And now the dream is dead, the myth is shattered. And that’s what hurts. I don’t kid myself that my meager stock portfolio is anywhere large enough to feel the aftershocks of this disaster. I don’t have a mortgage, so foreclosure isn’t exactly a worry. I’m probably not going to lose my job (unless this column does me in). My pain is this: I never really got to play the game. And now I know it’s all a lie. The excitement, the recklessness, the notion of sheer unadulterated possibility has been sucked out of the equation. It’s like having the lights turned on at a party and realizing the guy you’ve been flirting with all night has an oozing herpes sore as big as a Kennedy half-dollar — er, don’t call me, I’ll call you.
Now the coast is somewhat clear, the guys with the big, swinging dicks are being castrated and I’m hiding in my womb of ignorance (also known as my humble two-by-four apartment), keeping an eye on things from a safe, expense-less distance. I’ll go about my boring business, investing modestly in my IRA, obsessively checking my online bank balance, monitoring my good ol’ HOG shares. But it’s disheartening. The calendar may have told us that the go-go ’80s ended almost 20 years ago, but spiritually they kicked the bucket this month.
At the risk of sounding like a Pontiac commercial, money is what drives us. It’s what drives America. When we’re running scared and lacking confidence, we crumble. In high school, I made sure to dress up each day that I had a class with the guy I liked. When I didn’t, it was sweatpants all the way. A nation in sweatpants is a dangerous thing.
Kara Baskin, who maintains offshore accounts all over the British West Indies, can be reached at kbaskin@thephoenix.com.
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