Who loves you, baby?:
Post-partisanship lives. The stimulus package just passed the House, with the billions in corporate tax cuts, without the money to re-sod the National Mall, without the money for family planning for poor people, and without one Republican vote. Without one. Final vote was 244-188 as 11 "Democrats" crossed over.
I'm actually glad about this - I think it's not a bad thing for Obama to get an object lesson in how sincere the Republican leadership is when they ask for concessions in return for "bipartisan" support.
I opened my retirement fund statement. Uhg. I could've handled being an ostrich a little longer.
No way I'm going anywhere near that thing. Not for like a year.
I didn't realize what it was (I thought it might be my w2. That was the second I opened,) opened it and just saw the huge -29% before I even read the top of the page. OUCH. At least I can spin it that all of what I lost, I didn't put it? (Employer matching.) Maybe? I know it doesn't work that way, but... I can pretend. Hey, I've got another 30+ years.
Yeah, Tom looked at his yesterday. Down 31%.
I've basically lost every cent I've put into my 401k this year. It's pretty fucking depressing.
I keep telling myself it sucks but not as much as for people my parents' age who are at retirement age right now, and just lost....a lot, right when they were getting ready to use it. My parents aren't doing badly, by any stretch, but both are planning on working an extra couple years now to hedge their bets and get to where they were planning to be.
Both of my parents have had a big hit to their retirement funds. My mom's put hers into perspective, though--a friend of hers lost just about everything when Enron went under, and there was no way for her to get any of that back, so she had to go back to work at the age of 67 (this was right after her husband left her after 50 years--Shirley's had a rough time of it).
Mom figures she'll just have to wait a bit for the market to bounce back some.
The decision to work longer is good for my dad; he started exploring options of a part-time retirement, and we were all afraid of him going into retirement cold turkey. This way he'll shed a lot of the responsibilities wearing on him but still keep busy (CRUCIAL!!!!)
Aieee! Someone just sent a draft spreadsheet I put together to the Godboss. DRAFT. I wanted to do a couple more iterations and checks. OTOH, at least the Godboss knows I'm working my ass off?
