Karun, when the markets are in turmoil and everyone is confused, sometimes it is best to step back and get some perspective.
Here is a comment on human nature from an unlikely source -- the book "Seven years in Tibet" by Heinrich Harrer. In this passage Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter have finally arrived in the Forbidden City after their perilous escape from the internment camp at Dehra-Dun and the arduous journey that followed. Harrer describes many aspects of everyday life in Lhasa, and it is this that comes to mind regarding everyone's current obsession with the stock market:
"Then there is mah-jongg. At one time this game was a universal passion. People were simply fascinated by it and played it day and night forgetting everything else -- official duties, housekeeping, the family. The stakes were often very high and everyone played -- even the servants, who sometimes contrived to lose in a few hours what they had taken years to save.
"Finally the government found it was too much of a good thing. They forbade the game, bought up all the mah-jongg sets and condemned secret offenders to heavy fines and hard labor. And they brought it off! I would never have believed it, but though everyone moaned and hankered to play again, they respected the prohibition.
"After mah-jongg had been stopped, it became gradually evident how everything else had been neglected during the epidemic. On Saturdays -- the day of rest -- people now played chess or halma, or occupied themselves harmlessly with word games and puzzles".
And so it seems that Allan Greenspan is but the present incarnation of a spirit who once resided as an official of a remote mountain kingdom in Asia. As a result of recent developments I've taken my losses in ASND, profits in CSCO, and may take profits in QCOM next week. Maybe I'll buy some nice safe bonds and curl up with a good book.
Can you tell me what "halma" is? BTW, next year I will try your hot-pepper pesticide solution on the aphids in my greenhose. Ironically, it is my sweet peppers that they attack.
-Greg
|
