Business television, for years, has just been a temporary stop on the flip-by railroad en route to HBO or Showtime, or, if I need to sleep, CNN. But now that has changed.
It used to be a bewildering collection of numbers, graphs and talking heads using words I had never heard before. I did understand one term, taught to me by a brighter former colleague named Chase Squires (who has now officially sold out and gone into public relations).
That term was "dollar cost averaging." What it means, if I understand it (and I probably don't) is that people making regular contributions to their 401(k) or to some other types of retirement accounts have a slight advantage because, when the market is down, those accounts can buy more stock shares at a lower cost, and when it is up, they buy fewer shares because of the higher cost, all of which works for the investor.
Of course, that theory disappears when you retire and start drawing from, rather than adding to, your account. Then, when withdrawals come and the market is down, you are selling more shares at a lower cost, and when it is up, you are selling fewer shares, but you are still selling and not buying.
The theory is also a little weak on explaining what happens when the entire market (see the headlines) goes completely into the toilet and the optimists keep trying to tell us that this is a great time to buy stocks at bargain prices.
There are two things wrong with that idea. One is that you are taking a chance on buying stock in a business that will actually exist after the recession (and we hope that is all it is) is over. Wachovia stock, anyone? How about investment funds that are heavy into the mortgage market, or, if you are really daring, new construction?
The other problem is that it is kind of cruel to tell people to buy when they are trying to decide whether to splurge on canned cat food for dinner tonight or to stick with the dried stuff. It's just like low gas prices being a great deal for people who won't be able to afford to buy anything whenever they get where they are going on that gas.
At any rate, suddenly the figures on CNBC aren't as confusing. You know that when the numbers for the Dow Jones Industrial and other stock averages have a green arrow next to them and are going up, that is a good thing. When they have a red arrow next to them and are going down, that is a bad thing. And when the background turns orange, it reminds us of when the government thought it was really necessary to use that color to scare the heck out of people until the last presidential campaign was over and it mysteriously disappeared from the alleged news networks.
I can see that the euro is getting weaker, which would have been more encouraging back when I could actually afford to go to Europe.
I can see that gold prices are going up, because it is being purchased by people who think that when the whole society crumbles and we are all living in some sort of Mad Max afterlife, people will actually be interested in exchanging cans of Dinty Moore beef stew for Krugerrands because they are shiny.
You can watch oil prices fluctuate, rejoice that they are dropping and then hear that OPEC is cutting back on production, which will make the prices go back up again, although the same talking heads assure us that there can be no such thing as oil price manipulation and that it is entirely coincidental that prices go up before everyone takes off to see (less and less of) America during the summer and then go down again right before election time which just happens to work to the advantage of the pro-oil people in office.
Funny thing. I didn't hear any experts sounding the alarm back when the Dow was flirting with 14,000 and investors were "flipping" houses (buying them and then selling them to someone at a profit without anyone caring that the someone didn't have good enough credit to get a loan at one of those payday outlets that victimize the working poor).
There has been some Monday-morning "I told you so" claims and pointing to a few articles published in obscure economic journals or speeches made in venues where nobody was listening.
But the truth is the big pros didn't see it coming, and their post-crash analysis is just about as valuable as their pre-crash predictions were.
So I turn the sound off and watch the numbers on the bar across the top of the screen, waiting for the Dow numbers to come up again and again and again.
I cheer for the numbers as though they were a favorite athletic team when they climb, ("Come on, baby. You can break 9,000. I know you can!" Or, "Noooooo. How could that happen? Somebody buy something, fast!")
I treat those numbers as if they were a living, breathing entity capable of speech and greater effort, afraid that if I tear myself away they will somehow fail without my support. And, when they plunge, I can't stop watching, any more than you can stop watching a train wreck or not rubberneck at a bloody accident.
I'm not surprised at my new television addiction. I knew it was a risk when I retired.
I just always thought it would be Seinfeld and Law & Order reruns.
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