Recently I have been trying to avoid watching network news like the plague.  Watching my once favorite newsperson, Katie Couric sink deeper and deeper into the choppy waters of biased journalism with her so-called “interviews” of the Republican candidates of late, I realized that this Presidential Campaign is one for the record books all right, but in the worse possible way and have forever more banned them all from my household. Unfortunately, during the afternoon soaps on a New York ABC channel, regular programming was interrupted by the ‘Breaking News’ that the bail out was defeated in Washington. On a split screen with the newsman, they showed the Dow slipping further and further into the tank as the voting results were being announced. This was quickly followed by finger pointing and political mumbo jumbo and more doom and gloom that anyone could possibly bear. The largest point drop in the history of the Dow they announced, practically with glee, as they watched their television audience  and ratings grow by the moment. It turned my stomach to watch it for those few moments so I quickly turned the television to The Chiller Channel to catch the afternoon horror flick – The Evil of Frankenstein starring Peter Cushing – it’s a good flick and much more enjoyable than watching the boneheads on the networks. Anyway I spent my afternoon lost in a fantasy world of horror and mayhem and might I dare say, less bloodshed and mediocrity than could be seen on the networks.

With the movie finally over at 6:00 p.m. I turned on my local news to catch the weather and was greeted by the regular newscaster along with an unknown (for the most part) economist and I actually learned a couple of things last night while watching the small CBS channel.

First thing he let us viewers know was, while this was the highest “point” drop ever in the Dow, it was not the highest percentage drop ever.

According to MSNBC.com,

“It was the blue chips’ largest point drop and 17th largest percentage drop. The percentage decline was far less severe than the 20-plus-percent drops seen in the stock market crash of October 1987 and before the Great Depression.”

While this is not great news, it does make me feel much more hopeful than simply the headline that the Dow had the highest point drop ever. I was around for the fiasco in 1987 when my house value sank through my finished basement and my IRA’s dropped miserably. But I came out the other side of the mess, my IRA’s recovered and so did the appraisal value of my house. In fact, anyone who has been a home owner since the early 1970’s like me, has realized a huge increase in their house value and the mortgage rates are still lower than the were back then! I remember the high mortgage rates of the late 1970’s – 10-12 percent was not uncommon and people could simply not buy a house back then. I bought my first house in 1976 for $36,000 in Niantic, Connecticut.  I cannot imagine what it is worth now, walking distance to the beach and to downtown shopping but probably close to 7 times what I paid for it. I understand patience is a virtue and it is much easier to panic and try to sell, sell, sell but the fact is, sooner or later the housing prices in this country are going to go back up. It is a buyers market out there my friends, and if you can afford it, now is the time to buy.

Another fact the economist mentioned was that while things are scary right now there are a couple of simple things you can do to make yourself feel better. First, and I thought this was a pretty amusing idea if not brilliant, if the news on television is bothering you – TURN IT OFF!! Who would have thought of something so simple?? Well, besides me of course but I did not apply it to the populace at large. Turn the damn doom and gloom, naysayers off! Simple yes, but oh so hard for many folks to do. Watch a good movie or better yet, read a book (mine preferably) and fahgetaboutit! You can’t do anything about it anyway – why ruin a perfectly great day?

Another idea for everyone that I also thought was terrific that the economist spoke of was, take a drive to your local mall. I was at the mall this past weekend and I can tell you first hand, lots of people were there buying “stuff.” The parking lot was busy and you still had to park far away from the entrance. The restaurants were all busy also, yes still over an hour wait at Outback to get dinner and I noticed lines at the gasoline pumps were they had lowered their prices under $3.50 a gallon. There was also a line to see the new movie Eagle Eye and the 7:00 showing filled up quickly. The point is – people are still out there spending money. People are still driving to the malls, buying stuff, eating out, filling up their cars, going to the movies and spending MONEY! If you don’t believe  me take a look at the movie grosses from last weekend when our politicians were clamoring over the bailout – the five top movies grossed around $70 million dollars in those three days, not a bad turnout for a economic climate that everyone and their mother is predicting is on the verge of a total collapse.

I guess I don’t know exactly what is going to happen in the near future. I suppose those doom and gloom reports could come to fruition but I truly believe that the “powers that be” are just not gonna let that happen. The truth is – they have far too much to lose if this economy goes belly up and besides I also believe that many people are truly smarter than that and are endowed with the patience of  a saint. When that “special stock” that they have been eyeing gets down far enough they are just not going to be able to resist buying some shares to tuck away for the proverbial rainy day. There are a couple I am looking at myself – where is my umbrella?