Today we bling, for tomorrow we die.
Elsewhere I’ve alluded to the allegedly therapeutic value of this potentially self-absorbed exercise currently known to us as blogging. A cursory glance at the number of my posts per month will prove instructive for anyone with actual interest in the degree of my internal angst in a given period (omit the travelogues from this analysis).
But hark: while both I and my external world seem to be leveling off (omit the Motor City and the economy :-0), I’ve undergone a change….insanity: I still need to blog! I MUST, in fact, blog!
This post is a perfect case in point…it exists, despite me not really having anything to say….
Am I now officially and unhealthily dependent upon a medium that will never move me to a better place but just feels so good I can’t stop?
It’s free, though.
Theoretical? Abstract? Removed?
It’s been over 9 months since I emailed some friends a snarky-yet-frighteningly-incisive piece laying out the intricacies of the current sub-prime-and-the-kitchen-sink crisis. Fast-forward to today, where the NYT tells the exact same story, detailing the tragic implications that this human propensity for denial has had on school districts, municipal authorities and local governments (and of course, all of their attendant constituencies = us) around the globe.
A sad taste of the destructive ripple:
People have always wanted to be the exception. To not, as someone recently said, “be average” but to be “above average.” This means timing the markets. Escaping risks that, while explained to you, don’t really apply to you. This is not new. But, what has changed is the scope and the degree of interdependence that results from this behavior.
Time for financial literacy to get sexy!