Kiss my assets

I love CNBC. When I'm in charge of the remote control -- and that's all day here in the Land of Unemployment (it's OK, Michigan, at least you're No. 1 at something) -- my TV tunes to two things: cartoons (channels 295-301) and financial news (355). If I'm in my car, I listen to CNBC on XM ... especially if Erin Burnett is on. I have a girl-crush on her.

I do a good job keeping up with financial news. That's my background, so I really do care about things like employment and mark-to-market and TARP funds. Oh, and Bernie Madoff. I spent more time following the Bernie Madoff story than Nancy Grace spent on Natalie Holloway and Caylee Anthony combined. (Missing white women, ahoy!)

Problem with CNBC is that it makes me feel so inadequate. I know I'll never be Warren Buffet. I'm over that. But when I watch shows such as On the Money, I realize I'm really, really far behind. One caller tonight has invested assets totaling about $300,000 in savings/inheritance money. She has lost about $100,000 of that in this market. Now she's wondering whether she should buy a house with mortgage rates at their current level.

She's 28.

I'm 28.

I don't have $300,000 in investable assets. I don't even have a job. I just have an expensive little apartment in an expensive little town, and a professor husband whose salary doesn't begin to cover the student loans he took out over the past five years. (Or the expensive apartment. Or the cost of living in the expensive town.)

But honestly, I can't complain too much. I just found out half an hour ago that my 401K lost about $3,500 last year -- a blow, yes, but nothing akin to losing $100,000 because someone can't pick stocks worth a damn. We pulled our (dwindling) assets out of the market last year. I guess one of the few benefits of being broke is that I don't have to worry too much about cost/benefit analysis.

If you don't gamble, you can't lose.