Coffee Log, Year 2, Day 172

Hi.

Coffee:  Maxwell House Master Blend, Office Coffee

Dow dropped 800 points today. Hard to imagine so much weight can come from a number, but for the first time in my life I’m starting to understand the significance. I work with loans, point people toward agents who can sell investments, I’ve got my hands on the puzzle pieces progressively putting them together. I get why a 2.5% drop in markets will affect everything – the less money you save, the less there is to work with, and that comes back to tightened belts and lower profits. No-one knows if this means a recession, but no-one knows it doesn’t either.

But understanding doesn’t mean the system makes sense.

I had a conversation about cicadas and locusts. A colleague couldn’t tell the difference, hadn’t seen a locust in person to compare. So we all swapped stories and I thought about the time in 7th grade where I sat beside a window in science class that looked out at the school garden. In April, the locusts came to the garden and started eating everything up. It felt like the end of the world. Back then, I was bullied, so the world’s end looked welcome.

It’s not you or me that’ll crash the markets. It’s the people with pouch-pockets full to bursting with all the money they’ve drained out of the economy. The richer you are the less wealth you spend. Then again, what’s wealth ever been but a measure of social capital? We sit at the window and watch the long brown grasshoppers eating up the tomatoes until we’re left with shoots and leaves.

Currently Reading: Queen, Suzanne Crain Miller

Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border  – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN

It is the job of the market to turn the base material of our emotions into gold.

Andrei Codrescu, Zombification: Stories from National Public Radio