It’s amazing how much the economy comes up in normal conversation lately, but unsurprising given the current meltdown occurring throughout the world. Thankfully, thus far, I have been able to avoid the worst of it, but then I wasn’t really ever a high-flyer in first place. In order to be really feeling the pain (at least for most), one had to have owned equities and real estate, two things I am rather short on. That being said, this is producing a lot of pain out there, so the sooner it’s over, the better for everyone. It’s like watching a California wildfire they just can’t get a hold of — you just don’t want the winds to blow your way. And also, with outlays looking to be over $2 trillion, I am terrified that the remedy is worse than the disease…
For the first time in my life, I finally have a subscription to the Economist, and so having established that I am mostly personally unaffected by the current downfall of western civilization, it provides an interesting academic case study of the way our current global financial markets are structured. Being rather younger than many out there, this is the first deep recession I have seen, and so it is a good learning experience. The news is filled with articles about new government and private stratagems for extricating ourselves from this downward spiral, but nothing that looks all that promising. My take-home message is that diversification is a bright strategy for more than just one’s retirement portfolio: it is quite prudent to to place ones hopes and dreams in other places than just the private equities markets (currently the victims of a vicious drubbing).
In that spirit, I spent a good portion of the weekend thus far playing Little Big Planet with a friend of mine. It’s a great game with some curiously unique design and more than a sparing touch of whimsy. It’s hilarious parading sack people across the screen in multicolored costumes and jumping around and through intricate moving puzzles. More on this to follow.