401k plans - myth versus reality?
I have been watching the financial gurus on CNN lately, advising folks on how to manage their 401K plans, including some wonderfully sage advice about consulting with your “personal financial adviser.”
I don’t have a 401k plan now, but when I did, I call tell you who my financial adviser was - it was me. I’ve been doing a lot of asking around, and everyone who punches a time clock now tells me the same thing; they are their own financial adviser.
So you watch the markets, and react to yesterday’s news. You fill out the paperwork, or go online, and change how you want your money invested - all based on yesterday’s news.
The stock market may be a crap shoot, but if you really have no idea what you are doing, there’s a lot of serious damage that you can do yourself.
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And then they put my underpants on backwards - honest!
Just before bed last night, Tracy and I were watching these oddball UFO investigators” looking into a case where a guy was abducted, taken aboard an alien ship, unmentioned things happened to him, and he was returned to his bed.
If one is to believe the History Channel, or any number of other cable offerings, all one really needs to investigate UFOs these days is a computer and some baseball caps with a really cool logo on - and dress like you get all your clothes from yard sales. I sort of suspect the same principle applies to ghost hunting, actually.
But I digress. But then again, it is Sunday morning - what else is a fella gonna do?
Our victim claimed that once the evil aliens had their nefarious way with him, they returned him to his bed. But when he awoke, he discovered that his T-shirt and boxers were on backwards, and the screen was missing from the bedroom window.
Say what?
You mean to say that these guys can pilot a spaceship across the galaxy, but can’t handle the intricacies of a window screen, let alone underpants? Off hand, I’d say we have nothing to worry about from these guys, at all.
One of the characters on The X Files once said that in modern America, just about anyone could manage to convince someone they had been abducted by aliens, because of how much abduction documentation is available.
One of the “investigators” said that the fact that the guy’s underwear was on backwards “clarified” his experience.
Meanwhile, back on Earth . . .
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Quote of the Day
The art of leisure lies, to me, in the power of absorbing without effort the spirit of one's surroundings; to look, without speculation, at the sky and sea; to become part of a green plain; to rejoice, with a tranquil mind, in the feast of colour in a bed of flowers. - Dion Calthrop, "The Charm of Gardens"
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On the Air with Joe Alexander
On Monday, December 15, (7pm) Joe Alexander will be a guest on my show.
Alexander, a well-known Fayetteville artist, has long been critical of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which a writer for Mother Earth News once described as possibly being the most hated current government program. The NAIS would require farmers across the United States to register all individual livestock with the government. Several states have already implemented the program, though there is much criticism and protest against it across the country.
Showings:
Monday - 7pm
Tuesday - noon
Saturday - 6pm
