9/25/08

Wall Street antics hit Main Street

by Beckye Randall, Editor

When I was young, my parents and their friends paid no attention to the stock market. “Playing the market” was reserved for those with money to burn and was actually considered a somewhat shady proposition.

These days almost every adult has some money in the stock market, whether it’s in mutual funds included in a 401(k) or a company’s pension plan that’s vested in its own portfolio. So even those of modest means have kept a watchful, and woeful, eye on the stock market lately.

I still don’t understand the inner workings of the market, its intricacies and connections. All I know is that each time I check my numbers, they’ve shrunk.

Now the administration is proposing a multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the biggest banks and insurance companies. It seems to me that these institutions probably brought their problems upon themselves, and their CEOs ought to empty their own massive bank accounts to help cover some of the bad debts they’ve incurred.

But I’m not a financial wizard, and like I said before, I don’t fully understand all the connections between, say, my shares of Frontier Bank stock and the AIG bailout or the near-junk bond rating of WaMu stock. And don’t ask me about our national debt to foreign countries, or the continuing flow of American companies being bought up by overseas investors.

This national financial crisis is compounded here in Snohomish County by the Boeing strike, which has already impacted small business owners in a big way. When paychecks stop at one of the area’s largest employers, everyone feels it.

In my own family, we’ve felt the pinch, and I’m sure many of you can relate. Two of my sons were out of work for months, and have only recently found employment again. One of them, who left a high-paying professional position with a mortgage company in California, has taken a seasonal job with a Halloween store. Nothing else has materialized in the field in which he’s been trained and excelled for years.

All in all, these are uncomfortable times. I’ve heard many folks say things will get better after the upcoming elections. I certainly hope so.

I also hope folks aren’t so disenchanted by November that they don’t even participate in the election. This seems to be the best opportunity us regular folks have had in awhile to make our voices heard and help determine the country’s (and the state’s) direction.

Are you registered to vote?