I was thinking of biking out to the office of the mutual fund that I occasionally put money into.

It’s a nice day to ride that bike trail past Morgan Stanley’s local office, but I’ve got a cold, so it may not be a good time to invest.

Image of New York Stock Exchange taken at end of my 1993 bike trip across USA.

This could be a “buying opportunity” as the stock portion of that broad fund may be a bargain.

Of course I could put the small check into an envelope and mail it, but it’s “paper shuffling.”

I should rest in bed and drink plenty of fluids, rather than bother so I can get over my cold.

They say the best reasons for investing are local and lifestyle, rather than being a news junkie.

I don’t have much money anyway. Just a couple of hundred dollars, several times each year.

Stock market volatility is often as short lived as hopefully my little sniffle.

Long term problems of our economy, such as global warming, over dependence on foreign oil, greed and overpopulation play themselves out more gradually. These things are like a slow boil, rather than a cataclysmic crash.

As for now, stocks have taken a dip. This due, in part, to realization that quite a few people can’t afford those million dollar “starter homes” in so many of the housing markets.

Down payment is one thing, but it’s hard to make the monthly mortgage payments if you’re wages are more like the minimum wage.

Folks working two jobs must be kind of crazy, that would really cause runny noses.

Of course I’ve never had that much money and I just rent a small room. It’s good enough.

Now the Federal Reserve is starting to turn on the money printing presses again. That, plus the “lollipop money” from tax rebates will likely keep a deep recession from happening.

Meanwhile a mild recession can take pressure off “peak oil” by slowing demand. Gas prices are likely to dip for a while so the status quo just keeps motoring right along.

Later in the year, inflation is bound to tick up with all this new cash from the Fed and the tax rebates. The rest of our economy is bound to inflate in order to catch up with house values that are still quite high compared to most wages and other things. That will not happen right away as it takes a while for the lollipop money to have it’s affect.

One of the affects of low interest rates will likely be continued dropping of US dollar. There’s so much money being printed. This will improve business for our export industries, however.

Not that long ago, I just realized that the Federal Reserve must print the money, sort of like it grows on trees.

I used to think they borrowed it from US savings bond holders and places like China. I’m sure they do borrow, but they must also print a lot of it. How else could there have been such large federal deficits and record low interest rates all at the same time during the Bush years? That was the situation which further inflated our currently unsustainable housing bubble.

So this storm in the stock market is likely to pass. The status quo keeps motoring along and the changes we really need to make keep hovering over us.

We need an economy that is more sustainable to mother Earth and to our own sanity.

Quality of life, rather than just quantity of the stuff, needs to become the bottom line.

Less “overpopulation consumption materialism” would help. Innovation and new technology is good however.

Maybe I should go to bed and nurse my cold rather than going to work, but I’m needed at work.

The cold isn’t too bad or I wouldn’t be typing.

Maybe I should stop typing.

The virtue of rest. After all, I’m supposed to be in The Slow Lane.

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