This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
When Nothing Matters - Until It Does
It would seem to anyone that’s been in business before the financial crisis of 2008 not only had the rules changed, but rather they changed so much even Alice would find our current looking-glass far more surreal.
It also seems that it wasn’t all that long ago where one thought that maybe, just maybe, to understand the craziness around you; you needed to ever so grudgingly accept the nonsensical mindset of “bad is now considered good.”
So, you adjusted your investing theses, your business plans, your whatever as to try to navigate these uncharted waters. Waters that emanated via the Federal Reserve opening (if not destroying) the dam and flooding the financial markets with liquidity so deep even Montana thought it had a new water view. To then suddenly all you bought into (literally) all you’ve been told. All of it – falls like the house of cards you tried to will (wish) away as if it weren’t true.
And there in lies the true crux of today. For a great many will rue the day when they bought into: “Pigs can fly,” “The markets are at these levels based on sound fundamentals,” “The Fed’s got their back,” and “Ebola is contained.”
It is astounding just how far behind the curve many are finding themselves. Suddenly, almost to a person I meet is either doe eyed, or worse, portraying signs of a deer stuck in the headlights.
Just look at these two headlines only weeks apart to give one clues as to why many they now meet appear in fact clueless:
Aug. 21st, “S&P 500 Tops Record, Nears 2,000 Amid Confidence in Fed”
Followed by:
Oct. 9th, “Top Investors See More Pain as 10% Losses Spread; S&P 500 ‘Painting a False Picture'”
Just these two latest examples put on display why one needed to be able to think clearly and not buy into the false narrative. Again, the problem is a great many are now finding their prior believing in that narrative is becoming clearer and more problematic because – they were not (or refused) thinking to begin with.
This is where everything is changing because the great masses whom many relate to as “the herd mentality” is now showing signs of great nervousness. And once this group gets spooked: It’s Katie bar the door time.
The issue that compounds this problem is what many more are realizing and never thought possible: The very real possibility of a pandemic that can actually affect them. Not just someone on the other side of a screen (or phone). But actually – them.
Again, this is where everything that seemingly didn’t matter, or was brushed off as “never gonna happen” suddenly turns into “Wait…what?” And there are many “Wait…what?” moments compounding one on top of each other.
In less than a few weeks the markets have negated all of the gains (and then some) for 2014 as we stand today. Are 5 – 7- 10% corrections out of the blue a normal thing? Of course they are. However, what makes this one different from the others? Easy – just look at the timing.
How is it that a market corrects in a dizzying fashion when all of the “fundamentals, fairly priced, economy improving,” etc., etc. are in place as everyone’s been told ad nauseam? Unless – it was a mirage.
And what makes a mirage a glaring reality is this: The very month quantitative easing ends – so to does an ever-rising relentless “bull” market with a sell off reminiscent of earlier crises exposing for all to see prima facie the house of cards it truly is.
Again: If these markets were based on fundamentals why the need for any concern? For concern there suddenly is.
On top of this comes the compounding effect where what was once seen as improbable begins morphing to not only plausible – but probable. Fear of an actual outbreak or pandemic. e.g. Ebola.
As we stand here today many are waking to differing headlines breaking out across the web and wondering: “But how? I thought, or, we were told….” And just like the above example with the markets – this also is where everything changes.
While the issue of “why or how” can be understood quite easily, it’s the compounding effect on one’s psyche as they look at both their financial well-being as well as their health and they cross once presumed separate paths. Where what they’ve been told no longer is in the abstract, but is both tangible, and all too real i.e., A 401K balance that suddenly is cut, along with headlines, “Dallas Hospital Worker Tests Positive For Ebola In First Person-To-Person Transmission On US Soil”
Now we have a confirmed Ebola case transmission between a care taker and patient that was not by casual contact, but rather to someone who was encapsulated “wearing full protective gear.” Along with a correction in the financial markets negating all the years gains where everyone was told “it’s a great time to be in the markets!” All in less than about a week.
For the one’s lovingly refereed to as “the herd mentality” this changes everything regardless of how the main stream media will try to push a differing narrative.
And that’s if they want to push a “don’t worry calm down” story line. For we all know “blood in the streets” sells, and what the media needs more today than yesterday is anything that sells. So I wouldn’t look for anymore rainbow and unicorn puff pieces on the markets or health concerns anytime soon.
As a matter of fact I won’t be surprised if the drumbeat of panic not only intensifies – but gets turned up to 11 by this very same band of cohorts that just weeks ago were touting: “Everything is beautiful man!”
When I first began to raise serious concerns on Ebola on just how and why the dangers that could manifest within an economy such as ours. Some regarded my thoughts as “throwing gasoline on a contained fire.”
At the time it was a fair criticism (although I stand by my article and thoughts) because many just can’t get their heads around what they themselves see as “unlikely.” Until it is shown not only as possible – but probable. To wit:
“Public Health Emergency Declared In Connecticut Over Ebola: Civil Rights Suspended Indefinitely”
That’s not hyperbole, nor is it not something as a “well that’s what they say but will never happen.” No, that’s now law, backed up with the enforcement of by any, and all means at the disposal of a government body. Period.
Suddenly everything I outlined in my last article as possibilities to ponder, or at the least; a business owners (regardless of size) need to think, understand, and be proactive as to deal with possible disruption scenarios has moved from some meaningless exercise to be done in the abstract – to the very possibility they could be realized at any given time. Regardless of geography.
An example of what I was trying to convey within this construct is this: What most don’t understand is that many of the very people who an advanced economy rely on for keeping an infrastructure running require mobility. i.e., The crisis team that fixes large-scale power outages, maintains water treatment facilities, ____________ (fill in the blank) travel from job to job. They are very specialized and usually run in teams.
What happens if an embarked team to repair a water treatment facility that is shut down due to unresolvable circumstances (for lack of critical expertise) is aboard a plane that has a similar episode as the one in Philadelphia; where a passenger prompted an entourage of hazmat suited personnel?
What if that happened in Connecticut today? And it just so happened the very people needed to repair that scenario of a water treatment facility are also aboard? Now what once seemed improbable becomes very real and a whole lot more plausible. Along with its disruption and impact to a great many more hundreds if not a thousand miles away.
Do you now still send teams or people in groups? Or do you split them up? Do you fly them on different planes? Do you fly them at all? Do you now send some via air while others go via ground transportation? Where do they stay? All at the same hotel? What does this do to once accepted costs? Can you charge accordingly? Can they pay?
All these questions are very real, and the list goes on, and on. And not just for this skill set, but for a myriad of others across an advanced economy.
As one can clearly see. It not only changes the lens of how one has to view this economy, but rather, it might be prudent to look through a whole new set of glasses.
And none of them had better be rose-colored.
»
- 10784 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Yeah know what you mean, met a schmuck at a golf tournament yesterday and he lost millions in 01 then lucked out in another business and lost millions in 08 market portfolio.... he knows I'm a bear and all he could do was obnoxiously yap yap yap about how wrong I was....he was scared shitless and he's too stupid and greedy to run.
Just don't follow Dear Leader Lemming.
Everybody knows that pigs can fly...when they are shot out of a cannon.
The problem is, it's hard to tell from the ground whether the pig is still going up, or has started coming down.
This is all scare tactics. The door is too narrow for everyone to get through at once so there can't be a stampede by the herd.
What "herd" is left exactly? Do tell.
Not to be picayune, can someone teach this guy accurate use of punctuation. As an English major, I've watched in horrid fascination as the quality of the writing on this site has deteriorated over time. The ideas are valid, but the low quality of the writing is distracting.
not to be janus but...
in your first sentence, you failed to join an independent clause (after a comma, no less) with a conjunction. then, as regards punctuation, you ended the sentence with a period rather than a question mark (there is no way that was a declarative statement...it was a question, conjunction or no).
now, moving on..."horrid fascination" does not function well as an adverb phrase. better choices would've been 'facinated horror' or 'horrified facination'; as you've written it, it seems to indicate that there is something horrid to your fascination, rather than from the suject fascinating you. and as far as the quality of writing goes, the Hedge still claims janus -- so that alone ranks us tops in the world.
you get no red-penning on your third sentence...flacid, but it passes.
i'm thinking of hiring some english majors to shampoo my crotch. and, no, this is not a tenured position. check with Tyler for my contact info.
de nada,
janus
'Pigs can fly' reminds me of the Obama joke.
In 1975 people said the day a Negro becomes President of the United States of America is the day Pigs will Fly. One hundred and twenty two days into the Obama administration we had 'swine flu'.
well, my friend, sad to say but the obama joke's punch line is yet to come.
it goes like this: so, a colored boy, a jew and a jarrett walk into the white house and...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCCssEas6LE
janus
Not to be a prick, but if you were to capitalise the first letter in your sentences they would be much easier to read.
Don't forget your comma.
...in your sentences, they would be...
Edit: And I'm just being a prick.
You are, correct. I mean, you are correct.
And then there's that whole "facination" thing going on.
i can't remember if i'm allergic to shift keys or if they're prohibited by my religion...whatever the case, capitalization is a rare honor in my posts. and beginning EVERY new sentence with a cap gets tedious. besides, i only use periods to abide these silly conventions everyone's so hung up on...it's fair to say that everything i've ever posted on the Hedge is a single sentence. think Faulkner on a meth-bender.
okay, i guess i've gotta add this one for the youngsters: janus doesn't ever do meth. it's very dangerous. kids, don't do meth. more importantly, meth is the drug of choice for factory workers, sexual pervs and ravers with glow sticks; gentlemen prefer cocaine. oh, cummon guys, i'm only teasing...sheesh!
okay, one more caveat: kids, don't do cocaine. it's dangerous. and coke is terrible (when you're all out).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjJePtPVquM
janus
Don't mean to burst your bubble janus but writing without capitalization isn't new by any means. Poet LeRoi Jones born in 1932, who later changed his name to Amiri Baraka, is the first- I believe- to have his works published sans capitalization.
My ZH crush <3
oh, my darling...SO-SO happy to see you again. it's been years since we brushed against each other here on the Hedge.
i'm not exaggerating or fabricating this: your flattering comment almost a year and a half ago was the final push i needed to get started on my book in earnest. up until that point it was just a mash of notes and anecdotes. and with respect to the whole 'full-circle' principal, here you are appearing from the void, like a muse from the mist, to inspire me as i close in on the final writing phase.
this might not make a lot of sense, KEKEKEKE..., but i think you'll get it: janus writes 'for' men but i write 'to' women...women like you, KEKEKEKEKE.
in all sincerity, i thank you from the bottom of my heart.
and here's a token of my affection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eWJmN8D820
i'm sorry but i'm just thinkin of the right words to say/
i know they don't sound the way i planned them to be/
but if you'll wait around a while i'll make you fall for me/
i promise you, i promise you, i will,
janus
yea, but i am the king of lower case. i pioneered that irritating irritant in the 90s in honor of ee cummings' take on the world....and to bother english majors.
very well then, i shall be your viceroy in the lower-capped realm of the fifth age.
but, first, let's do some forensics to certify our titles -- you don't get to be an HRM by fiat after all: janus started with this tic to his style in the latter part of the 90s. it would've been shortly before i enlisted...like maybe a year or so. so let's say it was 97 or so when i first started dropping the caps. i was deep in my russian-lit phase then (funny bit of irony, i took my copy of War & Peace to basic training...shit, now that i remember it, there was an odd anecdote associated with that book: on my flight to lackland (san antonio), i was seated next to this high-bred, classy dame. she was a cougar before it was the thing to be...lets see, i was early twenties and she was mid forties, but still hot. anyway, we get to talkin about Tolstoy and other subjects. no mile-high-clubbing or anything, but she did give me some advice. she said, "janus, the military is the wrong thing for you. you should go into law or politics. you have some very unique gifts but they aren't appreciated in the service." she then went on to tell me some juicy gossip from the world of politics (she was VERY connected...the scion of some lone star fortune). one little bit that i feel safe in relating is that jack kemp was a sleazy groper. you could see the revulsion on her face. fuckin swine. anyway, i'm all like, so you want me to go and join ranks with a bunch of slimy scum just because i'm persuasive and charming. anyway, she was right and wrong. there's most-def a place in the service for 'folks' like janus...but maybe not a 'career', at least not as traditionally understood. oh, shit, i almost forgot about the flight home for xmas...it was xmas eve, the plane is near empty, my flight attendant was this puerta rican hottie! as we chat though my steady stream of bourbon & cokes, she tells me she's laying over in atlanta...sad...misses her family...needs some company. janus's wife is seven months preggo and on the way to hartsfield. now, what's a janus to do in such a situation? stay tuned, Hedgers!); not that russian lit had anything to do with it, i'm just placing it in time.
signed,
janus publicus
high-viscount & viceroy
You beat me to it, SuperRay
Its a blog buddy. People are sometimes typing from an Ipad os their phone. As long as the MESSAGE is transmitted it all good.
It appears that when you are confronted with unsettling ideas you must remove your attention from the idea and focus on something you feel you have control over- your grammatical prowress. If you are interested in great writing read a book. If you are interested in thought provoking quick reads read a blog. Time is of the essence and an expressed idea with or without perfection is the goal.
I couldn't agree more. Present day replies or comments appear to be written by complete illiterals. And my mother tongue is not english, it is dutch, living in South Africa and observing the same problem all over : 2nd graders leaving schools at 18 and hardly able to spell their own name.
When will CNBC take their share of the blame for their reckless coverage of frothy bubble markets?
Shocked New York Times learns things not so hot over at msnbc http://tinyurl.com/k3fqx3n
Like .gov and .biz, .effingmedia has risen above blame. They are gods and can do as they please. If you are not in one of these three camps, then you are the lowest of the low.
OBTW: NY Times is not running shocked, they are running scared.
Blah, blah, blah, ...true price discovery, what's that?
Too many useless fucking middlemen in the "official" markets, fuck'em. In fact too many useless fucking bosses drawing huge compensation but not actually contributing to the actual real work/service being done, fuck them too.
'...true price discovery'
That's when you use up all your bullets trying to keep what you've got.
If only it was that simple, perspective is important. Prices you say, priced in what exactly? If you get to that point, chances are, you have already lost everything.
Run out of Bullets.. what a strange Concept....
In fact too many useless fucking bosses drawing huge compensation but not actually contributing to the actual real work/service being done
Current Law of the Land
in everything.
Not true!
Lumberghs* of the world contribute to lot of decisions being made of one finally becoming self employed.
*"Office space"
Markets all green now!!! This MUST mean that the correction is OVER!!! BTFD!!!
shorts will cover their gains. which causes stocks to rise. dont get caught up in the minute by minute spikes. the trend is down. the long term up trend has ended.
When they said it was a blood born pathogen but kept seriously trying to find all people that came in to any contact with these indivduals told me they didn't know, or were lying.
"For a great many will rue the day when they bought into: “Pigs can fly,” “The markets are at these levels based on sound fundamentals,” “The Fed’s got their back,” and “Ebola is contained.”"
It won't be any different this time ... many will ride it all the way down.
take your pick - cnbc telling them (every day) bottom in, don't want to pay cap gain taxes, paralysis, etc.
And then the next thing you know,
The Walking Dead is a documentary....or worse, people steal other people's limbs.
"Who steals a street musician's prosthetic leg while the Vietnam veteran plays street music in the parking lot before the Eagles game? An Eagles fan, apparently.
"And while that story was a winner on social media late Sunday night -- the overriding theme seemed to be, "OF COURSE it was an Eagles fan!" -- the tale's end is a happy one. That's because, according to NBC Philadelphia, police have recovered the man's leg.
"Sonny Forriest Jr., was singing in a parking lot near Lincoln Financial Field at about 8:30 p.m. ET, and when he got ready to leave by packing his car, he said a group of dancers gathered near him to, I don't know, pay tribute to the leg perhaps."
Police recover man's stolen leg at Eagles game
I am surprised that they didn't blame the repuglicans..
I see the Fed allowing for some corrections to shake up the complacent and reward the wolves on the way down but I see a couple of years of this going on. The mysterious hand will always step in if things get out of the control, unless of course, they can't.
Of course I can, I prefer flying United.
- Ned
For quite a while now, pigs have not only been flying, they have also been taking many excited and gullible passengers as well. Little do these passengers realise that they will sooner or later be the bacon.
When once you accept the view that nothing really matters until the masses figure out that it does, you've already consented to the fundamental premise of mobocracy, imperialism, and panem et circenses. Even if the coming change is a change in the right direction, the situation itself is still beyond rescue. Authority needs to be both competent and firm, not led about by the whims of drunken mobs.
The mobs ain't necessarily gonna be drunk. :>D
The fun is just beginning. Flu season is getting ready to start and flu onset symptoms look a lot like Ebola onset. We have become a nation of hypochondriac's and our healthcare system is about to be overwhelmed.
I wish the Ebola FUD shit show were "contained."
"Ebola: We lie about everything else, why would we lie about this?"
An American, not US subject.
"Silly rabbits, Ebola is for kids."