Gulp

My 401(K) - or as a friend in an e-mail yesterday called it, his 201(K) and soon to be 01(K) - balance has been dropping in a sickening kind of way. For instance, I've lost $8,644.21 since Monday. This past Monday. Two days ago.

I'm down $34K and change since June. My little pile of "if cat food, at least name brand rather than store brand cat food" retirement savings is back to where it was in January of 2006. I've lost 33 months and yet don't feel any younger.

My Boss says $2 Trillion dollars has evaporated from domestic retirement accounts. Two Trillion.

One of our staffers is closing and emptying her 401(K) because she says she'd rather pay it in penalties and taxes than have it simply disappear on its own. And because, I suppose, she intends to put the sad remains under her mattress. (My investment club calls that Locking In the Loss.) No, I do not recommend this course of action.

So it's not too surprising that this clause from a kinda recent (September 29th) Time magazine article by Andy Serwer and Allan Sloan about Current Unpleasantness caught my eye:

While we're trying to get our heads around what amounts to the biggest debt transfer since money was created,...