True security

It seems that rumors of our financial ruin were premature. After saying it was done bailing out badly run giant corporations, the feds decided that, well, just this one more time: “Fearing a global financial crisis” (that would have included me; therefore, I gave a shit), they are bailing out AIG by means of an $80 billion loan. (It’s no longer necessary to point out that “that’s billion, with a B,” since anything in the mere millions wouldn’t even make the sports page anymore.) In return for the $80 billion, (that’s billion, with a B), the feds are taking eighty percent of AIG’s shares and a controlling interest in the corporation. Sounds like AIG is being given a time out and put on a plan of improvement.

You can tell the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. finally decided to step in and protect the little guy. According to the New York Times, “What frightened Fed and Treasury officials was not simply the prospect of another giant corporate bankruptcy, but A.I.G.’s role as an enormous provider of esoteric financial insurance contracts to investors who bought complex debt securities.” That’s me, okay.

But wait! I found something else: “Small investors, including anyone who owned money market funds with A.I.G. securities, could have been hurt, too.” I think that’s actually me right there.

So in the span of twenty-four hours, we learned that that bad old cancer is gone and I’m probably going to live long enough to get on a motorcycle again—which will probably be the death of me since life loves a good irony—and then that we’re financially ruined—excuse me if I over-dramatize a little here, but still—and then we’re not ruined after all. I’m feeling a little post-traumatic right now.

All of this should lead me to see life in a whole new way: to appreciate the little things, to stop and smell the flowers, to appreciate the little things. But mostly I’m waiting until Friday when I get the catheter taken out so I don’t have to walk around carrying a bucket anymore.

Maybe it hasn’t all sunk in yet, but I realize once again that there is no true security in life, only false security. Given that, I want all the false security I can get.