Just a look at the front page of cnnmoney today is enough to give even the strong of stomach the extreme willies. Next to a headline that says, “Wall Street Braces for Ugly Day,” and video featuring a scary dude warning about the dangers of inflation, is a deck of headlines. At this writing, here they are…
- Income, spending higher than expected
- Mortgage mess socks ex-Goldman stars
- MBIA says more writedowns ahead
- Wilbur Ross bets on bond insurer Assured
- Dollar sinks further/Oil hits $103
- The 10 best cars – Consumer Reports
- Toyota’s unknown business partners
- Banks could see $600B hit from credit crunch
- 3 steps for living well in retirement
- How Sony won the high-def DVD war
- Don’t panic: That IRS letter is good news
- Furniture company – or hedge fund?
Aside from the interesting tease that a letter from the IRS is good news, there’s not a lot to feel good about here, unless you’re Sony (SNE) and right now popping champagne corks over its victory in the high-def DVD wars.
Of course, winning the format battle for who will provide the DVDs of the future is very good news… unless you think that maybe in five or ten years nobody will be watching DVDs anymore. I just upgraded my Apple TV (APPL) and up popped a huge menu of movies I might actually want to see, in both regular format and HD.
Wow, I thought. There goes Netflix (NFLX). There goes DVDs. There, in fact, goes everybody but Apple unless somebody hurries up and figures out an alternative to Planet Steve. My new MacBook Air is functioning really well, by the way. I can’t say what I’m really going to need it for, of course, but as King Lear said when questioned about the size of his staff, “Oh! Question not the need!”
Anyhow, just look at those headlines. And they were actually updated nine minutes before I copied them into this blog. When I woke up and looked at them, they were even worse.
I’m expecting to wake up sometime soon and see a headline in the stack that says, “World ends with both bang and whimper. Bernanke soothes investors with indications of additional rate cuts.”
When I was a whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school, I used to love Fridays because I looked forward to freedom from the tedium of class, to watching cartoons over the weekend, to dressing the way I wanted to and not combing my hair. I got nervous on Sunday nights, knowing that I would have to put my game face on the next morning, and that always hurts.
Today Friday feels different. I like it, sure. The weekend will be fine, I have no doubt. But I yearn for this day, I dream of its arrival, because I know that when it is done there is probably no more that the week can do to us. Or at least that tomorrow we really don’t have to pay very close attention.
Not paying attention right now may be a key strategy for survival in the next 18 months or so. Or paying attention to something completely different. I’m thinking of getting serious about my bird-watching, how about you?