The real sentinel news 200312

The Sentinel All the news that's fit to print and some that's not. Today's news is not good.
The Closing Stock Averages I am not a stock market guru, all I can do is give you the news and possibly some hope. The Dow Jones average closed down 9.99%.All day long it flirted with a 10% drop. Earlier when it crossed 9% loss the big boys came in to try and stabilize it. By the end of the day it was hopeless and the Dow closed down 9.99% at a 2352 point loss. The equities market has lost 11.5 trillion dollars since February 19. That is despite multiple times the market shut down as one circuit breaker after another has tripped. It would appear that there may be no stopping it now. Things can change however. What I will say is this, if you are in for the long haul (years) it will perhaps recover some day. At worst if you are close to retirement in a year or two you have a choice between two bad situations, stay and hope or get out while your 401-K has some value. On the bright side, come January of 2021 when there is a new president and more important a new administration of advisers with more experience than being a friend of the president, things will get better by the end of the year, I believe. Again this is an opinion, possibly just as good as the multitude of stock market pundits. The decision is up to you not me, not them.	News on the home front Joyce and I went to Springfield today (that's not really the news, what we saw is) We drove by the I-66 auto auction today. I have been by there for 33 years now, but I have never seen anything close to the number of cars there ready for the auction. One thing I notice does not form an opinion. It takes several for me to reach an hypothesis. We also stopped in a shopping center along the way. It was late morning and there were darn few cars at Walmart and six other retail stores in the complex and that was the second one we went by this morning. We went into one store and including we two there were two others. That is not normal. Those parking lots should have been half full or more by that time. Yesterday in Walmart, the crowd was less than normal and the only place people were shopping was the facial tissue and toilet paper aisle. There were more people there waiting than in the rest of the store. We actually needed toilet paper and facial tissue, but the aisle was empty of products and I am talking about an aisle with enough paper products to fill a home. I had to stand and wait while 8 employees emptied out the warehouse of toilet tissue and as fast as they opened the boxes there were people emptying them. Lucky for me there was plenty of beer. I stopped at Aldi market on the way home and there were less people there than employees. If I have a point here it is people are not buying anything but absolute necessities. Another clue that people believe things are going south in a hurry.	Rental Centers There seems to be a marked increase the last three years in places that rent furniture, appliances and electronics and even outfits that have rent to own cars. I have pondered this for a few years now, wondering why that is happening? Today I think I have an answer. Working people have been having trouble paying for all the things they want. By renting everything, when they can no longer make payments the rent a center guys come by and repossess whatever they have initially rented there. When they are once again flush with cash they can go back and get their things, no questions asked. By purchasing things on credit, when they can't pay the bills the credit collectors hound then day and night for endless days. I think that's a way to go to avoid hassles and be able to get back what they want again as soon as they have some money again. I am not recommending that strategy, but it does sound reasonable for some folks. Take this post for what it is, my observations and I am no stable genius, just an old man that has seen a lot in his life. One last note, Joyce and I lived on the farm for 27 years, 36% of our lifetime. That is record we can never exceed in what life we have left. Prior to that, we lived in 22 places in our first 23 years of marriage with being in and out of the navy. Crazy, yes, but what a ride.