over at Detainees is Mike Ruppert's 2009-01-18 article
under the heading of collapse update
for finger one.
-
Then there is James Howard Kunstler's latest post:
Hope and Fear
for finger two.
-
Next are the articles hyperlinked on
Life After the Oil Crash's
Prepare where you need to
note the dates (e.g., 2007)
for finger three.
-
Anne Boyer's predictions for 2009,
if you have not yet read
her small essay,
for finger four.
All the above pertain to
how we should proceed
if indeed the adventure (misadventure) of
consumer-dependent debt-driven capitalism
is dead.
**
rho00007
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
On the other fingers
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Brian,
ReplyDeleteI think that this, a pomer's blog about playing the stock market, is hilariously neat.
I, too, played, and quite Hard. For several years, obsessively and "heroically," and I ALMOST succeeded spectacularly, almost.
Most all of 2001-2005 I was IN "the Great Game."
Particularly via a Datek (now Ameritrade) account all or none all-in on board with Global Crossing, $34,000.00 ($17,000 on high interest credit cards) most of which I got at a buck twenty a share, wildly optimistic (crazy) after CEO said they would not go bankrupt. And then they did, Jan/Feb of 2002, and I lost almost everything at the same time Bush was talking about war and I had steady but insane new job in a new career (IT) and things got pretty crazy (for everybody, of course, when Bush went ahead and W started dropping the bombs on the civilians) and I was insane trying to become a small George Soros (in my big foolish head).
My life savings GONE overnight and thrust thus into enormous credit card debt, I hunkered down and managed to get $12,000 back into another high flying penny stock, British Energy, which had gone into "Receivership" (in UK, that's government bankruptcy, essentially), and I socked away half my monthly take-home for 12+ months straight, buying and buying and buying as BE got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, and in 2004, after holding it through the most gut-wrenching hours and weeks and weeks, it came through for a big, big payday before completely collapsing, and I got out with $38,000 again.
Immediately went back in with quick plays until getting on the siri bandwagon as they talked about bringing in shock jock whats-his-name, and I rode that one up, down, and around, at one time in 2005 being "Up" $65,000, then losing Everything again in mid-2006, and I went bankrupt, literally and legally. Devastating!
Again, I almost "made it," enough to pay off all credit card debt and maybe go back for Ph.D and buy a house or both, but I never cashed out in time, alas...
I "Lived" on Yahoo-Finance pretty much day and night, at work checking in almost hourly most days to either the chat boards for GX or BE or SIRI or the news for for what was going on in Iraq. Horror. Of course.
Anyway, a kind of Marxist in the market trying to beat the rich at their own game, one thing that was cool was giving 3-4 thousand to moveon.org, kerry, dfa, the Democrats, and others throughout 2004. Going bankrupt was as horrific personally as the war was/is globally
(and personally, too), but I'm okay now, and I survived fine enough (I have good family, or else I'd be essentially on the street, maybe, or suicided or something). What a trip, though.
I hope your own experience has been much less traumatic, bizarre, absurd, "romantic," and much more prosperous, as well as mentally/physically healthy.
In truth, my experience(s) were not as silly and pedestrian as this may sound, and I read enough books and had a strong enough head to take on the kind pain a spectulator takes on. I knew how risky everything was. I knew a thing or two (and that I was still, nonetheless, a complete amateur, Ha!).
With a smile from a guy who can look back and laugh heartily, now, still a marxist but out of the market, probably forever. Smiles!
Steve Tills
Came to begin a new post, one on Bank of America,
ReplyDeletebut your comment caught me. I did much worse because I tried to be a trader and in my stubbornness let myself slide deeper and deeper into debt. One could say I was addicted. However, two serious illnesses forced me to work fewer hours and into bankruptcy, and then in less than two years to stop working and stop driving. I had to retire early. I was in the market during the 1987 crash, and the sad truth is I could have become extremely wealthy without ever going into debt. I certainly had the opportunities and the knowledge.
Wow, you sound like some of those fellows in those books I read (_Market Wizards_, 1 and 2). I myself did NOT have "the knowledge," just went headlong and tried some big risks and tried to be "a trader," also, but it was shenanigans on my part, probably, ha... :)
ReplyDeleteMost folks would say I was "addicted," too, surely. I think that it was just a "strong-willed," romantic, risk-taking, and brave guy trying to do the opposite of what most poets/writers leftwing do when they've been shaken up big time by government going haywire and stock market fucking over the little guy, the retail investors. I tried to fight back and I would do it again. Okay, I lost, ultimately, and good thing I have family that helped me out, helped me pick up the pieces, but geez, it was a damn interesting experience, nearly "deadly," I suppose, and maybe things would be a lot different had I paid off all my credit card debt when I was ahead (on paper) and went from there, but everything's okay now, too, so, just chalk it up with other interesting unplanned experiences in life... :)
Steve,
ReplyDeleteActually, an important knowledge I thought I had but didn't was sufficient self-knowledge, especially patience.