There Are None So Blind...

I am constantly amazed. This may be a testament to my childlike sense of wonder, or to my thin shell of cynicism. No matter. In the end, all is made clear I guess.

Like many of you, I am having a mid-life crisis of sorts. I am 45 and work in the automotive retail business. I have a wife and kids and a mortgage. So far sounds pretty nice, right? Well...maybe not so much. As you have probably guessed, the automotive business is not exactly rife with success presently. Sales are down overall across the country about 30 to 40% depending on who you believe. I work in Michigan, where about one out of three jobs depend directly on the vehicle manufacturing industry, which only worsens my situation. The dealership I work for is a well established triple franchise in a city of about 60,000 people. Our sales are currently about 55% of what they were last year...and last year was not so great either.

In addition, I enrolled in our company's 401K retirement program about 3 years ago. I'm really old, and not a great saver, so I have been investing about 13% of my pre-tax income every month. When sales are strong, so is my income. I was starting to see the result of regular saving and felt pretty comfortable about my chances for a decent retirement. That level of comfort has disappeared, along with about 28% of my savings in the stock market crash.

Now, I should preface this with the obvious: I am not a savvy wallstreet investor type. I chose a fairly aggressive fund that was delivering pretty decent 5 year average returns. I have compared my losses with other 401K participants that I work with, and guess what? Even the most timid funds have lost about the same amount as me. In a very real sense, about 1 year of my savings for retirement have been wiped out. I did make one move that may pay off later for me. I came across a link to a website on Google's financial forum. It has change the way I am thinking about my situation, the economy worldwide, and just what makes the world around us tick. The site is www.enterprisecorruption.com

The website is less of an information site about corruption, than it is a puzzle. The mystery man (or woman) behind it identifies themselves only as "Reinhardt". They have created a timeline of corruption episodes (usually referred to as "Enrons") dating back hundreds of years. Reinhardt has also used humor and riddles to lead his flock to knowledge. I like this approach. If someone tells you: "This is a fact", you have more than one choice. You can take it as fact, or you can research the issue and refute it. Reinhardt's approach demands that you do the legwork to figure out his message. What you do with it after that is up to you.

The website is sometimes locked down with a password page. Other times it is wide open. I am sure that there is a degree of paranoia on the part of the writer, as some of the information is anarchistic. I would be lying to you if I said that I "get" all of it, but a larger pattern is beginning to appear out of some of the chaos we are living through right now....and I have one prediction to make: this crisis isn't even close to being over.

I have started this blog to try and open a few eyes to some of the new "realities" that will be coming at us over the next year or so. Most of them will not be pretty. My philosophy is forewarned is forearmed. I will try to stay reasonably objective here, but don't look for anything to lukewarm. I have strong OPINIONS, but they are just that. I only ask that you read mine, then form your own.

Here is today's meat & potatoes: I spoke with a few people at work today about the very current topic of a possible Fed bailout of the Big 3 automakers. The consensus was that the government should bail them out. I asked them why, and was informed that it was not only the "patriotic" thing to do, but that it would save 100's of 1000's of jobs. I was stopped in my tracks for a moment by the sheer stupidity of this answer. How could they not know about the rampant layoffs of Michigan workers in the auto industry over the past 5+ years due to outsourcing? How could they not know about the recent completion (this past week) of the new General Motors plant in Russia, or the proposed acquisition of Wuling Motors in China by Ford? Did they not read the news that GM is on the verge of bankruptcy according to their CEO? I gathered my composure and asked them a simple question: Where does the bailout money come from? The answer I got was: "The government". I then asked my co-workers if they were experiencing any financial difficulties right now, which they all agreed they were. I then inquired if they had asked for a bailout from "the government", at which point they all laughed at my childlike nature. I subtly explained that "the government" that they believe so strongly should bailout the failing companies gets their money from me. They laughed again. And YOU. The laughter ceased shortly after that.

Nobody is going to bail you out if you make bad choices. Bad businesses should be allowed to fail. There are plenty of better companies out there to pull up the slack. That is how capitalism is supposed to work, but capitalism is broken, and all of the repair people have been outsourced to China.