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The people heading these investment firms that are going bankrupt are not being fired and hoping for some unemployment insurance like the rest of us would be, but are getting to escape, right when the going gets tough, with departure bonuses large enough for several people like me to retire on.

It seems the whole issue of responsibility is breaking down in our society, which makes it likely that more and more craziness like this will happen. (I’m guessing, for example, that both main candidates are still talking about tax cuts, in spite of us using that money and more for bailouts.)

Also, I think gas is actually getting scarcer and thus will continue to go up in price leading to an inflation that’s not just cyclical.

I guess it’s the usual problem with downturns. It’s hard to know whether this downturn (in stocks, jobs, interest rates) is just cyclical, or whether things are changing for the worse long-term? (Examples from the past that seemed scary at the time: the Great Depression, WWII, the savings-and-loan mess, 9/11. Examples that may or may not have seemed scary at the time: the fall of the Roman Empire, the disappearance of the cliff-dwellers and many other Native American groups, and the disappearance of entire species.)

What I’m doing is pretending it’s cyclical, wishing I could scrape up more money to buy stocks cheaply. But I’m also fearing that it’s not cyclical, trying to think of more ways to diversify. (Having stocks AND bonds doesn’t seem very diverse to me, no matter how many types of companies I have stocks in.)

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