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The following is not intended as a pep talk, but is simply how I see the future.
I've been worried these last few months, seeing what collapse of overextended financial institutions has done to my retirement portfolio. But as I went over my investments and reviewed my financial situation last night, I started to get a more objective, long term perspective on what's happening with my speculative money. And in the big picture, I think things are gonna be pretty good.
The stock market always increases in value over any twenty year period--which is about the retirement timeline I'm looking at. Properly seen, the current drop off in the values in the stock market is a 50% off sale on Wall Street. So I'm optimistic. I'm gonna buy into stocks big over the next few months. Maybe optimism is the American disease. But I'm betting my retirement on Barack Obama's view that a smartly applied stimulus will keep the country crawling along until the natural rhythms of the market start to move us forward again. I'm betting my retirement on the belief that people wanting to work and an economy responsibly managed will produce real wealth over the coming 20 year period.
I leave the panic, the doomsday scenarios, and the fear mongering to the Becks, Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world. They scream "socialism!" and (God bless 'em) "communism!" with the same giddy, clueless panic in their voices that they used to scream "torture!" and "Iraq's WMDs!" the last time they wanted us jumping at shadows. Their doom and gloom is a thin denial masking their sinking awareness that the Bush style unregulated market makes about as much sense as an unlubricated automobile engine. Their no regulation philosophy has all the sense of a motorist morally opposed to traffic lights. Republicans don't believe in changing the oil, rotating the tires, stopping at intersections, or fastening their seat belts. Hot dog drivers may get you there faster, but Republican economics remains unsafe at any speed. That doesn't mean traffic is a flawed concept. It just means Bush, Cheney, and Paulson were shitty drivers.
Nothing's a sure thing in the messy science of economics, of course. The market may drop a little more, but the wealth that built up the American economy over the last three generations is real wealth. We've drifted off from our core strength of vibrant, robust middle class. But the American middle class is only stretched thin, not worn out.
I don't see much falling off left to do. The wealth of the stock market, while certainly not the real source of wealth in this country, is rooted in the very real economic heft of our free institutions and culture. Americans like to work and the overwhelming focus of the stimulus package is on getting more people working. The stimulus package may not cure the recession that Bush's Bubble created, but it will keep a few more of us busy and buying, and thus help stave off a real economic collapse until new technologies and new innovations start to refuel the engine of capitalism again--as they always have throughout history.
Work produces wealth. Even the Republicans with their inability to distinguish between business management and piracy can't fuck up capitalism. Capitalism, properly managed, marries productive human ingenuity to the basic human desire to buy new stuff. If anything defines the American people, it is our hungry, clawing passion for getting new stuff--all kinds of stuff: electronic stuff, closet filling stuff, shelf packing stuff, potable, chewable, malleable stuff. If anyone ever tells you to "Go get stuffed," you thank them. You tell them, "Yes, dammit, I will get stuffed. I will get over stuffed, for I am an American!"
God bless our stuff.
A country founded on the right to pursue happiness has tapped into the most powerful force in human nature--the desire to have a decent life, to wallow in our shallow materialist bliss. Our economy may be suffering from a crises brought on by an unfettered perversion of our materialistic culture--from banks pushing credit lines to Republicans looting the treasury beyond our ability to pay--but this is a crisis of mismanagement, not of the basic American formula of a people free to pursue their own lives and work to achieve their dreams.
So I'm betting my retirement on Obama. I think over the next four years we're all going to see the president's gamble that renewed investment in new technologies, smarter transportation, and a well-respected intellectual infrastructure will pay off. Or, more to the point, I'm betting on my country and human nature. I'm betting that the Democratic vision of focusing on middle class wealth--making life better for ordinary families and trying to bring more people from lower classes into the middle class--makes more sense than the Republican vision of pushing wealth into the upper classes and praying that enough crumbs trickle down to the rest of us. You probably won't see stock prices skyrocket with the (ironically) more conservative management style of Democrats. But in the long run, I think we'll see a sounder, safer future because our people are in charge.
I'm not just betting my retirement portfolio on it, I'm betting my country's future on the Democratic vision. And if you look at America's history, you'll see it's really not a gamble at all.
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