Make the
environmentalists happy by getting into alternative power, and
build a windmill to catch some of that financial tsunami.
Empty your
money markets and put the cash under a fireproof mattress.
Set up multiple
computer monitors in your home and tune each one to a Wall Street
investment bank stock ticker.
Read Bill
Gross’s columns to start planning your Keynesian dictionary.
Spend hours
pondering the frightening thought of catastrophic deflation (lower
prices).
Start your
own credit ratings agency and build a marketing campaign called
"Just Say No to Moody’s and S&P."
Bet on a
government bailout and buy General Motors stock.
Copy the
Bill Gross approach and apply it to General Motors: bet on a government
bailout and buy GM stock, and then use your position and influence
to lobby for the bailout. If you don’t have position and influence,
move to the next bullet point.
Check your
401k hourly.
Count how
many times George Bush says the economy is "strong."
Start a
spreadsheet to keep track of every big business that is considered
a "national treasure."
Tell your
friends, co-workers, and neighbors that a house is a "durable
consumer good," and then sit back and watch the reaction.
Explain
to your 75-year-old mother (for the 23rd time) why
you won’t be receiving "a good pension" like your dad.
If you are
diminutive in stature, such as I am (I am 5'3"), go out for
Halloween, go door-to-door in the buff with a price tag attached
to your rear, and tell people you are a naked short sell.
I know the
Christmas lights are still up, but the home equity line is gone
so it’s time to take the ATM sign off the house.
Okay, take
a peek at CNBC and listen for someone, anyone, to say the word
"sell." If you hear it, rejoice.
Go to nice
lounges and tell people "well, my bear funds are
were doing great."
Explain
to your 75-year-old mother (for the 37th time) why
you need to invest for a secure future, and why CDs and
savings accounts just don’t cut it. Simplify and repeat.
Take your
money out of your 401k, pay the penalties and taxes, and still
come out ahead. Stash the dough with your ex-money market funds
underneath that fireproof mattress.
Go through
the walk-in closet, collect all of your horrifying 1980s gold
jewelry (unicorn necklaces, etc.), and look for the nearest gold
dealer.
Start a
local Objectivist club and discuss the persecution of the big
banks on Wall Street. If they take you seriously, flee!
Be the first
one to write a CliffNotes on financial derivatives.
Apply for
a job as an entry-level mortgage loan officer or learn to flip
houses.
Go to a
mall and ask people 35-and-under to define the term "starter
home."
Write a
letter to Bill Gross and Paul McCulley at PIMCO
PIMPCO, and ask them if they’ve ever been to a Wal-Mart.
Build a
crossword puzzle calling attention to clichéd, financial
socialism-friendly terms that are regularly used by the mainstream
media. Start with the following: liquidity, illiquid markets,
confidence-building, financial tsunami, market fragility, systemic
risk, bridge loan, liquidity provision, national interest, catastrophic
deflation, subprime exposure, limited fallout, accelerating risk
aversion, pumping liquidity, risk perception, financial terrorism,
preemptive injection, forceful injection, master plan, commodity
super cycle, off balance sheet, de-leveraging, flow of credit,
financial time bomb, bear-market raid, and "velocity of short-selling."
**
**
Thanks to Steven
Saville for four of the terms found here.
September
22, 2008
Karen
De Coster [send
her mail] is a Certified Public Accountant, has an MA
in Economics, and works in finance and accounting in the securities
industry. She listens to Bloomberg on Sirius every weekday, and
she learns lots of snazzy, new words, especially from central planners
and the bullish types. She is an Anarcho-Austro-Libertarian Bear.
See her website
and her blog.
**
Thanks to 