Belfast, Maine -- It's hard to believe, sitting here at a cottage window, that the world is having its daily crisis, that billions are being lost, that oil prices are yet higher, and it is all the subject of important -- no, pressing -- chatter on the Internet.
Here, life just goes on, paced by blooming lupines, the scent of freshly mowed grass and the distant sound of seagulls. From our windows I see the quaint little cottages of Bayside in one direction and a brisk sweep down Penobscot Bay in another. It occurs to me, however, that Maine weather is a bit like the stock market -- moments of crystalline exuberance followed by days, weeks, or maybe forever, of unrelenting fog.
It would be really easy for me to trot out yet another story of real estate misery. From Boothbay Harbor to Stockton Springs,
Allow me to introduce the Power of Non-Financial Thinking. This is the kind of thinking that actual people can do. It involves none of the magical thinking preferred by those on Wall Street who make their living selling us the next financial cure-all. It also acknowledges something the financial services industry doesn’t want us to know.
When push comes to shove, investments rank third or fourth when it comes to measuring the retirement security of 9 out of 10 Americans.
I’m not saying investments aren’t important. They’re just not as important as two or three other things--- Social Security, home equity and pensions for the small crew that still has them.
