As the stock market tumbles.

Melissa Jensen

4639 days ago.

I heard the announcement Friday, listened to the fears all weekend, heard the anticipation of the market opening this morning on my way to work, watched the President’s speech then have spent the rest of the day watching the stock market tumble. GOSH DARN IT, WHY DIDN’T I BUY GOLD!!!. Call me young, call me naive, but I didn’t buy gold because my theory is that if things deteriorate to the point that we need lots of gold on hand I will have a lot more to worry about than just money (well no, that may be my number one concern). People would get wind of my giant gold stash and try to steal it from me, I’d have to buy weapons to protect ‘me gold’. (OK, 1. My mind is starting to get way off subject and 2. I’m picturing wild eyed zombies walking up my driveway chanting “gold, gold, gold.”)

Back to the subject at hand. Our credit rating as a nation was downgraded on Friday and Europe has had to bail out Italy and Spain. Today the market reacted and started to tumble as soon as it opened and except for some small recoveries, has continued to plummet all day long. What does this mean for me and you? Well, most immediately, the loss of paper wealth. There is much speculation about what this will cause in the long run. Say what you will, but I think our reliance on paper or computer supported wealth is the problem here. We start to look at the immediate value of our assets as real money and it just simply isn’t. The true value of your house is not worth what is gets assessed for today, it is worth what you sell it for. I think many people learned this the hard way when they took out loans on the equity in the home and now are upside down and needing to sell. Equity is not money, stocks are not money, the only real value is in what they are worth when cashed out or sold.

These are mine, let me know your thoughts…

Brought to you by: Mills Properties

Photo courtesy of : Benzinga.com

Melissa Jensen

Melissa is a native of the Greater St. Louis region. She is addicted to anything Google, and cannot understand why motion activated paper towel dispensers never see her hands.