There are few things as profoundly depressing as talking with our Ameriprise advisor.
He starts every yearly session with a recitation of how badly the economy is doing -- and not just here, but everywhere. Towns, cities in default. Massive deficits here, slashed governmental and local workforces there. Nobody is hiring, nobody is growing. Gloom abounds. We walk in thinking hey, we're doing pretty well, we've got a goodly amount saved and invested, and within fifteen minutes we're looking for a piece of cardboard to scratch out a Will xxxxxx for cash sign. We decided that it's his way of saying '"Look, I can guarantee you two percent, but only for a year, and maybe even three, but past that, forget it. Be lucky to stay even, keep what you got. "
I wish that he'd just say that.
2 comments:
I am not an economist. However, my parents lived through the depression. They told me that the only people who did well in the depression were people who had cash money. Not numbers in savings accounts, but cash. Not equity in homes but cash.
We are so used to the concept of electronic money that we forget that it can all be wiped out in an instant, with no warning.
So I asked them, if you ever had any cash, what did you do with it? Their answer was "Well, we rented land to put in a garden.
Interesting. Not what I would have done at all!
Hence the First National Bank of Under The Mattress. Which, as I grow older, doesn't seem quite so silly.
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