Nothing to Worry About

Felix Salmon said it and I thought I would share. You feel much better now, don't you?

May 21, 2009
The US triple-A: Nothing to worry about

What’s more, S&P putting the UK on watch for a possible downgrade is a decision prompted by economic fundamentals. Any such move with the US, by contrast, would be entirely political, and in any event would say much more about S&P than it did about Treasuries.

Any downgrade to US debt would be entirely political? Not a bit of it would be due to economic fundamentals? Wow! That's sure a relief. I never would have guessed it. I'm going to be sleeping like a baby now. To think I was wasting all that time being worried. This is fantastic news.

Of course, I probably should not just take that on face value. When people tell me "not to worry" I really should use some hindsight to see if they've done it in the past, and if so, to see if it was actually good advice. This is especially important since most of my life savings are in the thing I'm being told not to worry about (US Government TIPS and I-Bonds).

November 21, 2007
Crisis Blogging: Beware of the Doomsayers

A system-wide financial crisis isn't impossible, of course: almost nothing is impossible. Almost any financial downturn, taken to its logical conclusion, can become a crisis. But in practice, in the developed world, that doesn't seem to happen.

Oh crap. That was said just before the official recession began. I'm not going to be sleeping well after all. I'll still be sleeping like a baby though. You know, waking up every few hours and crying.

Actually, all is not lost. Felix Salmon also wrote the following. Perhaps there is some hope.

September 11, 2007
What Is Ben Stein Smoking?

For it turns out that Stein is completely wrong, yet again: can anybody explain to me why this man still has his column?

I heckled Ben too, just one week earlier (and a few times since). Here's what I wrote in response to Ben Stein's "Anticipating All the Retirement Variables" article.

September 4, 2007
"Safe" is a happy word

Needless to say, hindsight shows that Ben Stein did not actually anticipate all the retirement variables. He missed a few. Let's see.

He missed the housing bubble variable entirely it seems.

There's that part where he trusted that Ben Bernanke wouldn't "allow the financial markets to seize up", how the "smart money never bets against the Fed", and "the Fed can create a literally infinite amount of liquidity". Is that three missed variables or just one? I'm trying to be fair here.

The "emerging-markets stocks I've been touting for so long" variable crashed the system, then promptly burned.

The "I was able to dispense some halfway-decent advice: Stay calm, keep invested, and keep buying" variable looks a bit like the square root of negative one to me. Not quite sure what to do with that one.

The "Annuities to the Rescue" variable somewhat backfired in a cloud of black smoke and grinding metal. AIG was sort of, kind of, in the annuity business and we all sort of, kind of, rescued it when the government stepped in. It might have something to do with the $62 billion quarterly loss that was the largest ever recorded by an American company.

The "I hope it doesn't turn around and bite my head off the way it did in the tech crash" variable was dead on the money though.