Fore!
Pardon me, Mr. President, for interrupting your golfing foursome, but now that I have your attention, if you will hear me out.
Your little ditty of what has become a global tariff war is taking its toll on my retirement funds, and I’m not alone.
I once concerned myself with figuring out how to keep my golf drives in the fairways and sinking five-foot putts on the greens. More recently, I’ve become a stickler for watching the financial markets on Wall Street, and things were rolling along rather nicely until March 10, when I lost $20,000 and some change from my IRA, aka Investment Retirement Account, funds.
That sort of caught my attention.
Things caught my attention, too, on March 11, 12, 13, 18, 20 and the days ahead, and they really put me in something of a panic on April 3 and April 4, and my little retirement nest egg seemed to be dwindling dollar after dollar after dollar.
You said, Mr. President, we could “feel some pain,” and some of we common, middle-class folks are indeed as your global tariff war escalates despite your recent 90-day pause on the tariffs, although you aren’t backing away from China, now increasing trade taxes between the U.S. and China to 145%.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is peeved.
“BE COOL!” you said, Mr. President, recently on social media. “Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”
That’s cold comfort, Mr. President, for someone like me, who grew up the son of a working-class father and mother, who sometimes struggled to make financial ends meet along their lives’ way. I still can remember my late mother telling me about growing up in the Great Depression, and the financial hardships that her father and mother faced while raising four children at the old homeplace in Moore County.
Folks who know me know I’m frugal with money. Some will tell you I still have the first dollar I ever made. Truth is, I wasn’t born into wealth or with a proverbial silver spoon, and there are many in this community who are just like me.
I remember, too, somewhere back in the mid-1960s, when my parents were in such financial straits that they were given notice that the appliance folks were coming to repossess the refrigerator, the stove and the washing machine, and it took my uncle to bail them out.
“Everybody go home,” I can hear my uncle saying on that rainy night. “Everything is all taken care of.”
I still can see my Mama crying in tears of relief, and she never forgot my uncle’s help until her dying day.
When I was in college, Mama borrowed money from a number of dentists she worked with on Fort Bragg at old Smoke Bomb Hill. After college, and when I was starting out on what would become a long newspaper career, Mama sat me down and said, “The first thing you are going to do is repay every one of those dentists,” and Mama expected nothing less of her son.
And I did. Every one of them. Mama would have had it no other way.
Mama even made me pay back a loan from my uncle that he said was “a gift” to help me through college.
“He probably won’t take the money,” Mama said. “He said it was a gift, but I want you to at least show him how appreciative we are, and you are.”
When the bell rings
I tell you all of this, Mr. President, because I, like so many others, have worked hard and we these days surely have worries about our retirement nest eggs. I cringe every day when they ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
Friends say not to look at the stock market numbers every day. I can’t help myself. I’m an addict from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday to Friday. I welcome the weekends when the New York Stock Exchange isn’t open.
I’ll give you this much, Mr. President, when you somewhat backed away from your tariffs this week for 90 days, the market soared, and I was feeling better about my retirement funds. But 24 hours later, the numbers up there on Wall Street were tumbling again.
For the most part, I get what you are attempting to do with this tariff thing, and you’ve surely gotten the attention of world leaders, sans China. But the price of an egg in the grocery aisle is up, and I’m hearing the price tag on vehicles will be heading upwards, too, and vehicles already are expensive enough. And just so you know, I just got a notice from my Blue Cross/Blue Shield folks that my health supplement is increasing in June by $36.
Epilogue
Beg my pardon, Mr. President, for interrupting your golf outing, and be sure to follow through on that five-foot putt. I don’t know much of anything about economics, but just enough to be concerned about my retirement funds. But if you need a putting tip, Mr. President, I have some experience with the flat stick, and especially with an old Bullseye putter and a Shark grip.
Gotta go, Mr. President, they’ll be ringing the bell on Wall Street soon enough for another week, and we’ll be watching. Here’s hoping for better days and better numbers.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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