Taking things surprisingly well

Ok, I have this big stuffed animal, about two and a half feet, and I tried to wash it, didn't dry it quick enough. Washed it again, again wasn't dry quick enough and now on top of that it's burnt too. I'm surprised I haven't gotten into a mad rage yet. I've had that thing for well over a decade now. Very attached to it.

Fiscal Stimulus

Blown a lot of money lately on a bunch of things. I’m sure for most people it isn’t anything to really notice, for me though it’s still quite a bit of money. Most of it went towards making sure I’m properly equipped, the rest for food and fun. The food was not really an out of the ordinary expense though. Also, didn’t go out and get the silly gold ratchets. A brief summary of things I’ve bought lately
$2 Toque
$3 Gloves
$10 Jeans
$10 Jeans
$27 Winter boots
$2 Headphones
$2 Book
$10 Katamari Damacy
Kind of scary when that's considered a lot for me.
Some things I needed, others I probably could have put off a bit longer before getting, and a few items in there I didn’t need but well worth it. Can’t wait to see my credit card statement, specially since I found out that the phone call I made with it while trying to meet people at the airport for the funeral actually cost me $12 for a local call.

Terrified

What am I scared of? Well, the TSX is at a four year low, but that's not what I'm concerned about. I'm worried about myself. I've been depressed so long and it really has me worried that I'm not behaving rationally, or that I'll suddenly snap and do something irrational one day. Part of me feels like I'm playing with a delicate balance right now and having confidence in being able to handle it is usually a warning that things are not right.
Anyway, I decided that I'd treat myself to try to cheer me up. Thought of going out for a burger but during the several hours I spent thinking about it, I realized that for the price of a burger, fries and a drink I could get 2-3lbs of drumsticks. So, gonna cook some drumsticks and have some fun on Friday. If only I could decide how to cook them.

Auto Bailouts?

The beauty of market mechanisms is that they weed out bad approaches and promote good ones automatically. Weaker firms are eliminated while better business models succeed. A strange question arises when all the firms doing a particular task fail at the same time. All the major auto makes in north america seem to be doing just that. It's going to be interesting see what might arise from that. A quirky mix of niche cars, and heavy equipment manufacturing and consumer cars coming largely from overseas firms. Is this a case where we'll be better off interviening? Anyone with a background in economics want to share their more educated opinion on helping out the auto industry?
I suppose in the bigger picture, as long as there's still cars being produced and we can still trade something to get them, there's no doom. Though there'll be chaos as the economy tries to deal with the collapse of a major sector and consumers find their way to other names. Then again, after a chat with a few people from other parts of the world, I'm left with the impression that the auto sector in all developed nations is in ruins.

Mismerized

Usually, I don't spend money on silly things, but right now a set of gold plated ratchets has my eye. There's actually very little gold on them, so they're not expensive but they still look so pretty. My dad had one, a limited edition one and I thought it was pretty cool. Very tempted to go get a set. $9 for a 1/4, $10 for 3/8 and $13 for 1/2. I want a full set. Heh, at those prices I kind of question their quality, though I don't intend to actually use them. I guess I'll just see if there's anything left by the time I get there since I don't really see myself going to the far ends of the city when I'm working.

Contrasting Strategies

I have two investing books in my room here. Neither of them are recent. One of them is from the 90s by Gordon Pape, the other one is from the 80s by VanCaspel. Two very different times and two very different approaches. My memories of the 80s are largely that of cartoons and elementary school and to me, the 90s were about Jr high, and high school. My focus wasn't on economics at the time. Anyway, from the data that I could obtain, the 80s were an inflation dominated era. Interest rates were soaring to combat that. The 90s were the lead up to the bursting of the telecom bubble. Bre-x minerals was a big thing. Interest rates were dropping as inflation was brought under control.
The two of them have some very contrasting approaches and I think it's partly due to the situations at the time of writing, but their advice does have a certain timeless element to it. VanCaspel's advice was to take up equity stakes, ignore bonds, and pick good mutual funds that outperforms indexes. Interestingly enough, mutual funds seldom outperformed indexes then, but some did. Now I can't seem to find any that have consistently outperformed indexes. Anyway, that aside, I think the expectation back then was that inflation was here to stay.
Gordon Pape on the other hand recommends holding a balanced portfolio at all times. He talks of making good returns on bonds during times of falling interest rates. Strip bonds were one of the things that he talked about too. I'm told that they tend to have less price stability than interest paying bonds. That is the selling point for strip bonds though, larger price swings mean higher capital gains. Also higher losses when things go wrong too. Granted, a big miss there should mean good times for something else.
There are some compelling arguments for either approach. In the end though, I think I'd have to side with Sun Tsu's timeless advice about trying to prepare for potential losses. We must not count on the enemy not attacking but instead on our ability to receive him. Applied to this situation, it means running with a balanced portfolio. When things go wrong, it isn't as bad.

market dip over?

Has the overshoot ended? Is this the next support level for the indexes? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if things stayed around this level for a while. Granted, the only outcome that would really surprise me at this point is if stocks were to go on a sudden week long surge upwards. Sadly, I didn't get the chance to put any new money into the markets. I should be getting my money back out of the family holding firm by the end of the year though. Kind of disappointed that all my resources were tied up and I was unable to act. If it wasn't, I'd at least be able to question whether or not I did the right thing and learn a bit more about my temperment.
I did learn a different interesting thing though, the more money I build up, the more attractive broad index funds look instead of picking one or two favorite stocks at the moment. For the moment, I'm still trying to figure out how I want to position my money next. A lot of attractive looking options out there, but I wonder if it's being bold or foolish. Only time will tell.