Fatal Subtraction

Is Gene man enough to face a recession?

I am currently on hold for the scariest phone call of my life. I am calling my personal physician to ask him to describe, for the record, to be put in this column verbatim, with comparisons to the national norm, the size and dimensions of my private parts.

Ha-ha. Just kidding. I'm actually doing something much scarier. I am calling the managers of my 401(k) plan to find out exactly how much money I have lost in the past six months.

Okay, I was doing that. I just hung up while still on hold. I decided I'm not ready yet.

You may not understand my anxiety; possibly, you are the sort of person who, for better or worse, checks on the state of his finances daily. Well, I am not that sort of person. I am not only ignorant about economics and personal finance, I am also terrified of it. I don't open any mail that has little cellophane windows; my wife handles everything. You know how at some ATMs, when you are getting cash, it tells you what your bank balance is even if you haven't asked? I hate those ATMs. When that happens, I quickly look away and then cover the alarming part of the screen until it is gone.

As I am writing this column, the Dow Jones industrial average is in the process of plunging for the sixth consecutive day in what seems to be a bottomless tailspin for the global economy. I understand this fact, but that's all I really understand. I don't know why it happened, even on a rudimentary level. Nor do I understand what any individual can do to limit his losses. So I have decided that before I make that fateful call to my 401(k) managers, I will at least try to bone up a little, by telephoning an expert. Robert Solow is a Nobel laureate in economics, described in a bio as "one of the major figures of the Neo-Keynesian Synthesis macroeconomics."

Me: Might this financial crisis be the fault of the Jews?

Robert: Certainly not.

Me: Whew.

Robert: Yeah.

Me: Okay, can you explain the whole crisis to me without using any of the following terms, which frighten me: "mortgage-backed securities," "commercial paper," "subprime mortgages" or "swaps"?

Robert: I can't. Not with any degree of precision.

Me: Okay, well, can you explain how an ordinary person -- let's say, specifically, me -- can limit his losses in this crisis?