Friday, December 31, 2010

Two Long, Interesting Years Ago

I ran across this while looking through some old files, and I found it appropriate for the end of a year even though it wasn't originally composed for such purposes. On November 8, 2008, Barry Ritholtz asked the readers of his BigPicture blog what they were thinking about just after the US Presidential election. This was my response: (The Tuesday referenced was 11/11/08, Veteran's Day, when the NYSE pauses trading for a minute of silence at 11am.)

What is on your minds? What say ye?


Interesting question. The answer is that it's the same set of things that have been on my mind for the past several years. Mostly, I wonder how so many people believe so many contradictory stupidities and manage to avoid killing themselves while making a bowl of Froot Loops in the morning. On the one hand, the irrationality of my fellow humans is why I trade the markets, so I have mixed feelings about a sudden mass outbreak of Reason... but then again, if man were rational in all aspects of his life, I think humans would have colonized a good deal of the Galaxy several centuries and probably millennia ago. Nevertheless, I am not the least bit hopeful (worried?) that man's nature will change for the better in the next few years. (Ray Kurzweil thinks 2029 may be a big year in that department. I'm skeptical, but intrigued and watchful.)
I don't know much, and the things I do know are things that most people would rather not believe. Worse, they seem willing to bear any hardship and/or inflict any misery upon others in order to avoid believing them. Chief among these unpopular beliefs, and the main one from which they all proceed is handed down from a guy much smarter than me:

One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not, in the same respect, and at the same time.
-Aristotle

One who truly believes this is in for no end of trouble with his fellows. It means being at irreconcilable odds with just about everyone at one time or another. Consider the sum of two and two. It is always exactly four, and most people seem to agree... until it's time to talk about bailouts, taxes, 'spreading the wealth', etc. Consider the slave. A person who is forced against his will to work for another is a slave, regardless of the self-serving pronouncements of some black-robed buffoon. That will be a very popular sentiment on the floor of the NYSE at 11 o'clock this Tuesday, let me tell you.

So in the coming years, I expect to continue to be endlessly fascinated and frustrated by the behavior of individuals alone and in groups. I expect to have more proof that all governments are simply large gangs of liars, thieves, and killers with legions of apologists. (Stop at any time, as I need no further proof, thank you.) I expect to see more people getting what they deserve, along with other people getting what they do not deserve, in spite of what anyone feels or thinks about either. I expect to see low prices get lower, and high prices get higher...until they don't. In short, I expect more of the same, but perhaps from different angles, because while the landscape may look different, it is still populated by the same terrible, wonderful flawed beings. The more things Change...

Be careful out there.

-end quote-