QOTD
"We've had virtually no calls, only a handful."
- Theodore Aronson, money manager about his "numb" investors/clients during this market decline
Great article on the recent decline: What History Tells Us About the Market
Points:
  1. People are numb (see quote above) right now. The next stage is capitulation. That means finally looking at your statement and sell-sell-selling.
  2. Charles Schwab currently has $28B in cash and a market cap of only $21B? In fact, the article claims that about 10% (876 of 9,194) of the companies that S&P follows are trading below their cash value. Great, but unfortunately, this is a common occurrence when the credit market seizes up and takes the stock market down, ala 1929-1932.
  3. Some pointy-head in the article says "the market is moving on fear, not facts"... which is a common reprise these days. How can you say that? The stock market looks forward. Well, what does the future hold? We have a credit crunch of unforseen length and severity ahead of us. We a pretty sure to have a recession... like a real one this time, not the wussy recessions of 1990, 2001, etc. That cloudy future is being discounted by the stock market, and it seems to me to be a reaction to facts as much as fear.
  4. Corporate Bonds Slide Along With Stocks is another good WSJ article. The yields are pretty incredible... corporate bonds are yielding 8.5% on average. But how do you hop on these when even GE is kissing Warren Buffet's ass to stay afloat?
Oh well... how about a little book review.

Book: "Ordinary Love & Good Will" by Jane Smiley
Review: 3 bill-stars (out of 5)
Web site: Nope.

OK, so I'm searching for a website for Jane Smiley, and I run across her blog at the Huffington Post. I think the Huffington Post rates up there with moveon.org and Daily Kos. I think. I gotta admit that I haven't swum too deep in that pool... because even the slightest contact with that murky water dredges up hatred and the kind of zealous bias that is so uncomfortable to be around.

Jane Smiley's blog is that kind of irrational hatred.
  • Jane Smiley hates Sarah Palin. In a blog entry "That look on her face", Smiley says that she can devine Sarah Palin's true character by reading her facial expressions and hand gestures.
  • Jane Smiley hates John McCain. She (unfavorably) compares his service in Viet Nam to the terrorist acts of Bill Ayers (which she defends).
  • And an oldie, but a goodie... Hank Paulson's bailout plan is just a scheme for repubs to steal the election. Drat. Another election "stolen" by those nasty republicans. I blame Cheney.
I can recognize Jane Smiley's blind hatred. I can recognize the smallness of character and immaturity that is at its core. I can't, however, figure out how to change or even communicate with people like this.

Ironically, Jane Smiley seems to be more in tune with today's politics. I am the one out of step. Emotion trumps reason! Right? And people question the irrationality of the financial markets these days?!?!

An example: Kim39 sent me an email from a relative of hers that condemned not only Sarah Palin, but everyone in Alaska. The email hit me not only in its absurdity, but also that this person felt no hesitation in freely distributing a correspondence filled with such bigotry and hate. There seems to be a complete absence of introspection, asking herself questions like:
  • "Hmm, I wonder if people will think I'm a bigot for distributing this", or
  • "I wonder if this will be offensive to people", or
  • "Is my calling Sarah Palin a 'red neck' and all of Alaska uneducated and uncaring about the rest of world rational and well thought out?"
Well, Meg-whoever-you-are, you are a bigot. You and Jane Smiley are bigots born of entitlement. You are so certain of your world view that you feel entitled to slash and burn whatever lies in your path. Anything that deviates from your righteous position is not to be tolerated. Yours is a philosophy of intolerance and hatred. Please count me out. As Marilyn Manson said, "I hate the hater."

Again, the characterization is an easy call... fixing it is another matter. Perhaps the only solution is to just keep calling it what it is and maybe some day small, unthinking people like Meg or Jane Smiley will take a moment to realize, "Wow, I really made an ass out of myself there. That was despicable behavior."

Jane Smiley's book barely crossed the 3 bill-stars (worth reading) barrier. It's two 100-page novellas. "Ordinary Love" is about a family reunion sort of situation. "Good Will" is a little better; it's about a family living off the land when things go wrong wrong wrong. Both these stories are pretty lackluster, but Smiley gets by on her smooth-as-butter writing style. Wanna see?

QOTD2
"I can't say that I forgive my father, but now I can imagine what he probably chose never to remember - the goad of an unthinkable urge, pricking him, pressing him, wrapping him in an impenetrable fog of self that must have seemed, when he wandered around the house late at night after working and drinking, like the very darkness. This is the gleaming obsidian shard I safeguard above all the others."
- Jane Smiley, "A Thousand Acres" (a 5 bill-star book, BTW)
Money.
peace... yow, bill

PS - Love the google stream of conciousness... to the right is the CD cover for Sade's "No Ordinary Love". He he!

Labels: , , ,