Life's Crooked Casino

Today, the Nashville media announced that median home values had fallen $15,000 on an annualized basis here. Our 401Ks seem to be melting away with every statement. Government securities may provide safety but yield virtually nothing. So what is the prudent investor to do? I asked a wise man, Illuminate Sr., who supported his family doing backbreaking labor as a child of the Great Depression, who began working eighty years ago, and who has owned and operated a variety of businesses and invested consistently mostly buy and hold throughout his life, what should be done now? He replied with the story of his friend Gordon who was an inveterate small town gambler. Gordon would lose the bread and milk money of his young wife and growing family almost nightly. Well, Sr. asked him if he knew the tables were rigged? "Why yes", Gordon replied, "of course I know the game is fixed but it is the only game in town. " We have all staked our futures on sticky-handed croupiers. The winning hand may be held by a derivative player in an alternate universe. The safe bet is there are no more safe bets.