Comments on: Brad DeLong on the bailout

By: Anonymous Coward

Anonymous Coward — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 00:43:45 +0000

I actually work for a company (non-US) that, among other things, sells ammunition in the USA.
Sales have been booming there (but not in our home country, oddly enough.) In fact, ammunition sales in the US are so strong now that we are worried about sales collapsing when the market recovers and people have all this stored ammunition to use up …
The answer seems to be that we should invest our sudden cash influx in under-valued stocks!

By: Dan Weber

Dan Weber — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:55:40 +0000

Then we have worse things to worry about

I just really notice this phrase. I remember it from the past decade. Someone would say how they were going all-in on a house, and I said “what do you do if housing prices decline?” and they would say “well, if housing falls then we all have a bigger problem to worry about!”
Sometimes that other bad thing happens. And sometimes it happens because people insist that it cannot.

By: David Brodbeck

David Brodbeck — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:00:31 +0000

It seems to me the question lumps a few too many things together. Isn’t it entirely possible that the markets recover (and civilization doesn’t collapse), but these particular assets still turn out to be worthless?
Still, the response pretty much sums up why I still have my retirement money in the stock market. I won’t need it for many years. I figure the economy, and hence the stock market, will eventually recover — but if it doesn’t, dollars will be useless no matter where they’re stashed.