In times of high volatility, assets are sometimes undervalued creating investment opportunities. That makes it a stock picker's market.
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  Doc Searls

  1 year ago

  I am feeling remarkably sanguine about the economy, even though I know we're in an economic downturn. Perhaps that's because I have almost nothing invested in the stock market. Perhaps that's also because i know, as you said, this is cyclical.
  
  But I think there is something different this time around. The American Empire, the worldwide Pax Americana that defined the First World following WWII, is ending. We are as far in denial of this as Wiley Coyote is of gravity after he's run off the edge of a cliff, but has yet to fall.
  
  Yet all the great colonial powers, including our own Mother Country of England, came out of their Ages of Empire to enjoy prosperous times. Eventually.
  
  My main long-term concern is with The Environment. But not in the usual way. i see the human species as inherently pestilential. We not only have explosive population growth, but a parasitic attitude toward every non-replaceable resource we can use.
  
  The time scale I see is geological. And in the geological context, what humans are doing to both the earth and its plant and animal life is destructive and in the long term catastrophic. The Earth right now is being attacked by humans on a grand scale, and is being changed by it.
  
  At the same time the Earth is going through natural cycles that will raise the seas and shrink the footprint of land on which humans and other land-based species live. Global Warming has been a fact since the last Ice Age began to end twenty thousand years ago. See here:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Atmospheric_...
  
  The ice cap that dumped Long Island and Cape Cod where they are only began to retreat in what is nearly the geologic present. The Great Lakes as we know them are puddles left by a glacier that still covered Canada only a few thousand years ago. Lake Superior is barely older than the pyramids. More northerly lakes are younger. Canada is still thawing out, and if you fly over its northern regions you can see fresh roads and pipes leading out to land made exploitable by the retreat of permafrost. Another illustration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GreatLakeFor...
  
  As the ice caps finish melting back, perhaps including Greenland and Antarctica, the seas will rise. Coastlines will move inland, as they've been doing since, only several thousand years ago, you could walk from San Francisco to what's now the Farallon Islands. Much of Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Finland, Bangladesh, Brooklyn and other lowlands will be under water. If we're lucky they'll be tidelands capable of sustaining life. if we're not, well...
  
  I don't think there's much we can do to prevent it, or even slow it down. I am sure it will happen, however.
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  JasperJed

  1 year ago

  Texas, home of George W. Bush, under water? Sounds like divine retribution...
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  edickey

  1 year ago

  I'm not that bothered by it myself other than how it affects my friends. I turned into a bear after the 2000 meltdown and I've been one ever since. But when the market does well, I have a twinge of regret..
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  Jim Zellmer

  1 year ago

  A fellow early morning gym rat was moaning and groaning the other day that he would rather have been Born 50 years earlier. I mentioned that there are more opportunities today, than ever. Very few support the instant gratification culture, but the internet continues to offer a fertile landscape.
  
  My father and I had some of our best years selling large equipment during the high interest rate, malaise days of the late 1970's and early 1980s. Nothing was served up on a platter, however.
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  Karoli

  1 year ago

  Listen to the folks who tell you this is an opportunity. It is. Don't think of a decline in your stock value today as a loss, because it's only a loss if you sell it. Otherwise it's just a fluctuation that will smooth out over time. This is the time to buy...bargains are there if you want them.
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