The “Good News” about the current financial debacle - Toni Braxton tops the news
In Business Week’s “Big Money” article, columnist Michael Lewis says we should look on the bright side of the current financial meltdown. His article is tongue-in-cheek, but he is dead on with his analysis.
A knowledgeable friend said to me today, “The difference between what’s happening today and what happened in 1929 is that average people in the U.S. aren’t paying attention.” She said she has been talking to people for the last week, and most have no clue about the global impact and possible serious repercussions of this situation on the U.S. economy.
Everyone is blithely going about their business (yes, you, baby boomers) as if nothing were happening. Sure, there have been a couple of “runs on the bank,” (like the story of Northern Rock in Great Britain last year) and some near-misses in the U.S. But these “runs” are nothing like 1929, when massive numbers of people ran (literally) to the bank to pull out their money, and caused many bank failures.
Sure, we now have the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Company), which insures your money up to $100,000, so you really have no incentive to withdraw it. The FDIC has initiated an “awareness” campaign to remind depositors that their money is “safe.” Well, that assumes I trust (FDIC spokesperson) Suzy Orman and the U.S. government.
But the other remarkable thing is that the stock market itself is remaining steady. After an initial 504-point drop, the market ended last week up 368 points. So what’s going on here?
Are average investors more economically savvy? Or less? My friend believes it’s the latter. She says people are more concerned with celebrities and less with the economy. To test her theory, I went to Google Trends yesterday and, yep, top story was Toni Braxton’s heart disease. She’s right! We’re too busy worrying about stolen photos of Jamie Lynn Spears breastfeeding or the new season of Dancing with the Stars to care about whether the economy is in a shambles.
Maybe that really IS good news. What do you think?
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POSTED IN: Baby Boomer investors, Boomer Businesses in Difficult Financial Times, Boomer Talk, Finance
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