Welp, so much for stocks

Okay, stocks around the world are doing interesting things right now. The real downside is that I haven't seen any bankers leaping from their penthouses . . . yet! Since this is being written on Monday night, I've got no idea what's happening Tuesday when this posts. Historically, the stock market should be making some sort of rebound, even if only a "dead cat bounce." (if it isn't hold onto your seats and get ready for the ride!)

Once upon a time there were two brothers. One spent all his money on drink, fast women and lottery tickets. The other kept his nose to the grindstone and invested all his money in the stock market. Forty years later they were both broke. At least the first brother had more interesting stories.

The moral of this story: small investors have no business messing around with the stock market. It's the playground of large institutional investors. The game rigged and only they have any sort of insight on how.

That's not to say that they don't get wiped out too. When I left for retirement by way of ambulance ride, my pension was funded at 104%. It should have been possible to pay off everyone and still have some money in the system. Last time I checked it was funded at something like 30%. My yearly pension is now smaller than it was 8 years ago, not even factoring in inflation.

I don't worry about it. Some years ago I went to a retirement system meeting where they were discussing the drop in funds after the tech bubble burst. Their plan seemed to be to just hope the stock market would take off like it did in previous years. I asked them what their plan was if there were to be another burst bubble. They treated me like I was some sort of a nut job full of doom and gloom. Of course, then we had the 2008 housing bubble. The current market seems to be deflating on Asian worries. Personally, I don't waste my time going to meetings anymore. Cassandra wasn't listened to either.

Am I concerned that my pension could get completely cleaned out? A bit, but there's not really anything I can do about that. What I can do is make sure my beans and bullets are in order if a bank holiday is called and everyone's funds are locked up. This prep stuff is starting to pretty smart about now, isn't it?

-Sixbears