Anachronism

This is not an anachronism. If you realize that a few choice words can cause action, for instance, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater the first time, or "Wolf!" while guarding sheep, the market will move.

Notice what happened today to cause a spike, but when the source of the news was made known, the spike went away.
 
Whatever's going on, I don't want to jinx it, but I wouldn't complain if this rate kept up.

On one hand, as a government contractor, I'm on furlough, burning through my leave, and that will be exhausted sometime in mid February. But, on the other, my portfolio has returned around 11.2%, from Christmas Eve to yesterday's market close. That equates to about two year's worth of gross pay, or FOUR year's take-home!

Still, even though I'm doing okay financially, I just don't like this uncertainty. Hopefully the market will keep improving, but I could see it going south again, without too much provocation. And, I just hate this one day at a time crap.

Some people have tried to tell me to look at this as how it would be, to be retired, but I've driven home the point with them that no, retirement would be on MY terms, and when I can afford it and am truly ready for it. This, in some ways, feels like that movie "Groundhog Day", where things just keep repeating, and I don't know when the cycle will be broken.

Just out of curiosity, I went back and looked at how things went down the last time the gov't shut down, in 2013. From October 1 to October 17, which I think was the day I went back to work, my portfolio returned around 1.7%. Which might not sound like a lot, but still came out to around two months of gross pay, or four months of take-home.
 
There is a school of thought that the best Congress is a do-nothing Congress.
 
There is a school of thought that the best Congress is a do-nothing Congress.

I agree with this school of thought- the market likes certainty and hates change more than my DW. Do nothing means more of the same, and the market can price for that.
 
..
On one hand, as a government contractor, I'm on furlough, burning through my leave, and that will be exhausted sometime in mid February. But, on the other, my portfolio has returned around 11.2%, from Christmas Eve to yesterday's market close. That equates to about two year's worth of gross pay, or FOUR year's take-home!

...

I don't get why you are using leave.

If you are willing to work and your company furloughs you without pay, it's just unpaid time and should not affect your holiday time.

If they suggested you use holiday time, and they would pay you, then they can expect you to treat it as a real holiday and go away for X days, ie not return when the gov't says it's over.
 
There is a school of thought that the best Congress is a do-nothing Congress.

Reminds me of the bureau of sabotage.

In Herbert's fiction, sometime in the far future, government becomes terrifyingly efficient. Red tape no longer exists: laws are conceived of, passed, funded, and executed within hours, rather than months.

The bureau is then installed to basically slow down the government, stabilizing society in the long term.
 
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