When the recession hit back in aught-eight, I was working in Houston.
We had a finance guy who would call in to do a stock report a couple times a day. Whichever reporter picked up would record a thing to replay during a newscast. Then we’d exchange pleasantries and hang up.
Loyal Scaiaholics know I won’t shut up about not panicking. After a heavy day of panicking on Wall Street, he called in with his stock report and brief exchange of pleasantries.
He said something off-the-cuff that would usher in a new era of financial stability. He asked if I had a nest egg saved for an emergency.
“They tell you guys in radio to keep six months’ expenses stashed away instead of three, don’t they?” I vaguely recall him asking, but I’m going to put it in quotes for the sake of the flow of the blog. But then also talk about the flow of the blog, which is incredibly disruptive to the flow of the blog.
I told him I did.
“If you’re young and single, now’s the time to get in the market,” he replied. “You can make that money work for you.”
Never mind my skills at getting fired by companies that go bankrupt. He started looking up stock prices.
GE was trading at about eight dollars. He told me GE would never disappear and would bounce back quickly. Caterpillar was around $20, but he said once things turned around construction companies, they’d shoot back up.
I made enough money in that recession to put a down payment on a house.
Now, people are flipping out and cupping their hand around their ear to lean into the radio to hear how much the Dow has dropped.
I was at a luncheon at the Southlake Chamber of Commerce yesterday. The speaker was Ray Perryman, an economist. He said there’s nothing to suggest a recession will happen soon.
“This could get worse or it could resolve itself pretty quickly,” he said.
We kept talking. After this overreaction, he said there wouldn’t be long-term issues like with the mortgage crisis, but if the short-term overreaction dragged on, the Texas economy could wind up hurting because the price of oil is dropping, and transportation companies like American Airlines and Southwest are based here.
“If I’m hearing you correctly, and I think I am, you’re telling me I should pump a bunch of money back into the market,” I explained. “Just let me know which date to write a check and then also which date to set up the closing on my vacation home.”
It’s possible I did not, technically, say that. Instead, I took those issues to the state comptroller.
He was speaking at a different chamber of commerce event in Frisco.
Texas comptroller says economic effect of #coronavirus is not instantaneous because of potential disruption to supply chain. “The common flu is way more disruptive to the economy than coronavirus. However, that doesn’t mean you go, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’” pic.twitter.com/xSE4VbUdVW
— Alan Scaia (@scaia) February 28, 2020
I did not know they have to build people missing work for the flu into economic forecasts. I may call in sick at work Monday for the good of the economy.
So they know coronavirus is hitting the markets hard. They don’t know exactly how long it’ll continue, they just know this isn’t the type of thing that would drive us into recession. It’s a not a system flaw in the economic system, like, for instance, pre-approving an armadillo for a mortgage.
And we had bigger fish [or cingulata, if you will] to fry in Frisco.
I’m sorry to say I didn’t record the introduction at the Frisco Chamber event. One person introduced Hegar as the Texas COMP-troller. Then someone else said, “And here’s Texas con-TROLL-er Glenn Hegar.”
“Only a savage pronounces it [whichever way the person I’m talking to does not pronounce it],” I’ve said on more than one occasion. Not even Merriam nor Webster will pick a side.
NPR has done a story on this, which I respect. The next time I see Hegar, I’m askin’ which way he prefers. I always wind up including “Texas’ chief financial officer” in news stories, too, because I figure most people don’t know what a comptroller does, including myself before that episode of The Simpsons.
