Remember those pulp men's magazines that your father occasionally stuffed in his brief case? I'm so old you probably don't. In any event, one of the staples of these rags was the Nazi-clad gal with a whip about to lash a stubble-faced GI fallen into enemy hands.
Miss Market should be the cover girl. Wow, did she ever administer a beating after wonder boy Tim Geithner told us all we're bound to fail but let's do it anyway. What an advocate for recovery!
Would you play roulette if you were forced to bet black but the ball was always directed to red? If you were at such a table you would sell your spot to some other gullible player. Would you buy stock in a company that you knew would never pay a dividend or be acquired at a premium?
The value decision in equities comes down to believing that an enterprise will generate cash and at some point return that cash to shareowners -- either you or the person to whom you sell the stock. Any fluctuation in equities is based on this shadow supposition between buyer and seller.
In other words, the value investor believes that cash will in the end trump the psychology of crowds. The trader, though, lives by the greater fool theory. He will sell his spot at the rigged roulette table to someone who believes cash is at the ready to be dispensed. Either could be right.
The croupier at the roulette table of Rick's Cafe Americain was savvier after he got the word from Bogart to let the poor guy on the run win. But our tax-dodging employee at the head of the Treasury gaming table more or less rolled his eyes and told the world that it's all hopeless. He should be a back-office wonk, not a spokesman for Apocalypse Now.
Somebody needs to stick a cigarette holder in the teeth of these "men" and tell them to do a few pushups, mix a martini, start whistling at girls and stop acting like we're all doomed. Maybe steroids would help.
By the way, the only thing I own that was up today was SLV, a silver ETN. I got back into AMR at the close at $5.16. Good luck.
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