my standard just got poorer...

The whole notion of investing in the stock market is antithetical to most of my sociopolitical beliefs. When I realized that I had no more earning potential and that my "salary" from private disability insurance relegated me to a fixed income... and that at the age of 65, I would have nothing coming in... you can bet that I got over my beliefs pretty quickly.

Because my teaching career was mostly spent at universities using a pension system, not participating in the Social Security program, and because getting to my own money thus sequestered required, at each job, that I teach there long enough to be "vested," well -- my own pension income is entirely inaccessible to me.

I always wanted to be a Cautionary Tale when I grew up.

There have been many unhappy, tension-ridden days for this investor. I have a household dependent on me and the sagacity of my sinking real money into the often immoral doings of corporations.

And I am one of those brilliant investors that watches the Dow dive and just goes cold. I don't snatch free my holdings, oh no. That would make too much sense.

Instead, I think, if you can call it that, "Well, I have come back strong before... I will just have to do it again."

Sometimes I will toss into my thought some embarrassing bit of verbiage, like "bite the bullet," or the whimsical "you can't time the market" -- something every loser says, but no one believes except the Stuffed Shirt Who Already Has His.

But I don't have a ready reaction to a warning being issued by the S&P on sovereign U.S. debt. Has this ever happened before? I am tempted to try and find the person most representative of the S&P and beat him or her with a wet noodle, decrying this warning as the act of a traitor, of an unpatriotic USAmerican.

America, love her or leave her, and most especially, don't issue a warning on her sovereign debt.

God is enjoying screwing with me and my unrepentant betrayal of all that I know is right. Including Friday's uncalled for abuse of GOOG, I'm down roughly 17% over the course of two days.

There can be no true socialism so long as a stock market exists -- it is the very symbol of capitalism and private property.

For my next trick, I will post on the Social Security System as Ponzi Scheme... because you probably wouldn't want to read a long rant about the Hot Hell waiting for those who believe in "socially-responsible investing." 

Not only are these the days that try men's souls, but Terry Eagleton is even at it again with his recent Why Marx Was Right.  Unfortunately, this blog is maxed out on its Logical Fallacies quota.

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Wall Street stocks plunge after US debt warning


NEW YORK (AFP) – US stocks plunged Monday after ratings agency Standard & Poor's issued its first warning on US sovereign debt, citing Washington's looming debt and fiscal deficits.


The Dow Jones Industrial Average dived 233.33 points (1.89 percent) to 12,108.50 at 1410 GMT, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite skidded 57.16 points (2.07 percent) to 2,707.49.


The broad-market S&P 500-stock index shed 23.04 points (1.75 percent) at 1,296.64.


Shortly before the market open, Standard & Poor's revised for the first time its outlook on US sovereign debt to "negative" from "stable," but said the United States had until 2013 to come up with a credible plan for addressing its financial problems.


"Because the US has, relative to its 'AAA' peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable," S&P said in a statement.


The bond market fell sharply just after the S&P news.


The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 3.44 percent from 3.41 percent late Friday and prices fell 0.7 percent.


On the 30-year bond, the yield leaped to 4.52 percent from 4.47 percent Friday and prices fell 1.6 percent. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions.


The United States issued a swift and critical reaction, saying the ratings agency underestimated the US government's ability to tackle the problem... [CONT.]