Since retiring, I’ve become something of a news junkie. No, I take that back; I think that I was a news junkie even before I retired. I first became aware of my addiction to the news during Operation Desert Storm (January to February 1991) following blow-by-blow as our Marines liberated Kuwait from Iraqi troops. During those few weeks, I spent so very much time reading and watching for the very latest news of the conflict.
But it isn’t that I’m addicted to any and all news. Oh no, I’m pretty selective in my interests.
For example, I’m not at all interested in the “human interest stuff,” that is, the kind of stories to be found in People magazine. I don’t give two hoots about the lives of the rich and famous. Nor do I concern myself with criminal drama — wife bites man, attorney embezzles from client, police apprehend bank robber, etc.
But I am addicted to news about world events and economics. I follow (with great concern) how our wars are going. And I follow (with great concern) how slowly we’re recovering from “The Great Recession.” And given that we’re deep into the presidential campaign season, I also follow (with great concern) the current series of political posturing events.
As for media, I read news articles in The Economist magazine and in our daily newspaper, which carries syndicated articles from The Washington Post, New York Times News Service, Bloomberg News, and The Associated Press. I also read articles online and watch the news on television. And I listen to news on radio while driving in the car.
About three years ago, I even “dinked around” writing a blog on the subject of economics. Though the blog is now dormant, my articles are still up there “on the web.” (I’ve heard that once you publish something on the web, it’s there forever). I called my blog “Economy-Society.com,” and I wrote a series of articles making observations regarding the deep recession in which we were then mired (and from which we’re currently struggling to recover). And I made some interesting predictions about the stock market, the housing market, etc. As you’d expect, some of my predictions turned out to be more accurate than others. But, hey, you know how it goes, economics is one of only two professions (the other is meteorology) in which a person can be wrong up to half the time and still keep his job. Here…iif you’re interested, take a look at the blog: http://economyandsociety.wordpress.com/
OK, I’ll sign off now…gotta listen to the news of the Fed’s announcement from their meeting of their Open Market Committee. See ya.
