Stock Market Woes

Are you having stock market woes?  For many, but only a small percentage of the population, the current stock market implosion is a terrible thing.  For the vast majority of us, it will make our lives a little better.  Let me explain it to you, slowly, and without using too many large words.

When the stock market is high, people were buying those high priced stocks instead of selling them are being set up for failure.  You see, when the price of a stock falls, the value goes down, and a stockholder takes a loss.  On the other hand, as that stock drops, so does the value of that stock as it filters down to the consumer market, and we see companies having price lowering wars to try and lure us in.  They need your money.

Okay, so now mainstreet, who expensive politicians are claiming to want to help, is finally getting a break in a continuous rise in pricing that has gone on for nearly a decade.  Fuel is costing less, food is costing less, the value of items are going down, and it is being reflected in our bank accounts in a way that bail-out billions and tax-payer rebates could never do.  The little guy is not hurt by falling stocks, but helped by them, because the value of that person's money suddenly goes up.

And if you have a few thousand dollars you'd like to do something with, ignore the Wall Street experts who are telling you to hold on to it.  Now is the time to invest, if ever there was one.  Think about it.  Are you more likely to make a profit on stock purchased at 35 a share, or stock purchased at the low of 17 a share?  Come on, folks, this is not rocket science.  The golden rule of stock trading is BUY LOW - SELL HIGH.  The people who don't want you to buy stocks now are the ones who purchased it at a higher price, and hope to drive the value up again to regain some lost revenue.  BUY LOW.  Don't even think about selling anything.  Whatever you have, keep it.  

That includes for selling a car or home.  You can't sell it for the same value it had, so don't try.  HOWEVER, if we BUY LOW, now is excellent for purchasing a home.  Builders are unloading property at record prices right now, to get out from under them.  If you purchase a home now, you are almost certainly guaranteed to make a profit on owning the home in just a few years.  BUY LOW.

Once you've bought a home, a car, and invested in AIG at bargain basement prices, sit on the investments.  The car is going to depreciate anyway, so you can cruise around town while you watch the stock market make a slow turn upward that multiplies the value of your investments.  Stock Market Woes?  Only for those who forgot to BUY LOW, and were stuck with worthless stock.

Driving and Higher Mathematics

(A(x+2)-B(x))/60 = C

Looks like Greek, doesn't it? It is. But you know what? You may not be able to solve this equation on paper, but you can do it without even thinking about it at the same time as you're riding down the road flipping through your favorite channels on the radio.

I've always been amazed that people say they don't understand algebraic math, and yet they don't even hesitate to jump behind a steering wheel.

Go with me, on this. The equation above is nothing more than the formula to tell you how fast you better STOP THE FREAKIN CAR BEFORE YOU HIT THE IDIOT IN FRONT OF YOU.

See, you are car (A)lpha Romeo, and you are booking right along at x+2, but that fool in front of you, in his jacked up (B)uick is only going x (maybe because he's not burning hi-test, but that's beside the point); by golly every second you are getting closer to the point of (C)ollision.

Do you follow? The quiet little back of your brain looks at that guy's tailights getting larger and brighter, and tells your foot that it had better push down on the brake pedal, or you're gonna have an accident. Because that part of your brain DOES know how to do that funky higher math. It also has a severe dislike of pain. Putting those two items together, you are slowing down without even thinking about it, because you naturally see what is happening.

Ditto for that jug in the fridge with only half a glass of milk in it. Nobody is going to drink it. After figuring the volume of the jug, and then the amount of liquid remaining, your brain (and anyone else's who sees the jug) comes to the equation that if you drink that last tiny bit, you'll be held responsible for drinking THE WHOLE THING. Best to leave it there until some new lifeform begins to grow on the surface of the milk, thereby converting this math exercise into a real world science experiment.

Ladies, a lot of you like to pretend that algebra is too much work. But let's be realistic. How many times have you held a pair of jeans against your body, calculated the volume of space available in them, then subtracted your actual lower body mass, and came to the conclusion that they fit fine, you only have to lie down and stretch way out on the bed to get into them? If you have to cut 'em off with scissors later, then so be it. I mean, good googly woogly, your bras are already labled with A, B, C, and D. You just fill in the value. Not to mention the twisted equations you do in your pretty little heads when trying to decide the right amount of skin to display in ratio to the amount of bloatation you are feeling at the moment.

And what about that late-night snack? We've already established that no way are you touching that milk, so now all you have to do is figure out how big the empty spot in your stomach is, to better determine what size bowl you need for the Captain Crunch CrunchBerry, or whether to just eat your fill straight from the box. Errors in this equation result in the comment "Eyes were to big for my belly".

So stop thinking that algebra is hard to do. If your animal brain can do it while you are scratching your butt, the big, smart part of your brain shouldn't have a problem, either. If it does, please let me know what roads you drive on, as I want to stay well away from you when you are driving.