old news

A few years ago my sister game me a short subscription to the Wall Street Journal.

It was one of those “You subscribe and send a free subscription to a friend” deals. Each morning the paper was on my front walk. Every day I carefully read about things I knew nothing about.

And, in a few months time I had a huge pile of newspaper. The WSJ uses decent newsprint, huge pages, and no color section, which does not burn well. So, now 4 years later I am using that paper to start the morning fire.

And as I start the fire I look at the “ancient” WSJ. This morning there was a glowing piece about one of the big tech companies that was flying high and making tons of money.

The company has been broken up and the owner is in jail. Hmm. How things do change.

I read reports of mergers and plans that have gone sour. Of companies doing great things, but I never heard of the companies. GM and Chrysler were flying high. The future looked good, as far as you could read!

While playing solitaire in a bored moment, I got to thinking of the parallels. You begin a game and it looks pretty good. Things fall in place, the right card is available at the right time.

It all looks so good, then poof, it is over and I did not win.

I look at the world financial affairs, most of which I do not understand, and I have to wonder what will be written 4 or 5 years from now.

One thing I am fairly sure of: There will be more band aids, and few real reforms. There is too much money to be made by the big players the way things have been that the resistance to change is huge.

Probably that won’t affect my cucumber crop this year, though it might mess with my head a bit.