Good Morning All!!...just for fun while we wait for the mkts to open, and oh so true...as a side note, a few folks PM'd asking what I was holding overnight...sorry for being late, but EGHT, CTII, INTA, PNJA, ADSX (more than I would normally like in my basket, but some are new friends and all have terrific potential):
By Michael Makowsky
Contributing Editor
The clues were all there. Sushi bars are hot spots. Pinstripes are in. Pac-man has reappeared on Sony's PlayStation. And now, the staple of 80's life has returned.
Greed.
Greed is back. And, thank you Mr. Gekko, "Greed is good."
Mainstream America is wearing greed like a Gucci bag. It is ubiquitous, it is embraced, it is hip. In fact, if you are not greedy, you are looked upon as though you don't match collars and cuffs. Heck, you might as well have on floppy red shoes and a big, round nose that honks when you squeeze it.
Greed is what drives the innovators, the next generation of technology workers and entrepreneurs. If you aren't getting everything you can, everything you are entitled to, you "don't get it." And if you don't get "it," you are not going to get your two commas by age 30.
And what a tragedy that would be, wouldn't it? To not be so fabulously wealthy by 30 that you may only own ONE house? Unbearable! To still have to work for a living? Unthinkable! How could anyone possibly expect to survive in such a world?
We want it all, and we want it all NOW. This is not to say that people are not working hard. Far from it. Greed is pushing people to work in record amounts. The 40-hour workweek is a myth, a legend told to children over campfires. Technology employees are putting in 80-hour weeks, nothing flat. And the entrepreneurs and first hires whose stakes are potentially worth 8 and 9 digit fortunes? They just work. How many hours a week? Well, how many hours ARE there in a week?
And if you don't have a brilliant idea, you capitalize on someone else's. You invest. You pour every penny you can into your IRA, your 401k, your brokerage account. You invest in technology. You scour the message boards, you pray for insight, you subscribe to various "newsletters."
You day trade.
You become an arbitrageur. You make mammoth trades in hopes of profiting 2 cents for your dollar. Anything to get on top.
Ironically, your greed is rewarded as you capitalize on other people's greed. It becomes the world's greatest pyramid scheme. The power of everyone else's greed fuels your ability to profit.
Greed is a powerful thing. It can even be a beautiful thing.
You can make money. You can make a lot of money. If you are smart, you can make more money than you ever dreamed of. Well, maybe not. People are dreaming awfully big these days.
Greed is hip, and that is fine. The 80's weren't all that bad after all. But if there is anything that we can learn from the 80's, it is this: Control Greed, don't let it Control You. Smart people use greed. Others get used by it. Because it can all go away very quickly. Just ask Michael Milken.
Now where did I put my suspenders with the little dollar signs on them? Those were so cool.. |
