"More couples huddle, haggle over finances" by Jenifer B. McKim and Nicole C. Wong, Globe Staff | October 13, 2008
The dinner table is often the site of a fiery financial debate at the Felzani residence in Peabody.
Ernie Felzani, 63, finds he has to defend his bullish outlook on the troubled stock market as he looks for opportunities to buy. His wife, Lorraine, 62, meanwhile, is downright anxious about the couple's financial future and wants her husband of 37 years to cash out now.
As the stock market continued its historic tumble last week, the Felzani's debate grew testier.
"I've been investing 40 years, and I'm not going to change my philosophy now," said Ernie Felzani. "For the most part, everybody is barking at me, 'Why am I in the market? Get out, get out, get out!' My position is I'm not getting out of the market. I'm in the buying mode."
As stock markets worldwide plunged last week, and the Dow Jones industrial average, which tracks the nation's 30 biggest companies, had its worst week ever, investors everywhere are growing increasingly anxious about the future of their household finances. According to data compiled by TrimTabs Investment Research, a Sausalito, Calif., firm, frightened investors pulled a record $52.1 billion from US-managed stock and bond mutual funds in the weeklong period that ended Oct. 8, seeking instead the safety of government-insured bank deposits.
As the bad news continued to snowball, couples talked late into the night about how to cut costs and what to do about their investments. Adult children worried about how their elderly parents could live off their shrunken retirement portfolios. And many couples like the Felzanis found themselves increasingly at odds about what to do as they watched their savings shrivel.
Patricia Ruth Jette, a Hyde Park psychologist, said almost every patient last week needed to talk about his or her fears of the economy. Couples, especially, argued about their investments as well as the day-to-day issues of the cost of food, gas, and other expenses. "There is a lot of fighting over money that wasn't there before," Jette said. "It's scary for me. It's scary for everybody."
Liz Petrillo, 57, of Medford, said she is angry at the system that led to a 40 percent drop in her life savings after 35 years of hard work. She and her husband Bob, 62, disagreed several months ago about whether to cash out from the stock market before she conceded to his plan to stick to their long-term investment strategy. "I wanted to cash everything in but now I'm at the point of where I have no choice but to stay where I am," said Petrillo. "Now we have more to lose obviously."
Lillian and Wayne Graham have wrung their hands during discussions around their Boxford kitchen table after work. By Thursday night, their year-to-date investment losses plunged by 45 percent. Just 24 hours earlier, they were "only" in the hole by 30 percent.
"My husband wanted to get out. I had to explain to him that we can't get out at the bottom," said Lillian Graham, a 51-year-old nurse. "I said, 'Do you want to incur such grand losses?' " Wayne Graham, a 55-year-old welder, said that ship has sailed. "We and everyone should have taken it out 14 months ago at the high."
Of course, then you were being told "Record highs, record highs, plow more $$$ in, plow more $$$ in," by the looting liars of Wall Street. And NOW the PROPAGANDISTS in the PAPER and elsewhere are saying LEAVE YOUR MONEY IN!!!
As couples debated what to do, adult children also worried about their older parents - or helped them handle their fears. Boston attorney Adam Ruttenberg, 46, said he and is wife try to quell the anxiety of his wife's octogenarian parents daily. They are concerned about the plunging value of their federal, state, and municipal bonds. Ruttenberg reminds them they aren't planning to sell the bonds until they are fully matured and will continue to receive dividends until then.
"They are very upset," he said. "I try to say that if the world reaches the point where these kind of things aren't paying, we have bigger problems than anything else." His mother-in-law, Bertha Blauner, 82, said she wants to believe Ruttenberg but still is anxious.
"It worries me because that is the income for our quiet life," said Blauner, who was born in Romania and moved to the United States from South America in 1958. "Hopefully they don't go belly up." Arlington family therapist Suzanne Marcus said that money can amplify anxieties and disagreements among couples and families.
"Whenever there is stress on the system it is going to make whatever is going on a lot worse," Marcus said. "It's more a feeling of the generic jitters and a stress to what are already stressed lives." But challenges also can bring people together, said Charlie Verge, director of couples' therapy training at the Family Institute of Cambridge.
"Stress does not in itself determine the outcome of relationships," Verge said. "It can bond people as well as split people apart."
Leave it to the propagandists to find a kernel of crap in a full swirley.
Also see: The Bad Apple
I guess its only a positive when it is the stuffing being ripped out of and stolen from your life, average person.
The Felzanis have lived through several financial downturns in their nearly 40 years of marriage. But this is the worst of them. Ernie Felzani said he has been investing nearly all that time, buying quality stock at reasonable prices.
As the president of the Massachusetts chapter of the nonprofit education group Better Investing, he said he has confidence in the market rebounding. He said his investing strategy helped him pay for his two children's private education and college tuition. His portfolio has only dropped over the last year about 12.5 percent because of what he believes is smart investing.
His wife, Lorraine, on Friday said that she was past the time of arguing over her husband's investments. She changed her tone when she heard that her husband was still out shopping for more. "You are kidding me," Felzani said. "He better not be. It is still a very scary time. He better not or I'll kill him." --more--"
Yeah, the one clear voice gainst the endless agenda-pushing from the unending liars of the MSM is once again saved for the last paragraph. Tired of argiung about it. All I know is if the MSM is promoting it, think or do the opposite. CUI BONO?
