Dan's Papers - October 10, 2008 - Life Is Good, @#$%!$# It!

I'm sitting at my desk right now watching in terror as my stocks go down. It is one very, very lousy feeling.

I have the ocean, I have a job, I have a Smart Car and...WHAT THE HELL 700 POINTS? 800? ARE YOU KIDDING ME! THE DOW IS DOWN 800 POINTS? I hate everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything. Get away, BE GONE! No, no I'm not crying. Shut up!

This is the worst, most terrible time in my life. I work every day, put a portion of my money into the stock market, and now it is going down below to where I invested some money two years ago? I hate everybody! Even the coffee person annoyed me this morning. YES I WANT IT BLACK! YOU GOT A PROBLEM? Do something, dude, just give me a reason. I'm begging.

I can eat every day whatever I want. I'm still working, unlike some of my buddies in the city that have been laid off or fear of being laid off. The Hamptons International Film Festival is coming up and that will be exciting. Fall is here, there will be kids running around getting apple cider and I get to wear those preppy sweaters that make me feel like I'm a Ralph Lauren model and are snuggly. I'm a grownup, which means that I can eat plenty of Ben and Jerry's right now to ward off this empty feeling of financial stupidity (maybe that is a good stock now?).

Because even though I went to business school and made my Dad pay $120,000 of college tuition to learn about finance only to end up working for him at Dan's Papers as an editor and then trade stocks on my own, you would think that business school would help me NAVIGATE THIS STOCK MARKET! I HATE THAT IT IS GOING DOWN! HOW DO STOCKS LIKE GOLDMAN SACHS, VISA AND GENERAL ELECTRIC GO DOWN THIS MUCH IN ONE DAY? WHY! WHY! WHY!

RAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!

Stop selling your stocks, people, you are making it worse. Don't you get that? Selling your stock right now is like betting that America is going to fail. Are you nuts? Are you kidding me? Everything is bad. Nothing is good, IT-IS-THE-APOCALYPSE!

Yes, stocks are going down. But they'll come back up, Dave. You made the right move buying into some stocks as they have dropped 10-20-30-40-100 percent. It will all come back, it is all just part of the business cycle. Think about all of the idiots who are selling right now, when they could be buying so many great businesses at a huge discount. This is opportunity time. This is going to be great. Set your course. Life is good. We got the leaves turning color. We got fewer people in town. The films in the film fest look good I watched a screener of the movie '77, a cinematic coming of age story about a young guy. It's charming. I have a warm bed to sleep in, a great family, everyone is in good health. The price of gas is coming down, which is a good thing even though it is only coming down because of a huge global sell off of securities thanks to a ridiculous amount of fear running through the markets caused by this DISASTROUS sub prime lending scheme that has affected the whole country causing so many people to lose a tremendous amount of money that they have saved and worked for and now it is affecting the average GUY who is saving money in the stock market for retirement. WHAT? WHAT WAS THAT? THE BAILOUT ISN'T REALLY WORKING? THEN WHAT DID IT DO? WHERE'S MY BAILOUT!? HUH?! WHAT?! YOU STUPID MOTHER !@#!@#@ !@#$ $!#$% son of a %@#$!@#$ lousy $@!#$#! I hate you, you $#@$!@#@#^ and you can go to !@# @#$@#$ #@$ and the stick #@$@#$ up @##@$$ @!#$ and then you can go eat a @!#$@!#.

But it's all right. Hey, man, we got it made. Life is good. The air is crisp, I'm healthy, I got a dog, the ocean...