The stock market always makes me laugh. It's a self-fulfilling system that's not tied to anything in reality. Honestly, other than dividends and company takeovers I've yet to figure out why any particular stock is worth any particular amount of money.

Anyways, rants aside, I bring this up because of 401k's. Now, perhaps I am a complete tool, but whenever I work for somebody, one of the first things I start doing is investing in the company 401k. If not for the company matching, then for no other reason than it makes a nice little tax shelter. Just days before the -500 dow drop I was looking at my 401k being up 3% for the year and feeling very satisfied that I was investing in my future, doing something responsible, and just all around making a wise choice. Of course, being 24, I had invested in funds that were almost 100% stock, split 2/3 domestic and 1/3 international investments, so when the shit hit the fan, I watched it go from 3% to -1% in a matter of days. Now, I know this is only temporary and I'm not really worried about it because 401k's are a sound idea either way, but it kind of bothers me.

Maybe I'm just naive and mixing physics concepts in weird ways with money, but I tend to think of this as a big system. The system requires an input of money, and with money, it does work to create MORE money. Now, I'm completely cool with the concept of the result being 0, because sometimes things are at metaphorical right angles, but the concept of inputting money and getting LESS money seems antithetical to the whole process and somehow a violation to the laws of the universe. It puts me in a state where I expect to be able to walk through walls, particles to travel faster than light, and other things that tend to give the universe the kind of headache that can only end in an apocalypse.

The worst part is that when you think about it, this kind of negative work is done all the time. Say you put your money in the bank, you expect to earn interest right? Well, if you keep it in a checking or only low yielding savings account, you're actually losing money because inflation is growing faster than your money.

Which makes me apply this concept to this other matters. If money is equatable to goods, then it means that I can have 5 sheep, and just because I have the sheep from moment to moment, I somehow now only have 4.9 sheep. But how the hell can I have 4.9 sheep without having a nice meal or SOMETHING.

I'm not exactly sure what the point of all of this is, other than I have this sense of being robbed, and I have this nagging doubt that a black hole or other form of financial cacodemon is responsible. Maybe this is why they used to BURN moneylenders.