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Edited on Mon Mar-09-09 11:14 PM by Atman
Combined. Probably even more.
Here's the irony...I lost our house back in the dot.com bubble. I lost my classic 320i. My wife and I lost a year of "happy family." I -- we, my wife and my kids -- lost it all in the last bubble. But "all" was practically nothing by comparison to what is happening today: back then we had a modest Cape Cod style home worth about $120,000 for which we paid $85,000. Today I know people with $85,000 out-buildings on their 4,000 sqf homes, while we feel thrilled to have a nice 1,100 sf rental.
Last weekend I went snowboarding. I picked up a friend on the way; he's the guy with the out-building, and my mom doesn't mind if he parks his Infiniti in front of her manufactured home while we're on the mountain, since it's right off the interstate. So we met, and then drove to Vermont and parked in front of my wife's friend's slope-side condo.
I have to back-track here. While my wife and I aren't worried about Obama increasing our taxes any time soon, we have have a comfortable income. We are also fortunate to have a very diverse group of friends/colleagues. Some of them happened to converge this weekend. And it was enlightening.
On the drive to the mountain on Saturday, I asked Infiniti-in-my-mom's-driveway friend about the man-cave he'd been threatening to build in the pristine empty basement of his giant, empty DINK home. He laughed, and matter-of-factly told me how he'd lost close to $450,000 in the last few months. Stripper pole and pool table are on hold.
So we drove to the mountain, parked in our friend's slopeside driveway, and enjoyed the day. We had been invited for an apre ski cocktail, so we dropped in. This guy was just back from a week-long ski trip out West and was enjoying the weekend at his five bedroom (plus loft) ski condo in Vermont. He, too, moaned (but not groaned) about losing over half a million dollars in the the last couple of months.
And neither of these guys seemed phased. Probably over a million clams just disappeared, and hey...let's go skiing.
WELL OVER A MILLION DOLLARS LOST among two friends, and neither of them seemed the slightest bit affected by it. While I'm using coupons and discounts to go snowboarding on the cheap. And we're all at the exact same place: same mountain, same lodge, same everything. Except for that I really have so little to lose by comparison. It's almost comforting.
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