Confluence,
As most readers of this thread know, I rarely post personal opinions. I believe I did say "Boo, hizz" once. However, since this has now reached the "Shouting Stage", (Joan Armatrading, 1988, details at allmusic.com ),
I think the last sentence of Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint" comes into focus: "Now I think we are beginning to get somewhere". Folks, this is what it looks like near a bottom. It's about money, and the cattle are stampeding. Even gunshots at the front of the herd don't seem to have an effect.
Let me give you my favorite quote from the late Ashby Bladen, former columnist for Forbes magazine: "Making money consistently in the securities market depends more on character than on brains. Mainly, it requires the ability to think for yourself. And the best way to hang on to the self-confidence required to make you own decisions is to avoid mistakes that threaten to produce crippling losses. Most people are afraid to think for themselves and would rather be wrong in good company than be right all alone. That is why the markets' propensity for going to irrational extremes is inherent and ineradicable. I believe that the human herd instinct is even more responsible for this manic-depressive characteristic than the oft-cited alternation between greed and fear".
PHIL |
