WHERE WILL THE NUMBERS GAME END?

WHERE WILL THE NUMBERS GAME END?

I recall growing up in the era of small money. Finding seven cents in the bottom of a drawer instantly generated joy, as I could race for the store to purchase a popsicle or a revel. The fifteen cent movie admission and ten cent popcorn were considered good value for a quarter. Today, we are overwhelmed with living in the age of big money. Hundreds, thousands and millions of dollars are thrown about quite regularly, as we zoom into the stratosphere with dollar amounts casually reported in the billions and trillions. That is another world, far from the ten cent chocolate bar of my youth.

For example, at a recent New Year’s fish auction in Tokyo self-proclaimed Japanese "Tuna King" and sushi restaurant owner Kiyoshi Kimura paid a record $3.1 million for a giant bluefin tuna. The valuable and vulnerable fish tipped the scales at 612 pounds. That equates to over $316 an ounce. The restaurant tab for a sushi dinner featuring this expensive tuna would be astronomical. 

Young people who play competitive computer games on the Internet can make millions. One of the most famous gamers, named Ninja, plays a game called Fortnite. Ninja plays for about 12 hours a day from his basement studio, accepting donations, interacting with his audience, and welcoming new subscribers to his website. The long hours help the world's most famous professional gamer earn more than $500,000 a month. Making half a million dollars a month playing a game is obscene! We played cards for pennies.

Three years ago a company started by two young men began to develop a new e-cigarette. Their particular product caught on quickly and last year their company was valued at 38 billion dollars, with expected earnings of over 2 billion dollars annually. Ironically to me, although the e-cigarette does not use tobacco, it does deliver more addictive nicotine to the smoker than regular cigarettes. This is progress ?

Is it now time to feel sorry for Warren Buffet, often cited as the richest man in the world? Warren Buffett's devotion to Apple is taking a toll on his portfolio. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns about 252.5 million shares of Apple, making Berkshire the company's second-largest investor. Apple tumbled 10% recently, and the value of Berkshire's Apple stake fell to about $36 billion, down from nearly $40 billion earlier. I know that a 4 billion dollar loss in my stock portfolio would give me heart palpitations, but I doubt if Buffet even noticed. 

Finally, in my exploration of big money, we have the following report from the UK banking sector. Brexit hasn't happened yet, but it's already shrinking the United Kingdom's financial services industry. Banks and other financial companies have shifted at least $1 trillion worth of assets out of the country and into the European Union because of Brexit. Approximately 9 trillion dollars are still in a holding pattern. I don’t know about you but these numbers are so large that they are quite meaningless to me. I just know that trillions of dollars would buy me quadrillions of popsicles or revels, even if they don’t sell for seven cents anymore!

Thank goodness, when I find out that my pension will increase by 90 cents a month this year, I will still be able to handle the financial implications!