If Misery Loves Company . . .
I track Randall Forsyth's columns at Barron's. I typically don't care what Warren Buffett has to say, so I wasn't much interested when I saw Forsyth's most-recent column, "Has Buffett Overplayed His Hand?" But I scrolled through the piece quickly and came across this depressing-but-packed passage:
Calamos Advisors, a money management firm, came up with a new gauge more in tune with these times. "Misery is not only inflation and unemployment but also a decrease in net worth," the firm writes in its monthly missive to its investors. All three -- joblessness, rising prices and falling wealth -- all make you poorer, and therefore, more miserable.
Calamos Advisors went back and recalculated its New Misery Index incorporating net-worth numbers going back to 1929. It found the economic shock of the past year and a half actually exceeded the pain of any period, including the Great Depression.
These days, however, one of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed or given up looking; prices of necessities such as medical care keep rising while incomes are falling; and the loss of wealth is far more widespread, from home foreclosures to 401(k) plans being decimated.
The good news, says Calamos Advisors, is that this spike in the misery index is unlikely to persist as it did in the Great Depression. Asset inflation is ameliorating the economic pain but it is concentrated, by definition, among those who own assets that are appreciating.
But a darker picture emerges for those who do not. According to a Web site, www.mybudget360.com, the true misery index consists of five indicators: food stamps, bankruptcies, long-term unemployment, foreclosures and credit-card defaults.
For the first time, bankruptcy filings are on a pace to match divorce filings in 2009, the Web site asserted. Bankruptcies could top 1.4 million this year, the highest since 2005, when 2 million filed to beat a more stringent bankruptcy law. That would put bankruptcies back to the levels seen under the old law.
Meanwhile, 38 million people -- 11% of all Americans -- are receiving food stamps, half again as many as in mid-2006. A record 5 million-plus people have been out of work for 27 weeks or more, far above the previous post-World War II peak of less than 3 million in the 1980-81 double-dip recession. Meantime, record home foreclosures and credit-card delinquencies aren't news at this point. But the impact is a sharp, unprecedented contraction in consumer credit.
Is this blog supposed to be a spirit of light?
Sorry 'bout that.
More Catholic Influence
As the country careens toward catastrophe, Catholics are winning big at the polls. I think it's just a coincidence, but I'll try to come up with some sinister angle to keep my fevered mind occupied:
The winners of the two biggest races, gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey, are Catholic Republicans who appear to be committed to their faith. Virginia's governor-elect, Bob McDonnell, has talked about his Catholic upbringing shaping his political views. New Jersey's governor-elect, Chris Christie, and his wife send their kids to parochial schools.
Received in an Email
"Reminds me of an article I read a few weeks ago about people that don't get all of the texting and email acronyms....some broad heard about her friend's mother passing away, and sent her an email that said, 'Sorry to hear about your mother, LOL.'
"She thought it meant 'Lots Of Love.'"
Autobiographical Corner
I first met my wife 23 years ago today. We met in a bar in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A real "meat market," a place where amorous young men look for loose co-eds.
It just goes to show: It's always possible to find a gem among the skanks.
She did (chuckle).
