Hello everyone.
I just returned from client meetings and I see that this thread has about 355 unread posts!!!!
Well, it is cathartic to going back to work and serving my clients instead of posting here in SI for hours. I was quite impressed by the resiliency most of my clients I talked to about where do we go from there as far as their financial planning is involved. I was quite happy to only hear a single "let's sell everything and go to cash", even a few mentioned putting some of their available cash to work for buying opportunities. I guess my education efforts have been effective.
I am leaving in half an hour to go and referee a Michigan High School game (Tuesday's games were cancelled of course). It will also be good to be out there doing something I love doing, who knows how many days each one of us has left in our lives that can go poof just like that. So if I am going down I am going to go down doing something I love doing damn it! I am interested to see how moving it will be tonight to listen to the national anthem, see the flag go up and then see how many of us shed tears when we observe a moment of silence (sh*t I am doing that just thinking about it!).
For my one client in Florida I could not get in touch by phone I sent them an email. I have cut and pasted non confidential bits and pieces here (includes economic AND political views), hopefully someone will learn something. If not, just another post in SI one of the millions.
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First, we must grief and get our life back to normal ASAP and above all be CALM.
Well trying to predict the stock market is a sure way to be proved as a fool<g>. Having said that, I am not pulling any of my money out of the stock market and I am advising my clients to sit tight and be calm. Selling under fear and panic is a much surer way to financial dependence and not financial independence.
It is always easier to sell everything and get to cash, the problem ALWAYS is when do you decide to get back in the market. I prefer and advise my clients to sit tight, relax and be on the lookout for possible buying opportunities.
...there will always be idiots just like the ones who lined up for hours to fill up gas paying over $4 per gallon, that's insane! And the gas stations who did that I hope they get prosecuted and locked up, they should be ashamed of themselves in trying to take advantage of the situation.
re: cash get stolen-->Impossible. As long as our electronic systems (including Internet) is fine, this will not happen.
We must be strong to prevent from taking DRASTIC action (like selling all stocks and buying CDs, trying to fill up our cars with gas, attack anyone of Middle Eastern descent). We must remain CALM and stop the hysteria (of course having our leaders project a sense of confidence and calmness will go a long way to help us deal with what happened and go forward).
TD Waterhouse had an office in the WTC, I have not heard anything yet if they lost any people. As far as your accounts go, DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT, they are safe.
I always loved the world politics, geopolitics, international affairs and all that, including geography and history (I just didn't get into that in college because the pay is crappy<g>). My views are a bit different than the hysteria you see displayed all over and the calls to bomb places to the Stone Ages (besides, you can' t bomb Afganistan further back from the Stone Ages, they are already there!). The terrorism problem is a geopolitical problem that stems from the insane foreign policies our elected leaders have been conducting around the world (especially the Middle East) for decades. Yesterday the unthinkable happened, the freaking ants managed to pull off chunks of pieces of the elephant's ass and it hurts! If our leaders do not address the fundamental root causes of this madness (foreign
policy in the Middle East) that makes their life so miserable and pisses them off so much that they are willing to die and take innocents with them we are kidding ourselves that we can finish terrorism (it's not like you can so easily identify these guys). We must provide these people with a dignified and peaceful life so the endless supply of desperate suicide bombers stops. (are we ready to let our big defense companies lose billions of dollars in revenue they make from selling them tons of weaponse? think about it, loss of jobs and votes) That should be the start and then a concerted international effort that will take years, this is not an easy job and requires patience, something that we Americans do not display a fond for. Never underestimate the willingness of people to have a nice job, live in peace, provide for their family and just build a better future, instead they live a miserable life and they are easy converts to radical elements. We must understand WHY they are driven to such extremes and think long and hard about it. Our leaders know, I hope they step up to it. More violence will only increase the supply of these f*ckers (excuse my expression here) I am afraid. And I think that is what they want us to do, we are not dealing with rational people, they are pissed off and combined with totally obscene interpretations of verses they read in the Koran and they are dangerous as they unfortunately proved. Things are not so simple, when it gets to politics things get dirty, international politics is a whole lot dirtier! We like to make things simple, you know, good vs. evil, Big Mac vs. Whopper, Who wants to be a Millionaire vs. the Weakest Link (I am just making these up right now!). Things in the Middle East are VERY complex and require STRONG leadership and reassessing our foreign policy objectives because we somehow keep creating these guys until they somehow, one day, they all turned evil against us (Sadam, Milosevic, Noriega have been allies of the US for years, we created them...Did you know that Bin Laden has been CIA trained? Did you know that the Taliban are creations of the Pakistani government? Pakistan has been a very stong US ally for years and they are run by a dictator, have you wondered about what
happened to our support of democracy and freedom if our goverment keep supporting ruthless dictators around the globe?). And above all we must increase education of ourselves and promote education around the world, nothing better than making people realize that, hey this Christian or Muslim, is another human being like all of us. I wished more Americans knew a lot more about what the heck is going around the world but, sadly, they don't. Probably most of them have not heard of Afganistand and less than 10% could point in a map!
DON'T WORRY about us going to war. Fight who? It's not the Nazis or the Japanese. I remember reading in 1992 an awesome article in the Atlantic Montly magazine with the title "Why we will soon miss the Cold War", what a prophetic article, things were much more stable with the Soviet Union, at least you knew who the enemy is, now we don't. (if we knew our crappy intelligence officials would not be kept with their pants down!
DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. We'll be fine. I am actually very bullish in the future and the financial markets. There is nothing better than rallying the people together and letting billions of dollars in liquidity back into finding its way to the financial markets. This has already started!Selling now it would be a suicide, lay low, be patient and be on the lookout for buying opportunities that may come from people who are making decisions out of fear and not on the fundamentals of our economy which are very strong and this will likely make it stronger (may be a bit rough initially but over the long term I believe that our system and markets will prevail and I will be there to participate in it instead of waiting on the sidelines trying to decide "do I go back in today or tomorrow or the day after that or maybe
next week or month)
I hope I calmed you down, if not call me to talk. I enjoy talking about geopolitics as much as I enjoy talking about personal finance. And when you get the next performance report and you see negative numbers dont' be so upset, it's really not that important<g>
Oh, I forgot to tell you. My brother and sister in law worked six blocks away from the WTC. It was my brother in law who called me to tell me what happened and I really thought he was joking, I did not believe him until I turned on the TV. I was stunned and I just sat there, what a nightmare this was, I kept hoping it was a bad movie and was waiting for bugs bunny and the intermission to come up.
But we will go on and this will make us stronger, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!
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Off to the game...
Get off your PCs and return to your routine (unless this was always your routine)<g>
Sincerely
George |
