Handle Me with Care

Been beat up and battered 'round,
Been sent up and been shot down.

— George Harrison

Dependency on a retirement nest egg has turned me into an obsessive market watcher.

That's not a healthy habit. 

Unchecked, it induces stock market stress.

So my usual jitteriness wasn't helped a bit yesterday morning when economist Peter Berezin announced that, with Putin on the rampage, the odds of a "civilization-ending nuclear war" in the coming year have risen to 10 percent.

But not to worry, folks, Berezin said.

"Despite the rising risk of Armageddon, investors should stay bullish on stocks,” he told The  New York Times.

The Times found the economist's prediction of increased earnings somewhat baffling.

"What I wasn’t trying to say," Berezin replied, "was that stocks were going to go up if there is a nuclear war. Obviously, they will go down. 

"The point is that everything else will go down, too."

Somehow, I'm discomfited by Berezin's analysis.

Maybe it's my memories of all those duck-and-cover drills we practiced in grade school; those uncles with mildewed bomb shelters; or Walter Cronkite's live coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I don't know.

But the fact that the prices of all investment vehicles will fall when the world turns into a radioactive ash heap doesn't much ease this market watcher's jitters.

I was tempted to place a sell-everything order with my guy after reading Berezin's analysis, but I resisted the urge.

Instead, I ordered a box of Potassium Iodide on line and spent the rest of the morning painting a picture (my encore career).

The problem with a pronouncement like Berezin's isn't that it's wrong.

The problem is that, when it comes to Boomers, it's tone deaf.

Mr. Berezin—a Gen Xer—clearly doesn't grasp the fact that, as Cold War survivors, we Boomers have to be handled with the utmost care.

Sure, we thought annihilation went out with giant shoulder pads.

But a lot of us have PTSD. 

Post Thermonuclear Shivers Disorder.

We're easily triggered.

Easily.

So, please, handle us with care.

Burning Bridges

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

— Goethe

Rarely do I remember my dreams. Last night's is an exception.

I dreamed that my wife and I had planned to stay at a B&B during an antique show that was being held inside the Brandywine River Museum. (That's an actual annual event which I ran between 2006 and 2010.) 

The B&B in my dream was owned and operated by the museum (that's purely imaginary).

For some undisclosed reason, we had to scrap our plans to attend the show a day or two out.

Given our late cancellation, the B&B refused to refund us the lavish deposit on our room.

Oh, well, I said to no one in particular, you win some, you lose some.

I swallowed the $800 loss.

About a month later, a second $800 charge by the B&B appeared on my credit card statement. 

I called the front desk immediately.

"What's this other $800 charge for?" I asked. "We didn't even stayed at the inn."

Lloyd Bridges and sons

The concierge was blasé.

"After you cancelled your prepaid room, we gave it for free to a VIP guest, the movie actor Lloyd Bridges," he said. "Unfortunately, Mr. Bridges died in the room."

"That's terrible," I said. "But what's the $800 charge on my card for?"

"The $800 covers the cost to the inn of removing his body."

I asked why Lloyd Bridges' famous sons, Jeff and Beau, weren't asked to pay for the removal of their father's body. 

"They're rich," I said. "They can certainly afford it."

"We asked them and they both refused to pay," the concierge said. "So our only choice was to charge you."

I grew instantly riled, but knew I couldn't say a word.

Maintaining goodwill with the museum was crucial to my career—as what, I was unsure. 

No matter my feelings, I could not burn this bridge. 

Then, I woke up.

Sigmund Freud would have a field day analyzing my dream.

He found that bridges routinely appear in our dreams. 

Bridges symbolize the sex act—naturally. (Hey, it's Freud.)

But bridges also symbolize crossings: the crossing from birth to life; the crossing from life to death; and, for that matter, the crossing from any of life's stages to the next one.

As such, bridges symbolize changes: transitions, passages, returns, and departures.

Changes—whether for good or ill.

You don't want to burn those bridges, unless it's absolutely necessary. And maybe not even then.

You want to take the bridges as they come.

As The Dude said, “Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.”

Love It or Leave It

Most Western multinational companies have paused operations in Russia.

But not McDonalds. 

Junk-food retailers don't always own their stores in Russia (they're franchises out of the parent company's control), but McDonalds does.

The company has yet to make a public statement about the invasion of Ukraine by Putin, because Russia accounts for nearly 10% of its revenue.

I'm not lovin' it.

I'm leavin' it.

Boycott McDonalds. 

Because eating at McDonalds kills kids in Ukraine.

POSTCRIPT: Dump MCD, too. 

Commander in Thief

The party of crooks and thieves is putting forward its chief crook and thief for the presidency. We must vote against him.

— Alexei Navalny

When thievery is baked into a nation, as it is in Russia, we call it a kleptocracy. 

Kleptocracy, meaning "rule by a class of thieves," is a 19th-century word derived from the Greek words kleptes, meaning "thief," and kratia, meaning "rule."

Corruption in itself is bad enough; but far worse is the predatory and psychotic nature of kleptocrats.

Kleptocrats rule by bullying and by silencing their critics.

And when their rule is threatened, kleptocrats go on a murderous rampage.

That explains Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Pro-reform Ukraine threatens his thief's rule over Russia.

It also explains Trump's attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Joe Biden's win threatened Trumps' unhampered venality.

It will take decades for future historians and forensic accountants to quantify Trump's take during his four years in the White House, but it was well over $2 billion.

Of course, compared to Putin, Trump's a piker. 

Putin has taken 100 times that amount.

It's hard to put yourself in the shoes of a self-dealing psychotic willing to murder to protect his kleptocracy; harder still to hear your fellow citizens say they'll vote to return a self-dealing psychotic to the White House.

My one hope lies in the high likelihood that the newly formed Task Force KleptoCapture will reveal that Trump has been laundering Russian kleptocrats' money—a federal crime—for decades, and that our Commander in Thief will at last be brought to justice.

Stay tuned.

We live in wondrous times.

Duty and Disgust

The pain of others creates a reason for me to help them.

— John Searle

Please give now to Save the Children's Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund.

You have a duty as a human being to do so and it's a positive way to express personal disgust with Putin.

I said only yesterday that the proper response to the war news was to affirm your love for another.

I forgot for a moment there are Ukrainians suffering at Putin's hands—and that we can do something concrete about it.

Your gift to Save the Children's Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund represents real altruism, an act that is dutiful and grounded on both reason and empathy.

So please give—you can pat yourself on the back for your reason and empathy.

There's not a shred of those in the unhinged KGB agent.

Not a shred.

Above: A child enroute to the Slovak Republic two days ago. Photo by Daniel Leal.

Note: Friends ask, with so many charities requesting my money, which should I pick? Save the Children has a proven track record of financial probity, spending 86 cents of every dollar on services to kids.