Friday, February 27, 2009

My Optimistic Wife and My Pessimistic Self

I upset my wife today, when I noted that one of my retirement investments lost over 10% of its value in only the last two weeks and that we have put a few thousand more into it than we currently have on the ledger.

She replied with a charming, "Well, on the bright side, our current contributions are getting more for their money, so when things get better we'll see a rapid increase!"

Sometimes she's such the Pollyanna, and while that's one of the reasons that I love her so much, this time it annoyed me.

I responded to her "silver lining" approach with a scathing analysis of how much worse things could and probably will get--that even if we break even or beyond, the devaluation of the dollar will mean that we end up behind nonetheless.

She asked me why I'm always so down on things.

I asked her what about trends and the history of the matter suggests that I should be optimistic.

She had no answer, so her mood turned sour.

It'll be sleep on the couch for me, tonight.




Business hours are over, baby!

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:03 PM

    There were two reps from a firm in our lounge on Wed., with pizza. They had some packets (which I haven't looked at yet)about projecting investments for retirement. I thought it quite bold and foolhardy to attempt an estimate of what one's investments and retirement fund MIGHT be worth in 30 years. I wanted to go all Sam Kinnison on them, and shout "Bullshit! You don't know! Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:03 PM

    There were two reps from a firm in our lounge on Wed., with pizza. They had some packets (which I haven't looked at yet)about projecting investments for retirement. I thought it quite bold and foolhardy to attempt an estimate of what one's investments and retirement fund MIGHT be worth in 30 years. I wanted to go all Sam Kinnison on them, and shout "Bullshit! You don't know! Oh! Oh! Ohhhhh!!

    ReplyDelete

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