TJ, it's a good feeling to comfort others. < you comfort me.> I'm pleased to be of service. True, I'm still a Go-dless soul, a heretic, beyond the pale. < you still do not have gold and are still wrong. >
Not only do I not see reason for you to change your expectation, you can rightly claim to have had a fairly well scripted unpredictable future. <i see no reason to change expectations; do you? >
We are way over two years into the trough ... hmmm ... considering the word "trough", that implies an opposite side up which markets will go in recovery.
I admit that despite a decade of discussion of black holes, event horizons, financial relativity theory and geopolitical chaos, I have not previously considered that the Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500 might not have the recovery side of the trough.
It is possible that they will simply be decommissioned as market measures although that doesn't necessarily mean all of the companies they measure will go away in a total socialist/communist/fascist takeover of all commercial property. It could also mean the US$ ceases to be a measuring instrument [which is in my Go-dless plans so that shouldn't surprise me.]
Anyway, assuming a trough, we are well over two years into it. That's a lot of market clearing. Megatons of financial
processing has gone on. Each bit of clearing reduces the need for more. The size and pace of "change" seems to have increased so "hope" remains an important aspect of the markets. People around the world wanted lots of Obama's Hope and Change and they are getting them, good and hard.
< i am thinking about sparta and rome, bible and way of god, worthy and deserved, >
There are indeed some proverbs coming into play and old lessons being relearned the hard way, but so far we have avoided Shakespearian tragedy [I am aliterate and studied such things little if at all but did note that normally everyone ended up dead after various chaotic emotional processes] and I think Sparta, Rome and Biblical ways of wrathful deities are beyond the event horizon with us on the sunlit inflationary side of it.
The proportion of people in trouble is still small. Not even 10% of people have been booted out of their houses, lost their jobs, gone bankrupt, getting hungry. The soup kitchens are still populated by those there for personal reasons rather than economic reasons.
As the baby boomers reach their dotage and go down the gurgler and die [as some of us have already done I am sad to report] it's going to be a sad old age for swarms of them. Not many will rock their way like Mick Jagger to their 80th year, having fun and loaded with loot. Most will be impecunious and of failing health with limited income even if they try to work. Employers are not so keen on blind, deaf, stuck in the past, decrepit old people who can barely produce value sufficient to cover the cost of the work floor space they take up let alone the food and housing for their private life.
As my mother in law said, "Getting old isn't for sissies". And she didn't mean poverty. Simply getting old is rough enough. Throw in poverty and old can be distinctly unpleasant.
I wonder if baby boomers will come to be seen as the problem rather than the solution they always thought they were.
But for now, too few people are in bad enough trouble for things to go Biblical, Spartan and Roman.
Like you, I have climbed around the ruins of the Roman Empire - you in Rome, me in Avignon, Uzes [Pont du Gard canal], Orange where there still stands a huge wall which was a theatre back drop with a statue of Augustus part way up and the rockery of construction still complete nearly. There is food for thought in such places.
I am still supporting "Rome" though I admit to having sneaked some money out and closer to home and am on tippy toe watching maneuvers - like you I think of fear, panic and fleeing as valuable talents provided by a billion years of survival. I am NOT offering my usual double your money back guarantee that we stay on the right side of the event horizon.
But there's no need to come over all limp and buy Go-d. Any day now things will come right. They keep saying so. This is just the "I am a mindless Zombie" brigade being adjusted back to reality. The Zombies [who blame Alan Green$pan for their own failings] recovered from the Biotelecosmictechdot.com irrational exuberance and crunch. Subject 53236
Amazingly, Zombies zoomed straight into speculative "investment" in housing, prices of which "always go up".
They are being disabused of that notion now and a whole new swarm of foolish borrowers are blaming Uncle Al KBE for their own decisions. They'll have to embalm Alan like Chairman Mao and put him in a mausoleum in Washington so that future generations can visit and blame him for whatever ails them financially. There should always be a queue of visitors judging by financial competence of people and their governments.
Heck, it's 7 years since I started "I am a mindless Zombie" stream. Still people are blaming Big Al. There's an industry there! Money to be made. 100 years from now, profits should still be flowing.
Meanwhile, Big Ben is doing as he said he would. He has trained for this moment for decades = all his life. He must feel an almost mystical "Being called to the stage" at just the right time. I'm sure Shakespeare would be watching him with interest, rubbing his hands with glee. Look at them; Obama, Paulson, Cash&Carry, Geitner, Helicopter Ben, Madoff, Wagoner, a vast caste of characters.
The rulers were called the best and brightest in Kennedy's day, Camelot, before the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam showed feats of clay. There's a good chance that the brilliant leaders will not create Utopia with "quantitative easing" and pixilated production of pixelated promissory notes.
Zimbabwe process to Argentina solution - the A to Z of financial relativity theory Black Scholes implosion a la Long Term Capital Management collapse and Asian contagion, courtesy of Globalstar's Zenit rocket crashing in Siberia due to arguing computers with the right one being outvoted by the other two wrong ones. Maybe, but I'll take a rain-check on it.
Meanwhile, King George II has ridden off into the sunset, pleased with his handiwork.
I wait with bated breath for the next act in what looks like a Shakespearian tragedy [btw how come people write "baited breath" and "tow the line" instead of "toe the line"?]
Mqurice |
