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Already voted, but perhaps the number is more significantly expressed in percentage.
True, unless you want to be able to say, "Honey, look it is not so bad. Someone else lost more than we did" .
Actual dollar figures are scarier than percentages, and I am interested in the wreckage. it is one thing to say i have lost 25% (which is what I have lost). It is totally another to say i have lost $1,000 or $1,000,000, both of which could be that 25%.
I put in another category of "I made money". Sounds like that's ok with you.
__________________ "Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harborless immensities." - - H. Melville, 1851
How about a category of:
"I made a little money, but not enough to cover inflation, so technically still a loss"
OK - I voted 0 to 50k on first seeing the poll for lack of a better option, but wish to change my vote now that we have another option - can I do that? Or should I just vote twice in the new category? Will I have to register again under a different username? Should we call ACORN? I'm so confused :confused:
__________________ 12/31/09 at age 49 - Still on Target!
unexpected correction to sig - Now retired 09/09 not quite yet 49!
Glad there is an "I made money" category now. And I guess you can classify my gains as "paper" too. Especially the paper with pictures of George, Abe, Alex, Andy, US Grant and Ben Franklin.
The CD's are slow but steady and I keep adding to my portrait collection every month.
__________________
100% retired and working hard at it.
Actual dollar figures are scarier than percentages, and I am interested in the wreckage. it is one thing to say i have lost 25% (which is what I have lost). It is totally another to say i have lost $1,000 or $1,000,000, both of which could be that 25%.
OK. How about this to alleviate your pain?
Chairman of Bear Stearns James Cayne had a stake worth more than $1 billion on paper in 2007. In March 2008, he had sold all of his shares in this troubled investment bank for just $61 million.
Actual dollar figure: $1B. Percentage: 95%. Do we all feel better now??
Gee, that $61M is probably 1 or 2 year expenses for this "poor" guy.
Actually, I felt a bit sorry for him. Being Chairman of the board, he probably did not know what his CEO and CFO were doing. Actually, his CEO and CFO probably did not know either.
By the way, look over the entire world. Many foreign stock indices went down more than S&P 500 or the DOW. There's misery all over the world. So, are we all poorer? Probably not, if we do not compare to the few who have gone 100% to cash.
There! I hope I make everybody happier. We still own the same companies as we did last year, the same house we did. Just the price tag we put on them got marked down. Again, do not compare yourself to the few who are 100% in cash. We are in this together.
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