The world is a losing investment for those of us who don’t ‘own’ pricing power.
The few write the ticket and the rest of us pay for it…not in monetary terms but by sacrificing what we otherwise would have been entitled to.
So it should come as a surprise to no one that volatility in the markets is now the ‘new normal’ just as 9% unemployment has become the ‘new normal’ as globalization continues to rip our civilization apart.
“The best thing people could have done last month is nothing,” said Alec Young, an equity strategist at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research. “We don’t think that it’s a smart way to manage to be taking the temperature every day because you’ll be trading your portfolio till the cows come home.”
And volatility may not herald dips in prices — a study by Sam Stovall, a strategist at S.& P. Equity Research, found that markets since 1950 have typically been calm just before the highest consecutive price declines. But, he found, volatility goes up after prices start going down and the markets can remain nervous while prices recover.
Some longtime market observers attribute the skittishness to aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis.
“When there is uncertainty in the world, there is uncertainty in the market,” said James J. Angel, a professor of finance at Georgetown University. “After a big shock, it takes years for the markets to settle down.”
As of this morning the financial world was once again bleeding from the eye-sockets. There has already been one rally that ‘almost’ pushed the Dow into positive territory but it gave out and markets dropped to roughly half of their former lows.
Why? Nobody knows.
In sales we call this phenomenon ‘running out of stupid people’ but this shouldn’t happen to the stock markets because they have that foremost of market makers working for them, they are ‘the only game in town’.
They either play the game or the play makers ruin them…it’s that simple.
But that’s the ‘free markets’ for you, my way or the highway, right?
What do you mean no?
What planet did you say you were from again?
Never mind…like the theme of this piece, we’re going to take a little time to explore ’why is that?’ (across a multitude of topics so be prepared to shift mental gears…although it is, tangentially, all related.)
What do stock markets tell us in a world with a bankrupt financial system?
Short answer, nothing.
Just as I stumbled upon a video posted at Financial Armageddon this morning where some clueless fool blamed the latest ’recession’ on sub-prime lending. It’s like blaming fire on wood.
Why did the banks engage in all of that ’crazy’ lending? Because without it the Real Estate market would have collapsed and WHY would the real estate market have collapsed? Because payrolls have been completely stagnant for far too long! THERE WERE NO (too few) QUALIFIED BUYERS!
Which, ironically, is precisely where we find ourselves this very moment. NOTHING has changed.
Why have payrolls been stagnant for decades? Because ‘globalization’ removed what little ‘leverage’ workers had to demand higher pay for increases in productivity.
BOSS: “In lieu of raises this year I’m closing the plant an moving operations to China, you can all come…IF you can get a visa!
Bad news amigos, the land of a billion people don’t want you!
Make you wonder what kind of cat starves itself to death so the other cat can live high off the hog?
Is it a pragmatic cat or just a stupid one?
In my opinion the latter but time will tell, this race isn’t over yet by a long shot (and I think the ‘communist on the outside and capitalist on the inside‘ bastards have bitten off much more than they can chew.)
So, in a world on the verge of collapse, what other questions should we be asking?
How about the ‘War on Terra’? It most certainly is a bit too late start questioning the validity of the actions taken by a few crazed politicians but it will never be too late to correct them.
Um no irony should be lost on the fact that Israel ’pioneered’ the use of military force in police work. We have merely copied their example…and the civilian casualties are written off as collateral damage in the cause to keep the world safe from terrorists.
Oh and our politicians have to avoid all shiny, reflective things or they would find themselves face to face with the biggest, meanest, ugliest terrorists on the planet.
Talk about your viscous circle! If it weren’t for the bribes we pay for the ‘safe conduct’ of our convoys through Afghanistan the fucking Taliban would have gone bankrupt years ago!
Never mind what passes for Al Quida these days costs us a billion dollars a head to kill!
And every other week we kill their number two or number three operative at somebody’s wedding/funeral/birthday party.
Which is either a testament to their (much more robust than ours) chain of command or to the need to justify the murder of innocent civilians in the cause of ‘freedom’.
For our final ‘why is that’ question we return to the issue of crime and what principally constitutes ‘criminal activity’ in this bankrupt society of ours?
Isn’t the primary cause of all crime ‘adverse possession?’
In a world were everything is free from Mother Nature (not what we’re taught but indeed it is a fact) how can anybody be in possession of something that doesn’t belong to them?
Well, people don’t ‘belong’ to anyone but our fucked up government regularly deprives people of their freedom (instead of denying them membership in society, which is how it should be handled!)
What is the fundamental issue in a case of ‘adverse possession’? That the so-called ‘owner’ hasn’t been ‘paid’ for his/her property.
Why are so many people in prison if all money is (ultimately) ‘funny’?
The prison population would be EVENTUALLY reduced to zero while membership in civil society would also ‘diminish’.
Just not necessarily ‘proportionately’.
Not all crimes justify the withdrawal of membership in society.
As you can see, good citizen, it is more than just our system of government that needs replacing.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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