EverythingSteve.com

What Do You Say When...

• on a Friday afternoon you're with your wife at the OBGYN's office for an ultrasound and find out you've lost your fourth baby in the last three years?
• you were trying for the past seven weeks to stay as positive as possible but the vitals never really looked terrific and at one point they thought it was an ectopic pregnancy, but then everything turned more positive a couple of weeks ago?
• your wife wants nothing more on this earth than to have children?
• you know she is the most fabulous creature on the planet and it kills you to see her so hurt?
• you know she is going to start cramping and bleeding and you wish you could take that away from her?
• you also really want to have children but not as much as she does?
• her three older sisters have lots of children and she keeps wondering, "What's wrong with me?"
• you are most of the reason you both delayed starting to try having children until she was 36 because you "just weren't quite ready yet?"
• your friends and family are empathetic but deep down inside you know they're probably getting tired of hearing about it?
• you both are so freakin' tired of dealing with it and talking about it?
• you realize you are still more blessed than most people on the planet and should stop your wallowing?
• you were confronted with the workaday issues of the week like a Webinar that didn't go quite right or a small business launch that resulted in a bit of a yawnish reaction...and after giving your all for many weeks and initially being very frustrated by the results, you now simply do not give a flying crap?
• running the doctor's circuit makes you want to punch a hole in the wall because this is so not even close to being a sure thing -- and there is so much confusing and seemingly conflicting information, not to mention all the noise on the Web?
• people (and doctors) tell you there is still plenty of hope, but the statistics imply otherwise?
• your wife, who is so filled with faith and spirituality, wonders if it's all for naught -- the praying, the diets, the acupuncture, the pills, the shots, etc.?
• you know that being hopeful and positive is the only way, but right now you are anything but?
• people are expecting that predictable sense of humor of yours and instead they get a whooping or complete silence, and perhaps it's the best you can do, and perhaps it's not?
• your wife is sobbing and you simply don't know how to help her?

Exactly what do you say?

Great News! The Government Does Function Effectively at Some Level

Blagojevich OUT!
Associated Press Photo

Hey Rabbi Bendelstein, Thin Mints Still SUCK!

I don't really care if someone forgot to stick the "kosher symbol" on Thin Mints but they really are kosher. Because just like Hebrew National Hot Dogs, which really are kosher but also really suck, Thin Mints really really suck. In a land of increasing obesity and diabetes, it simply sickens me to see schoolgirls used as pawns to sell complete junk food. I bitched about this awhile ago but after seeing this New York Times article I'm angry all over again. And here's why: there's nothing "trans-fat free" about partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil. This is dis-ingenuine labeling at best. Think I'm a scrooge? Fine. Go enjoy your nutritrionally void and artificial ingredient-laden hunk of 43.75% fat.

R.I.P. Bob May

It's Just a Paper Loss

 I have come to realize this has to be one of the dumbest phrases...one of the biggest illusions that we who invest in stocks conjure up to make ourselves feel better. Tell me, when you've got a big gain on a stock and that gain is "unrealized," you feel pretty good, right? And you treat that gain like it's your money, right? I mean after all, most stocks are fairly liquid investments -- plenty of buyers and sellers.

And yet, when one is way down in the chips on a stock or basket of stocks, it's just a "paper loss." It's not real, unless you sell the stock. Interesting. Isn't it your money that's invested in the stock? And isn't the current price of the stock reflective of how much that investment is worth? Sure there are normal cycles, highs and lows, price swings due to the "beta" of an individual stock, etc. But I wonder if we lull ourselves into dangerously ignorant complacency with this term "paper loss."

Last Fall I sold a bunch of stocks -- among them Bank of America. Over a brief amount of time I had purchased 400 shares averaging about $40 and change per share. When I dumped the stock I "realized" a loss of just over $8150 -- or around 50% of my investment. But I think "realized" is a term for the IRS. They "realize" money when you take a gain, and you "realize" a deduction when you take a loss. The point of my story: in the last couple of days we've seen BofA sink further. Now it seems they paid too much for Merrill Lynch, they may have solvency issues, and so they need $20 billion more money on top of the $25 billion already received from the government. The stock price today slid to a multi-year low and BofA slashed its formerly stratospheric dividend to one cent per share.

Had I held onto BofA stock until today, my "unrealized" and/or "realized" loss would have been nearly $5,100 greater -- a loss of nearly $13,250 in total. In percentage terms the loss on my original investment would have been more than 82%.

"Paper loss?" I don't think so. OK, enough babbling. I've got to get myself over to Circuit City to figure out how to spend that $5,100.