Archive for August, 2009

Is It Really Over? Can I Come Out Now?

August 24th, 2009

It’s 21 months from the time the economy went into recession or melt-down or whatever you like to call it. It’s been 21 months of bad news dished up daily in the headlines of every newspaper, 21 months of negative thinking and 21 months of seeming hopelessness.

The recession overshadowed the war in Afghanistan, the mayhem in Iraq and even the health care and other upheavals here at home. It became the number one topic of conversation and ruled our lives, day in and day out. Suddenly, like the first day of autumn, you step outside through the front door and feel a change in the air as you inhale. There are leaves blowing off the trees, and is that a faint trace of wood-smoke I smell? There is a change, a breath of fresh air, a feeling of hope.

Overnight the press is upbeat, the movers and shakers in the financial world are bubbly and even my microscopic portfolio is showing renewed signs of life. Of course there are the usual pessimists who write things like, “Warning, it’s not over yet” “Don’t go rushing back into the market” and other negative headlines. They are always there, no matter what’s happening. We need a change. 21 months is a long time. We are bored with the bad news and the stories of busted banks and crooked dealers. We need a new perspective, something sweet to look forward to.

Take the Madoff case. It came, it erupted, it made the headlines and it made history in the worst possible way, it ruined hundreds of people and charities forever, there was a trial, Madoff is in a cell forever and it’s time to scrape together the remnants and look forward again. Crying will not bring back any of the lost money no matter how desperate the losses are. It’s time to move on. Stock exchange and investment losses have to be treated in the same way. It will probably mean going back to the drawing board and making changes to the original design and working drawings, changes in directions and strategies, but recovery is on the horizon and we must look forward and think positive. In ten years time the financial graphs of the period December 2007 to August 2009 will be a twitch in the otherwise smooth slope of the global economy.

Many of us who lost savings and pensions and investments will still feel the pain and will still be suffering from the drastic life-style changes we had to make to cope with our losses but the world will be moving inexorably along its news tracks. Change is an amazing thing. It is defined as “The process of becoming different”. We do become different. This is part of evolution, the changes we have to make in order to remain on the planet. This is not very different to climate change, when we buy extra sweaters to survive the extreme cold or build new levees to keep out the floodwaters.

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Who’s Fiddling With My Recession?

August 23rd, 2009

I well remember how things were before the recession. I always had a lot to do, I was writing for half a dozen editors on a few different subjects, emails floated in with requests for articles and kept me in front of my computer for many hours of the day. I arose early in the morning and I wrote late into the night to keep up with the demand.

Everyone paid their accounts, in full and on time and life was hectic and satisfying. Then came the recession. At first it was called a ‘downturn’, a ‘slowdown’, an ‘adjustment’ and only when it got very serious did it turn into the global recession.

Life changed. For the first time I had to make overdraft arrangements at the bank. Work requests twitched a couple of times and then lay still. I searched around for work but there was nothing. So I was forced to introduce changes in my life in keeping with the changes in the overall economy. I took a crossword break/nap on the couch after lunch. No point in sitting in front of a non-moving computer, is there? I went shopping with my wife to the supermarket mainly to supervise the spending hold-back that I had introduced. I had an occasional morning coffee shop meeting with other unemployed colleagues. And then there’s the beach…

It’s easy to get used to a life of idleness. Bertrand Russell, the twentieth century’s most important liberal thinker, wrote in his essay, In Praise of Idleness, “I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.” I agree. I have come to enjoy idleness.

One day a phone call from my old engineering office jolted me out of my pleasant vacuum. “Can you please be in the office at 2 pm sharp?” I was on the highway threading my way through the traffic at 13:00 for the 20 mile drive. In the office I was introduced to Jerry, “who has joined the organization and is taking over marketing. Please support him.” The office pays me a small retainer just to be around so I nodded blankly wondering where Jerry was going to find a place to market.

Wherever he’s going to market, he’s demanding a whole slew of background work from me. I swallowed, cancelled a coffee meeting with Sid, my unemployed architect friend, and started work. Ten minutes later an email sailed in from an old and trusted client asking if I could do some writing work for her in a hurry? No problem, I replied and added 3 days to Jerry’s timetable.

I am not opening emails nor am I answering the phone. I am suffering from mixed feelings. It’s great to be working again but I miss the life of recession.

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If You’re So Smart How Come You Ain’t Rich?

August 22nd, 2009

It all started when I was watching the sports channel and happened to see Usain Bolt receiving a check for winning the 200 meters men’s final. That race earned him $200,000. Not bad for less than 20 seconds work (and untold years of training of both mind and his body).

I missed the other prize hand-outs but I guess he did pretty well on the 100 meter men’s and the men’s 4 x 100 meter relay. The guy is phenomenally fast and he is charismatic too, a winning combination. He strikes his ‘Arrow-Bolt’ pose and the crowd goes mad. One can almost hear the ringing of the cash register bells as this goes on. Nice going Usain!

I used to be pretty fast runner when I was young. I remember running down almost- missed buses and tramcars. How come I never took up running as a career? Well, there weren’t many sponsors around in those gray early days. Neither were Nike and Adidas in business to produce the shoes that would give me wings. I had to concentrate on building a career and getting out into the marketplace as soon as possible.

Okay, so if you were so smart, how come you ain’t rich? I took a look at the 5 richest men in the world to see who I would have been competing with. Bill Gates of Microsoft is at the top with 40 billion. A computer whiz, which I am not. The slightest twitch on my screen and I run for the phone to call Bernie, who can fix anything on my computer.

Then comes Warren Buffett at 37 billion. An investor. I am an investor and I mess around on the stock exchange. At the moment I am in the recovery room and my paltry portfolio is back to where it was 2 years ago and I’m cheering. Watch out Warren, I’m right behind you!

Third on the list is Carlos Slim Helú, a 35 billion dollar telecommunications mogul. I have to say that I never saw the phone as anything other than a way of talking to people. About 20 years ago I read an article where someone predicted that the world’s greatest coming advance would be in the field of communications and I snorted and reached for my drink. Carlos apparently took the article seriously.

Then there is Lawrence Ellison at 22.5 billion. When I write I normally leave out any figures after the decimal point. In this case, however, that figure represents 500 million dollars! Ellison, rather like Bill Gates, understood that computers would need software to make them go. He founded Oracle.

My fifth icon is the 22 billion dollar Swede, Ingvar Kamprad who founded the giant retail home furnishing chain IKEA. My family was in retail furnishing and I opted not to go into the family business. Enough said.

There you have it. My fortune was there, waiting for me to pick it up in my hands and run with it. So?

Posted in Finance, Personal / Internet | No Comments »

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