I don't care.

c.f. John Donne on that island business.

Hmmm, good sanity idea. In 1983 during the really bad recession - like 19% interest rates but before rich people invented the bail-out - I discovered a cool trick. You take how much money you need to get by (which shouldn’t be too much) and divide by the GDP of PEI, Canada or the world. The amount is so small, survival seems almost like a charm. Somewhat Buddhist approach. Note I put my freewheelin website not the frantic one.

The problem is that it doesn’t matter if YOU care about the economy. It affects you either way. Whether or not you had any money in the market, your client’s most certainly did. And that will likely affect you.

While I generally share this distaste for the coverage, I’ve been trying to figure out how this is different than saying something like: “I don’t care about coverage of people who lost their homes in hurricanes, because I was smart enough to build on high-ground.”

Part of the problem may be the very idea of international news. It’s (probably?) good to know what’s going on around the world, but does it matter if you aren’t going to do anything about it?

Neil Postman:

“How often does it occur that information provided you on morning radio or television, or in the morning newspaper, causes you to alter your plans for the day, or to take some action you would not otherwise have taken, or provides insight in to some problem you are required to solve?”

STOCKHOLM (Dow Jones)—Nokia Corp. (NOK), the world’s largest mobile phone maker, Thursday reported a bigger-than-expected 69% drop in fourth-quarter net profit as the result was hit by lower sales, and said it now expects 2009 industry mobile device volumes to decline approximately 10% from 2008 levels.

It said it expects the decline to be greater in the first half than in the second half of the year. It previously expected that mobile device industry volumes would decline at least 5% in 2009 from 2008.

Net profit for the three months to Dec. 31 came in at EUR576 million, missing analysts’ expectations for EUR977 million. Earnings per share fell to EUR0.15 from EUR.047, against expectations for EUR0.27.

Analysts had expected Nokia to post a weak result after the company warned twice during the fourth quarter that its markets were being hit by slower consumer spending.

There is a difference between worrying about something you can’t effect and caring about the “innocents” affected by fall-out. I’m with you while I do invest in the stock market it is very cautiously and balanced. My employment was chosen to weather tougher times. We bought an affordable condo five years ago in Calgary because we could easily afford it and didn’t overextend to have a house here like everyone else.

I say “innocents” with quotes because there are people seemingly incapable of being cautious. Some of those are simply oblivious while others are willfully oblivious to the risks. Since Christmas I have met with several companies who will be or already have laid of employees and while I agree these people have taken a risk and have to accept the consequences I still can’t help but care about them and their families.

On the bailouts I have mixed views, they are only appropriate if they are tied to structural changes to the way our economy works. As you point out Capitalism is not and never has been a natural self-governing system. It is a legal construct that we as a society have built and can and must change to be more sustainable.

The stock market has evolved into a big under-regulated casino, and the business pages are largely a racing form. You won’t be missing much. I’m sure the information you actually need will find it’s way to you or you to it.

Well, if you can lose income or could lose income and do not need to know that, I think you’re one lucky puppy.

I’m with you on the Dragon’s Den “news report”, BTW. A new low for CBC.

For “My Financial Career,” by Stephen Leacock click on the word Marian below.

There are a whole bunch of old ladies whose pensions depend on the stock market and/or the state of the economy being relatively stable.

Right on Ruk! (I’ve read all the comments and accept the sincerity of the objections, but…) As I see it the one advantage of a stock exchange is that the best and brightest (and the dasdardly and crooked *along with* the plutocracy, can have access to money. Granted the plutocracy have hugely preferred access to market capital, but the rest of us can hope for a life which rises above an incarnation of a Monty Python-esque pleb.

We’d have no Internet (as we know it) if not for the (M)market, and that would be fine with me. I said as much (in a public interview) thirteen years ago.

BTW, Pete, I shut the noise off just before the millennium — perhaps you’ll agree with me that there never was a period (not in my 32 years of involvement) where the public talk of Internet was more intense (emphasis: tense). I was a mass-media junkie until then. I sucked it all in, I researched the background on up to five or six stories a day, I compared that to the market news, and all that I compared to the market performance. I figured out that *if you pay very close attention* you can walk into the market and nearly steal money from people/investors who think they can put money in the market — over the phone —, go about their business, read the headlines once in a while, and check in with their broker once in a while to drink in the profits. They always lose.

Regardless, it’s an economy which produces no net value to the planet. All it does is shift money from the plutocrats and skews it (about 2 or 3 percent) toward a meritocracy.

Hehe, Kevin. In conversation a few days ago, I heard the term “social parasite” being uttered in reference to real estate brokers. “They serve no purpose in society, they distort the market prices, and evict people who use otherwise unused houses.” Made me smile. It’s all in the perspective.

Oh! http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/… has some neat etymology on “realtor”.

Unless you are in the market, it doesn’t make any sense to follow it. I’m in, but in for the long term nd it deosn’t make much sense for me to follow along with the day to day.

John Ralston Saul once said that the stock market indices are substitutions for God. When something happens, we look to the market to see how it reacts, as if it is a thing that can pass judgement. In our secular world, God is a ticker.

And every tick up or down can absolutley NOT tell you what the future will be, so whether you have a job or not, the progonostications of pundits have no bearing on the future.

Yay for stress free living. Just deal with what is in front of you.